Retail is making a comeback – but are luxury and high-end fashion retailers ready?  

Combine an uptick in foot traffic and rising customer expectations with ongoing labor shortages and retail stores, specifically luxury and high-end brands, are facing a unique challenge. 

Luxury and high-end retailers tend to have smaller inventory rooms. A lot of times what’s on the floor is what they have for inventory, so they generally don’t employ stock people, especially amidst cutbacks. The staff they do have are all out on the floor engaging with customers, building relationships and making sales – many of them working on commission.  

But what happens when merchandise on the floor sells out?  

If what you have on the floor is what you have for inventory, and you’re maximizing the time of your critical staff to service and support customers, causing inventory management to become a reduced priority, how do you still efficiently and reliably replenish your merchandise without disrupting in-store sales?   

That’s where a reliable retail replenishment strategy comes into play. 

 

JUST IN TIME VS JUST IN CASE  

 “Just in case” (JIC) inventory strategies, which ensure ample inventory onsite in the stockroom, were prevalent across industries over the past several years. Given interruptions in supply chains, we’re seeing a lot of retailers pivot towards a “just in time” (JIT) model which involves keeping as little inventory on hand as possible and working with suppliers to ensure inventory arrives as it’s needed to meet consumer demand. For luxury and high-end fashion retailers who are limited by space, a “just in time” retail replenishment strategy offers flexibility and greater control. They’re able to maximize the use of their store’s square footage to focus on selling product, not on boxes stacked in a back room collecting dust. 

This reality is leading more and more retail store locations to transition to a showroom style floorplan with much smaller inventory rooms.  

 

SEKO’S JIT SOLUTIONS 

The shift from JIC to JIT makes having a time definite merchandise replenishment strategy and solution that much more critical. That’s where a third-party logistics (3PL) firm, like SEKO Logistics (SEKO), shines and can make all the difference. To maintain appropriate levels of service and goods, retailers expect to replenish merchandise in store every day on a schedule, and herein lies the value of 3PL. A 3PL, like SEKO, can guarantee a consistent delivery within a specific timeframe, allowing a store to plan their day more accurately and put the focus on their customer experience and sales.  

At SEKO, our solution is to offer and execute on time and day specific deliveries via a combination of air and ground services to accommodate precise replenishment schedules, thus facilitating the growth of in-store sales. By giving managers control over their delivery schedule, down to a specific delivery window, and ensuring deliveries happen on-time, we help clients avoid disruptions during peak shopping periods. That level of service, reliability and optionality is pivotal for luxury and high-end fashion retailers handling much larger sale values and customer lifetime value – they need the right volume of the right product at the right time to hit their targets. Period. 

 

RETAIL IS BACK – DON’T GET CAUGHT FLAT-FOOTED 

There’s no denying – foot traffic in retail is back. The crowds I saw at Macy’s back in December and the increasing presence of showroom-style storefronts are proof. But, when a customer goes to a store, they want to be able to walk out with the item for which they came. Working with a provider that is reliable and that can provide specificity and optionality in time-definite replenishment can help ensure that the stores have what the customers want, ultimately leading to improved customer service and opportunities to grow sales. 

Whether your store is in a mall, a strip mall, or on a street corner, consider SEKO Logistics to support your replenishment strategy and make your supply chain a competitive differentiator. Reach out if you’d like to learn more about working with SEKO: https://www.sekologistics.com/us/contact/  

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See the original article on LinkedIn. 

Let’s connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianpatrickbourke/