Solving The Retail And Supply Chain Dilemma

By Lauri Loikkanen, Business Area Director, Assortment and Space, RELEX Solutions

As a retailer, you’re under tremendous pressure from all sides. The good old days of simply stacking the shelves and watching it sell are long gone and the competition is fiercer than ever. You put huge amounts of time, money and effort into getting shoppers to visit your store and, still, many of them only come in to compare your assortment and prices against those of the world’s biggest mall; the internet, which they carry around with them everywhere.

How can you compete against the whole world? Well, you have something that they don’t; proximity. You can satisfy consumer needs instantly! After all they’re already in your store, or they dropped in earlier, and shopping with you is simply easy, pleasant and convenient.

But, of course, it’s never as simple as it sounds!

THE RETAIL AND SUPPLY CHAIN DILEMMA

What if you don’t know what products the customer wants to buy? Or, what if you know exactly what the customer wants but when he or she walks into your store, you’re out-of-stock, or worse, you have stock but it’s not on the shelves. Studies have actually found that 72% of all out-of-stock situations are due to poor in-store-management.