Inventory

Creating Trust through Transparency with Online Sales

As more people have shopped online during 2020 than at any other time, consumers’ trust in online retailers has become more important than ever.  However, if a retailer fails to recognize the widening gap between customer expectations and the service and product they deliver, this can lead to disappointed customers, who will ultimately shop somewhere else.

Research has shown that there have been more online shoppers due to the pandemic during 2020 with a growing number of e-tailers to choose from, however the quality of service has varied greatly among retailers.

Some of the problems consumers have encountered include late or non-delivery,  purchasing a product that is available during the online shopping process only to find it is unavailable at the checkout, and difficult or impossible follow-up with the merchant after delivery or tracking down a product that has not been delivered.

The reliance on online shopping is expected to continue and increase during 2021, placing more pressure on supply chain, inventory management and customer support and retailers will be required to take ownership of the end-to-end customer experience.  Once a customer gains trust in an online brand and the service and products they offer, they will not only shop at that store again, but happily refer the retailer to friends and family.

Implementing tools to manage operational complexities and improve customer communications in order to provide a transparent transaction from the buy button right through to product delivery is sure to set the savvy retailer apart from the competition.

Retailers who are looking at ways to improve upon their customer support and product delivery service levels of 2020 are sure to be the winners in 2021.

xocbox provices retailers with the tools to manage their online and retail operations, including order and inventory management, and customer communication tools.  Contact xocbox to learn more.

online shopping multi-channel
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xocbox helps optimize shipping times and costs

We were recently asked if we could help one of our customers reduce the cost and time it takes to ship products to their customers and also maximize the potential for them to avoid buying from warehouses where certain products were out of stock, and instead ship from the next nearest warehouse where products were available.  We were able to do this by utilizing the tools available in the xocbox Order Manager.

As many retailers found out last year, the pandemic has caused supplier inventory levels to fluctuate sharply.  A product that has plenty of stock one day can quite easily be completely sold out by the next day.

If the supplier has more than one warehouse holding stock of the same products, shipping from another location can often be the answer.  However, this can be a time-consuming and expensive solution for the retailer who first has to locate the warehouse(s) with the quantity required to fulfill the order, then figure out the best carrier to use for shipping, and decide whether all other items in the order could be shipped from the same location, or whether the order will need to be split and shipped from multiple warehouses.

xocbox shipping and warehouse manager

 

xocbox streamlines the process of managing order fulfillment by quickly giving you visibility to stock availability at a given location, and helping you choose the most optimal shipping method.

The xocbox Order Module is able to check orders received online against available supplier inventory, and the dropdown menu shows quantities of each SKU at each warehouse.

If the order can be fulfilled by the nearest warehouse to the delivery address, and the cutoff time has not passed, then this option is chosen.  If the order cannot be fulfilled by the closest warehouse, then the decision can be made to split the shipment between warehouses, or fulfill the whole order from a warehouse that is further away if that is a possibility.

If order fulfillment and inventory management have been problematic for your business, contact xocbox to learn more about our Order Module and Shipping Manager and how we might be able to help.

 

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Retail Trends for 2021

There is no question that whatever we predicted would happen to retail in 2020 was quickly changed with the onslaught of the pandemic.

2020 forced bricks and mortar stores to expand their online presence and offer curbside pickup in order to survive.  Customer behavior also changed due to working from home, home-schooling and the desire to shop online for essentials such as groceries and health products.  Professional work attire was no longer needed, and sweats and athletic gear became the norm for virtual meetings.

Online stores not only had to deal with more competition, but some also had to look at different ways of attracting customers as marketplaces such as Amazon gave priority to essential product sellers.

As the pandemic continues to influence how we live and shop, many of these trends are predicted to continue throughout much of 2021. So what are the things that retailers need to do to arm themselves with the tools to attract shoppers and outstrip the competition?

In 2020 we learned that the retail supply chain was pushed to its limits by the pandemic, and this trend is likely to continue.  Retailers should expand their supply chain partners in order to be able to respond to unpredictable demand and be able to step in where the competition fails, either on product supply or ability to deliver in a timely manner.  Optimization of omnichannel fulfillment to customers and analysis of shopper behavior data will also be invaluable.

