INVENTORY

Office Depot is positioning itself to remove friction throughout its customers’ shopping experiences.    The office supplies giant is partnering with Elementum, which provides a real-time supply chain platform that unifies procurement, logistics, manufacturing and inventory operations. By leveraging the company’s cloud-based Product Graph solution, Office Depot will gain global visibility across every segment of its business operations.  

A board sports apparel retailer is taking steps to blend its physical and digital retail channels.   Billabong is leveraging the Aptos Singular Commerce platform to support omnichannel retailing across its global enterprise. The cloud-based solution will merge the retailers’ physical and digital retail channels, and create a single view of customers, inventory and orders, among other operations.   

In a move to attract more specialized information technology specialists, Uniqlo is renovating its digital DNA.  

Walmart is ensuring all in-store merchandise is ready for shoppers when they want to make a purchase.  

Walmart is bullish on big data — especially when it comes to finding ways to better serve its shoppers.   Big data volume continues to grow, but Walmart is using it to the company’s — and its customers’ — advantage. By analyzing the robust information flowing throughout its operations, the discounter has gained a real-time view of workflow across its pharmacy, distribution centers, stores and e-commerce, according to a company blog.   

Despite retailers’ efforts to deliver sophisticated shopping experiences, crucial gaps between digital and in-store touchpoints still exist.   That's according to “The State of Omnichannel Commerce: A Mystery Shopping Study.” The report, from Kibo, assessed the personalization and omnichannel sophistication across 30 popular and growing retailers’ desktop, mobile and in-store buying touchpoints.   

Lifeway Christian Stores’ shoppers’ needs differ from store-to-store — a factor that pushed the chain to revamp its merchandising processes.   For the specialty retailer, this has meant pursuing macro- and micro-localization strategies. From the macro level, the company still wanted to manage assortments that deliver a consistent brand experience – not only in terms of the products offered, but also in how they are stocked and presented.   

The Bon-Ton Stores is speeding up how it restocks merchandise.   The department store chain is replacing its manual, paper-based restocking process with a radio frequency identification (RFID)-based system. The solution, from Zebra, enables store associates to fully restock merchandise displays in a fraction of the time — a move that increases productivity and enables associates to spend more time servicing shoppers.