Inventory Management

Limited Brands, parent company of Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works, will pilot cross-channel returns beginning this fall. Customers who buy an item via the retailer's online or catalog channel will receive credit and be able to complete a store transaction in September, with plans for a more complete rollout in spring 2013. "We are focused on really putting the power of our $2 billion internet and catalog business and the store together, actually taking returns in-store," said Victoria's Secret megabrand and intimate apparel CEO Sharen Turney during a recent conference call. 

Looking to kick its retail operations into high gear, hipster clothing chain Brooklyn Industries last fall borrowed from the playbook of higher-flying competitors H&M and Zara, known for what the retail world calls "fast fashion," or ultraquick turnaround of the latest designer styles. As fast fashion continues to win over shoppers, more specialty retailers like Brooklyn Industries, which traditionally freshened merchandise just a few times a season, find they too must speed up their turnaround cycles. That could create new opportunities for their garment-district suppliers and New York-area vendors whose proximity allows for faster production.

Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports will be flat in May compared with the same month last year, but is expected to see solid year-over-year increases through this summer and the back-to-school season, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released yesterday by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

It seems every retailer I've spoken with recently is scrambling to gain control of their inventory planning, regardless of channel. It's not just the cross-channel marketers fighting it; even pure-play internet retailers are struggling to support their "minichannels" — search engine optimization, search engine marketing, email marketing, Amazon stores and more.

Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to increase 3.2 percent in April compared with the same month last year, and year-over-year gains should continue through the summer, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates. “Retailers are continuing to watch rising gas prices, but job gains and other indicators show the economy is strengthening,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said. “This should improve consumer confidence and lead to increased spending, so retailers are cautiously building up their inventories.”

Suppliers, retailers and solution providers seeking help on efficient identification, serialization and placement of electronic product code-enabled RFID tags should benefit from new guidelines that were announced by the board of the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions Association (VICS). The new guidelines, developed by the VICS Item Level RFID Initiative on RFID tag placement and performance, cover how the industry should cooperate to ensure reliable tag performance and data capture deployment.

Left unaddressed, nonproductive inventory can be a major financial drag on your business. But you can reduce its negative impact and even create some positive outcomes by following the simple guidelines laid out here.

An inherent fact in retailing is nonproductive inventory — i.e., inventory that's sitting idle in stores or distribution centers with no immediate sales plan for moving it. Nonproductive inventory can be overstocks (inventory you own that exceeds projected future sales, primarily for discontinued and soon-to-be-discontinued items) and too-much-too-soon inventory, for which you have a future sales plan but your weeks-of-inventory ownership is far greater than needed. Both can have a substantial negative impact on your company's bottom line.

Lord & Taylor is deploying handheld RFID readers in its stores to maintain accurate inventory levels and prevent out-of-stock situations. RFID technology allows retailers to rapidly determine how much tagged inventory is in a particular location at a given time.

Excess inventory due to changing consumer behaviors, aggressive competitor actions or simply missed forecasts is a fact of life. When the inevitable happens, marketing can help in various ways. From in-season promotions and end-of-season clearance sales on your website to outlet stores and third-party distribution, retailers can deploy several strategies to aid in the liquidation of extra inventory.