Last year’s experience has shown that technology to give you real-time inventory visibility and the ability to source products from the closest possible warehouse or supplier should be a top priority for 2021!

If you are struggling with inventory management, contact xocbox to learn how we can help.

grocery delivery
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Strategies Stores Are Using to Stay Ahead

The latest sales data indicates that online sales are continuing to grow, while the pace of in-store sales is slowing down for many retailers.

Big box stores are adopting different strategies to deal with this shift in the way consumers shop, but there is no question they are taking this trend seriously.

Target announced recently that its fourth quarter online sales grew by 30% in 2016, while its store sales dropped by 6.1% year over year, prompting Target to cut its prices at the expense of profits. They are also planning to make better use of stores as fulfillment centers, and equipping all sales associates with mobile point of sale devices. The concept behind this strategy is that shoppers will think of Target as a great place to shop with great prices.

The brand Tommy Hilfiger who in the past derived sales not only from their own stores, but also from high street giant Macy’s, chose a different route. Tommy Hilfiger’s in store sales were lackluster and Macy’s is planning to close many of its stores, further contributing to the brand’s decline. Deciding to modernize the brand, Tommy Hilfiger looked to social media to bring the brand to the attention of younger audiences, and then debuted its latest collection with a fashion show in Venice Beach, California – an unusual move for a brand that would typically show its products in New York. The results were astonishing, with a surge in sales online in the 24 hours following the show, and 50% of traffic from first time visitors.

In line the with these stores, Kohl’s has also seen growth in its online sales and a decline in its in store sales. To counter this, they are reducing the size of their stores from around 88,000 square feet to something smaller, and reducing inventory by 3% across all stores for the next three years.

Whether it’s a price change, a new way of marketing your brand, or re-evaluating the use of the square footage in your bricks and mortar store, the pace of change in today’s retail industry requires continual assessment to keep the attention of today’s consumers.

Small and medium sized retailers also have to be innovative looking to more control of inventory, switching from in-store to online sales, using physical space not only as a store but also as a fulfillment center, and using technology to bring it all together – and who said retail was easy!

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Stop Displaying Out of Stock Items in Your Yahoo Store

out of stock items
 

If there is one thing that is driving shoppers crazy it is displaying products in your store that you don’t have available. Whether it says, Sold Out, Not in Stock or Out of Stock – they don’t want to see it.

If you display a product on your Category or Section page, and the shopper clicks through to the item description only to find it’s not available, they will soon move on to another website for a more satisfying shopping experience.

Even if you show products on your Category and Section pages as Out of Stock, or Sold Out, it soon looks as though you don’t have anything that is available. We all know how hard it is to keep up with updating your website with fast moving, in demand products at the holidays, but to a shopper it might even look as though you are going out of business!

xocbox has the answer for Yahoo merchants who don’t have the time or resources to keep up with the time consuming process of marking products in and out of stock. With xocbox, once your item count goes to zero, the product changes to not orderable in your Yahoo catalog manager.

No manual changes for each item!

Contact xocbox to learn more about this feature.

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Managing Inventory in Your Online Store

inventory monitoring software
 
It’s that time of year again, new shipments are arriving daily, storage space is getting smaller, and there’s a buzz in the air anticipating the arrival of the holiday shopping season which has already started with the Back to School products.

eMarketer forecasts that holiday sales in the US will grow by 5.7% in 2015, the biggest increase since 2011, and while this is great news for retailers both on and offline, it does present some challenges.

How do you manage inventory so that you have enough of the popular products that are flying off the shelves, and don’t order more products that include those that have sold only a few items?

xocbox can help you. Our inventory monitoring and out of stock widget in your online store mean that you always know when products are running low or sold out, helping you to decide when to place orders to replenish your stock.

We will work with you to provide the level of automation that is right for your store. Whether you want supplier feeds to your store, or want to automate the whole process right through to sending orders to your drop ship suppliers, xocbox systems will save you and your staff time during the busy shopping season.

If you have more than one store, no problem – let xocbox track sales in all your stores.

For more information on how to take control of the inventory in your Yahoo or Woocommerce store before the holiday season, call us at 858-752-3803, or click the contact button below.

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