Retailer's Checklist: Are you Holiday Ready?
By Scott Fenwick, Manhattan Associates
For the average consumer, the holiday season probably seems far away. As we recover from back-to-school mayhem, holiday shopping lists are not likely to be top of mind. Very soon, however, decorations will begin creeping onto store shelves, and seasonal commercials will make their first appearances during our favorite TV shows.
For retailers, the prep has been underway for months, and engines are running full throttle to ensure that the 2014 holiday season is a successful one. This year, omnichannel shopping will be more pervasive than ever, and while that means more flexibility and convenience for consumers, it also means more order management and fulfillment challenges for retailers. With that in mind, below are the three key areas that should be on every retailer’s checklist in order to be commerce-ready this holiday season:
1. Flexibility
Planning for holiday shopping can only take retailers so far. Sure, certain items will remain popular year in and year out, but predicting exactly where demand for those items will be greatest is difficult. The holidays are dependably unpredictable, and retailers must ensure that their inventory fulfillment strategies are flexible enough to adapt to meet demand, wherever it occurs. For example, if a certain line of slippers flies off the shelves in New York City stores but doesn’t move in Miami, the ability to redirect that inventory to fulfill the localized need prevents both a loss of sales in one region and a surplus of inventory in another. In years past, the distribution center served as the hub for inventory fulfillment, but today demand can be met in different ways — orders can be shipped from stores or even direct from vendors to customers.
Ensuring you have a flexible fulfillment strategy in place is the key to being commerce-ready. There’s no way to predict what products will be popular where, but no matter what happens, retailers must be able to adapt and deliver or they’ll lose out on sales this holiday season.
2. Endurance
Preparing for the holiday rush means more than being ready for Black Friday. Black Friday itself isn’t going away, but the traditional 24-hour window for peak sales is evolving and expanding. Stores are opening earlier and promotions are lasting longer. This impacts both supply chain functions and inventory management, putting a greater emphasis on the need for improved inventory visibility throughout the entire holiday period.
As defined rules around peak holiday shopping continue to evaporate, it becomes more challenging for retailers to balance inventory and demand — and sustain that balance. Retailers must be prepared for the long haul when it comes to order management and inventory fulfillment during the expanding holiday season. This again means having high inventory visibility and the flexibility to respond to need when it happens and fill demand, wherever it originates.
3. Attention to Detail
Fulfilling thousands of online orders every day takes significant preparation, and fulfillment success can often come down to the details. The rise of ecommerce essentially means that shopping can occur 24/7, which in turn means that workers could easily be tasked with filling tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of orders, each with its own complexities.
Retailers must ensure that they don’t run into any back-end fulfillment problems due to lack of shipping materials, like boxes, bubble wrap, packing tape, etc. It may not be an exciting component of order fulfillment, but it’s a critical one. As with anything, the devil is in the details. Retailers must be ready with a steady stream of supplies so they don’t fall down in this area.
The holidays may seem far away, but for retailers the prep began long ago. As we enter the home stretch of pre-holiday preparation, retailers must take a critical look at their fulfillment strategies and their ability to deliver throughout an expanding holiday period. Holiday needs have changed in recent years, but with a little planning and added flexibility retailers can still deliver and prosper in today’s omni-channel holiday landscape.
Scott Fenwick, senior director of product strategy, Manhattan Associates, a leading provider of supply chain software that helps to optimize the supply chains of more than 1,200 global customers, from planning through execution. He can be reached at [email protected].