Let’s differentiate between “just shopping” and “I am on a mission to BUY.” If I am in BUY mode then inventory availability is an immediate tie-breaker, a definite advantage. Active is true customer service. Passive is “gee, I hope I have it in stock, but if I don’t maybe the customer will buy something else.” And I get that it is no small task for the systems to handle real-time inventory availability by SKU by location, but obviously there are retailers who have figured that out.

I have pointed many times to IKEA’s inventory visibility for consumers as the gold standard for how to share inventory. Not only do they show you today’s inventory, they give you an assessment on how much that means the inventory will likely actually be there (a red-yellow-green risk assessment), and they project that inventory level two days out into the future. Now THAT is inventory visibility. The intent should be to give consumers the confidence to know that if they come to the store, the items they’re looking for will be there. That’s it. Whatever it takes to do that should be plenty. Sometimes that’s just an assessment of risk all by itself – there’s a high probability of it being there, a medium probability, a low probability. Sometimes that means giving specific inventory levels. With IKEA, sometimes you’re selling things like chairs, and just “some probability of it being in stock” is not enough. Do you need two chairs? Four? Eight? That’s when you need specific inventory levels. And it’s important to note that… Read more »

Active — all day long. Expectations around visibility were set by Amazon a long time ago and that train has left the station. The tools exist to provide visibility and the examples cited prove it can be done. Also, tools like auto replenishment below a certain threshold (Home Depot has this capability) can go a long way to ensuring a better in-stock position. Confidence around that makes it easier to enable things like active inventory visibility.

Transparency can get tricky. Certainly, if a customer orders something online the retailer should immediately inform the customer if the item is not in stock and if it is on order. Showing an abundance of an item in stock can also cause a customer to postpone a store visit, until there’s none. Additionally, displaying the stock position of an item in stock (or in warehouse), but below a low threshold can, in fact, cause a customer to place an order immediately, or visit the store immediately.

A retailer has to make the choice of yes/no for inventory and, if yes, make sure it’s accurate. I’m with the Gen Zs – if you tell me you have the product and you don’t, I’m not going back to your store for some time (are you listening, Target?). If you opt out of inventory, you run the risk of having a competitor who makes that available. If you are giving shoppers a choice between my store, which may or may not have it, and your competitor, who is more precise, you’re going to have problems. This is probably more important for more expensive items, but not exclusively so.

Why not provide complete and total visibility? There is nothing more frustrating for the shopper when the item they want to purchase is not available or, even worse, when a retailer makes it look like it is available. Trust is everything.

Confusion. Disappointment. Frustration. Anger. That’s the unhappy path consumers take when things go awry. Out-of-stocks are an absolute trigger. By providing transparency into inventory, retailers can stop the downward slide at the disappointment stage (where there are mechanisms to recover) by coming clean on lacking inventory. A great example is the BOPIS situation my wife experienced at Target, which I recounted on yesterday’s BrainTrust Live! Target had the items she ordered available for pickup, but half were damaged. The customer service rep said that she couldn’t leave her post so my wife had to walk the store to check the shelves for replacement inventory that it turned out they didn’t have. Aside from other aspects to the BOPIS failure itself, the customer service desk should have been able to check inventory and save my wife from walking back and forth across the store and compounding the inconvenience Target already created. To paraphrase what I said to Will Hogben in the BTL conversation, the solutions to most UX failures are getting the basics right. Real-time inventory… Read more »

Out-of-stock disclosure is getting pretty close to being table stakes. Real-time inventory levels can be helpful and low levels obviously promote action by creating a sense of urgency, but brands should be careful not to lean too heavily on those type of psychological tactics as they can sometimes cause consumers to make a non-optimal decision leading to buyer’s remorse and a disincentive from future interactions.

Interestingly U.K.’s Competition and Market Authority recently dinged some hospitality brands for how they were utilizing inventory and similar tactics with their online booking tools.

Retailers are in business to sell stuff. For all the retail-speak of the touted “customer experience,” this is a top level no-brainer. This is not a “good to have” this is a “have to have.” At the top of the list, real-time inventory. Forget robots sweeping the floor on aisle 10, forget AI to enhance the customer experience. It all means nothing if the customer has no clue if the item they want to buy is or is not in stock. The lasting sting of poor customer experience.

The transparency is important especially for BOPIS. The more information that is available, the better the shopper can make store pickup decisions. My experience last night was not so good. I found a clock radio I was looking for listed as available in a local Target store. I drove to the store and found an empty spot on the shelf. The associate’s handheld also said the item was in the store. Then he said to me “The systems have been giving out bad information lately.” He called another store, talked to an associate who looked on the shelf and found one at the second store where I drove to get it. It did not make for a pleasant experience and shows the importance of accurate inventory. Knowing the number of items available gives me more confidence that the item the shopper is looking for will be there. As one associate said to me, “If it says there is more than one item in the store, it is probably there. If it says one in stock,… Read more »

Many people who want total visibility to me ignore the basics of retail operations.Those of us who actually have worked in stores or with retailers in stores know the frustration of saying, “The computer shows we have three but I can’t find them.” There are many reasons for this but the implication of showing product availability implies those numbers are static, so someone looking today might plan for tomorrow and be disappointed. But also could discover a sweater online, go to the store in an hour and can’t find it because someone had it in a fitting room, the tag was missing, it was stolen — a million reasons. I agree with Nikki on the IKEA model which states risks and likelihood, not fact.

Through the lens of the shopper who is on a journey to purchase, near real-time inventory visibility- online or in a physical store is expected. Based on experience, I suspect many retailers have fairly accurate insight to their inventory at the Distribution Center level, but their visibility and accuracy falls dramatically at the individual store level.

The myriad of paths of both shopping and buying available to today’s digitally-empowered shopper forces both brands and retailers to have near real-time visibility of where their products are at any given moment. While this may not be necessary for a $3 box of Corn Flakes, it is mandatory for a Makita drill at The Home Depot or Lowe’s.

Digitally-empowered shoppers and buyers at the very least expect an accurate experience. As noted by Nikki, IKEA is a “gold standard” as they mitigate, forecast and manage shopper expectations. The Target experience shared by Harley highlights the experience that reflects poorly on the brand.

Consumers expect inventory visibility and retailers need to offer inventory visibility – in real-time. As noted, many consumers check inventory availability at their local store before visiting the store.

The problem with many retailers’ systems is that their inventory visibility is based on yesterday’s latest batch inventory update, which causes problems. Without real-time inventory visibility, you risk customers reserving products that are out of stock or retailers need to keep a safety stock to prevent this from happening. Safety stock is an expensive proposition and you also risk turning customers away when you actually have the product.