Inventory Management

In episode 82 of Total Retail Talks, Scott Hansen, general manager, supply chain and logistics at Nebraska Furniture Mart, the largest home furnishing store in North America, discusses how the company has benefited from implementing an integrated supply chain for its online and brick-and-mortar operations.

It’s among the most frustrating parts of retailing: You built a strong assortment plan. Great product mix. Good margin. Customer response is better than you had hoped for. You're ready for an outstanding selling season. Yet the allocation process drops the ball. Too many large dresses in store A while the racks are empty in…

The right order management system can help brick-and-mortar retailers better compete against their online-only counterparts.

Consumers have options, and they know it. Brands need an intelligent order management system to fulfill orders profitably.

The holidays are quickly approaching, which means retailers are once again planning for the busiest shipping season of the year. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales are expected to reach $656 billion in 2016. Many retailers are finalizing their processes for handling these high shipping volumes. Here are some key strategies that even the most…

As I go through the discovery process with prospective SPI customers, there's a moment in almost every engagement when one of the planners or allocators shows their current multitab, multidimension, multipivot table, holographic (OK, I exaggerated on the last point) homegrown Excel spreadsheet. It always impresses. I'm genuinely in awe of the complex usage of…

After spending months — or in many cases, years — toiling over the many aspects of bringing a product to life, it’s every retailer’s dream for that product to be adopted by consumers with hefty enthusiasm for their business. In the past, this excitement was likely to build gradually over time through word-of-mouth endorsements or…

As new forms of shopping develop, so do new forms of fraud. There is an ongoing battle between retailers and those looking to make

With the back-to-school (BTS) shopping season over and retailers shifting their attention to the all-important holiday selling season, it begs the question: What can retailers do after the BTS cycle is over to set up stores for a successful end-of-year push? Priority No. 1 for all retailers is to move BTS inventory out of the…

In a previous article, I reviewed inventory management strategies that retailers can implement after the back-to-school (BTS) season to help make room for the holiday product line. Now I'll focus on the opportunities retailers have to incorporate learnings from the BTS shopping cycle into the critical holiday season. BTS activity serves as an excellent testing ground…