Leveraging Mobile Investments to Address Inventory Accuracy
Leveraging Mobile Investments to Address Inventory Accuracy Issues and Flexible Fulfillment Requirements
Retail executives' strategies are clear: Revenue growth remains a core strategic pillar, with both digital and multichannel enablement seen as key elements driving that growth. More specifically, retail execs see multichannel as a key market growth opportunity. In the short term, retail decision makers see serving the digital agenda by keeping up with changing customer demand on new touchpoints as being a priority. Beyond that, retailers are particularly focused on integrating the various channels through which they interact with customers. To support these strategic plans, retail technology investment priorities outside of the store focus on logistics, multichannel integration, and the supply chain with modern mobile solutions a common requirement across all of the initiatives.
One of the recent initiatives by retailers to provide greater purchasing flexibility is through
BOPIS (Buy Online/Pickup in Store) or Click and Collect applications. These innovative solutions bridge the digital and physical environment and address one of the key friction points in e-commerce-delivery. According to research conducted by VDC Research among mid-sized to large retailers, almost one in two is currently offering in-store, pick up fulfillment. A win-win strategy for all involved, in-store pickup helps shoppers get their products quickly and on schedule while eliminating shipping expenses and driving in-store sales for retailers. But this increasingly popular fulfillment method requires sophisticated coordination between retail commerce technology and store associates, making it challenging to implement and maintain. Consequently, the implementation of these solutions is mixed with some very successful while others fall well short of expectations.
Key issues such as understanding the cost of BOPIS/click and collect (including the addition of services feed to certain transaction sizes), adequately addressing the customer experience, better management of returns processing are all areas retailers are looking to address. An additional key focal point for BOPIS modernization is around customer communication and better leveraging mobile channels to proactively communicate with customers especially when facing pickup delays. Successful BOPIS implementations are filling orders in less time than committed to whereas unsuccessful implementations are missing commitment windows substantially and also not effectively communicating with customers about order status.
