Inbound Logistics | April 2023

TAKEAWAYS Shaping the Future of the Global Supply Chain

Specialty Retail Hits the Mark What makes a successful retailer? To answer that question, Manhattan Associates, in partnership with Google Cloud and Zebra Technologies, examined data insight from real purchases, returns, and customer journeys across digital and physical channels to create The Unied Commerce Benchmark for Specialty Retail , a report conducted by Incisiv. The benchmark assesses retailers across 11 specialty retail segments on the implementation of 286 key attributes of unied commerce. Of the 124 retailers benchmarked, 15 emerged as leaders: Academy Sports + Outdoors, American Eagle Outtters, Belk, Crate & Barrel, Levi’s, Macy’s, MAC Cosmetics, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Pandora, REI Co-op, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sephora, UGG, and Zales. The benchmark identies common challenges in retailers’ efforts to adopt these new business models, which include advanced analytics that create a single view of the business. The data shows that there is still work to be done. 1. Personalization: Identifying shopper intent is the rst step to providing a personalized experience; however, just 38% of the retailers studied give their store associates access to shopper purchase history and wish lists across all channels. 2. Real-time inventory visibility: Only 29% of the retailers studied provide real-time inventory statistics on their product detail pages. 3. Convenience and exibility: Retailers should provide multiple payment and delivery options and the ability to change orders after the sale. Just 15% of the retailers studied offer customers the option to change a fulllment method post-order, and just 27% provide the ability to return store purchases online.

WMS GROWS UP As technology adoption increases and ecommerce continues to grow, companies are looking to smart warehouses to meet customer demands. As a result, warehouse management systems (WMS) are poised to take o. The WMS market will see a 17.3% compounded annual growth rate—culminating in a market worth more than $51 billion by 2030—predicts an Insight Partners report, Warehouse Management System Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Global Forecast to 2030 . WMS solutions are also integral to drop shipping, which many ecommerce retailers use to improve inventory turnover ratios. WMS solutions are able to circumvent order in/order out tra†c as a key driver for growth. The Asia-Pacific region is also expected to see growth in the WMS market due to its emphasis on strengthening logistics infrastructure to improve workflow management. Although the region is currently experiencing a shortage of warehouse space, 86 million square feet of added warehouse space scheduled to open in 2023 should help ease that burden. This new space will further boost the WMS market, the report predicts.

18 Inbound Logistics • April 2023

Powered by FlippingBook