CommerceHub + Dsco: Creating the New Digital Supply Chain
Let’s face it, no retailer’s marketplace will be able to compete with Amazon (or Walmart) when it comes to general assortment size. It’s also very difficult to compete in terms of shipping costs, membership perks, and delivery speed. So what other value prop can retailers who are considering opening a marketplace offer their consumers?
Retail Leaders Share Tips on Navigating Peak Carrier Challenges
Let’s face it, no retailer’s marketplace will be able to compete with Amazon (or Walmart) when it comes to general assortment size. It’s also very difficult to compete in terms of shipping costs, membership perks, and delivery speed. So what other value prop can retailers who are considering opening a marketplace offer their consumers?
How to Drop Ship Successfully Part 1: The Key Solution For Out of Stock Inventory
In a 2018 benchmark study IHL takes a deep dive into the relationship between ecommerce, omnichannel, and out of stocks in brick and mortar stores. Their main conclusion is that out of stocks are a huge issue that retailers have yet to address, costing the industry $984B per year worldwide. And this situation is only getting worse. As more retailers implement omnichannel strategies such as SFS and BOPIS, store inventories and resources are growing more and more strained.
Why you really need to drop ship
Let’s face it, no retailer’s marketplace will be able to compete with Amazon (or Walmart) when it comes to general assortment size. It’s also very difficult to compete in terms of shipping costs, membership perks, and delivery speed. So what other value prop can retailers who are considering opening a marketplace offer their consumers?
Accelerate drop ship ecosystem growth
Expanding your drop ship ecosystem can take a lot of time. Getting trading partners to agree to drop ship, onboarding them, and finally going live can take anywhere from several months to over a year per partner. This raises opportunity costs, hampers your ability to quickly expand assortment, and increases inventory risk when you’re forced to rely on wholesale buys to access the products you need.
Should you open a marketplace?
A lot of retail companies are wondering if they should open a marketplace. Such models offer the promise of unlimited assortment without the need for upfront investment, inventory risk, or costly trading partner integrations. Additionally, marketplaces seem to be one of the reasons why Amazon and Walmart have seen amazing growth in their ecommerce, even during the recent pandemic.
I Asked Over 200 Enterprise Brands What They Got Out of Drop Shipping–Their Answers Might Surprise You
For retailers, the benefits of drop shipping are obvious. It allows them to easily offer a wider assortment of products at retail prices while shifting much of the costs and risks associated with warehousing inventory back up the supply chain.
Ops Summit Discussion: How Do You Help “Mom and Pop” Drop Ship Suppliers Who Underperform?
Good data, good communication, and aligned incentives do more to help retail supply more perfectly than any amount of penalties and severed partnerships ever will.
4 Takeaways From the D3 Conference in New York
As usual the sessions and panels were also top notch, with speakers from Target, Amazon, REI, and JD.com to name a few. In the coming weeks we’ll be writing a few in-depth blog posts based on some of the topics that were discussed. In the meantime, here’s an overview of important takeaways from the panels and speeches attended.
The Power of Supply for Digital Marketing, Part Two – Four Steps of Inventory Visibility to Lift EBITDA and GMV
This concept doesn’t just apply for seasonal offerings, it works for any product where demand is high and restock may have some latency. Where this is happening, having good supply partners who are 1) telling you restock timelines systematically and 2) are willing to drop ship from factories to bypass the full truck route, will make these sellout momentum playbooks smarter.