Ecommerce - 1.6 Omnichannel

Question 1

Complex inventory management

Answer 1

• Means maintaining inventory in multiple locations. This could take into account warehousing, retail locations and possibly drop-shipped inventory quantities.
• How to handle out-of-stock merchandise:
• Online: can drop-ship from suppliers or distributors.
• Retail / brick-and-mortar: endless aisle systems allow customers to order items that are out of stock. This will not eliminate the problem of someone seeing that a product is not available anymore and leaving, but it might help in some situations.

Question 2

Drop ship

Answer 2

• When the manufacturer or another company ships the product. This can reduce warehousing needs but will significantly eat into profits.

Question 3

Buy online / ship to store

Answer 3

• The latest trend. This can be an effective means of keeping customers in the store. While it might not save the company any money (as they still often have to ship it), they can expect more people to make purchases while in the store. Walmart has seen this enough that they have offered steep discounts on certain Site-To-Store purchases.

Question 4

What are typical omnichannel challenges?

Answer 4

• https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/292792
• How to allow a customer to switch channels seamlessly?
• Personalization of the experience to the customer depending on what channel they are a part of.
• Real-time inventory tracking.