Inventory is one of the systems that has not kept pace with the changes omnichannel commerce has introduced. Many B2C businesses are now offering services like BOPIS and ship from store in response to customer demands, resulting in inventory being housed in and shipped from many more locations. B2B firms are expanding the locations of their inventory beyond traditional distribution centers so they can meet rising customer expectations and deliver a better fulfillment experience.
You may be meeting the needs of your customers but putting stress on your infrastructure. If your inventory monitoring isn’t elastic enough to meet peak periods, escalating inventory calls can overtax and slow down your commerce site, frustrating your customers as they wait for pages to load. And if they have to wait too long, they will buy somewhere else.
Omnichannel commerce requires an inventory system that scales up or down automatically without adding additional workload to your IT department. In many cases, a cloud-based solution is the best way to get the flexibility and scalability to meet changing inventory visibility demands without adding additional work for your IT team.
Further, without real-time inventory accuracy, you could be at risk for overpromising, losing sales or incurring rush shipment charges. Have you ever been promised an item by an organization and then didn’t receive it? Or received it too late? That experience, whether B2B or B2C, almost always elicits an emotional reaction from the customer, and depending on the situation, you could receive some undesirable social media attention. At minimum, they’ll remember that it happened the next time they consider buying from you. If you can’t see the inventory in all of your locations, you also risk declining an order when the product is actually in stock, leaving your customer to turn to other sources. It could put your organization at risk for potential overstocks, markdowns or liquidations.
There are even more reasons to move toward an accurate inventory view. Customers, especially millennials and Gen Zers, love fulfillment options like BOPIS. To offer BOPIS and ship from store cost-effectively, you need to see accurate inventory counts in all of your distribution centers and stores. Is your business seasonal? Do you drive peak demand with promotions or flash sales, or do you want to? Inventory can be inaccurate because of batch processing or latency issues during periods of high transaction volumes. An advanced inventory view is not only accurate across channels but also scales up or down with your business needs. Commerce today requires more agility than ever before.