Fluent Commerce finds over half of retailers & DTC brands don't have accurate inventory
NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Fluent Commerce, a leading provider of a cloud-native distributed Order Management System, today released the findings of the Global State of the Industry survey. The survey reveals retailers are struggling to maintain trust with customers because of persistent sales cancellations spurred by poor inventory visibility.
While customer trust used to center almost exclusively on payment security, customers today rely on retailers to communicate honestly and accurately on product descriptions, pricing, and availability. More importantly, customers want to know if products are available when they purchase them and when their products will arrive.
However, many retailers are unable to meet those expectations. According to the survey, 38.6% of retailers cancel at least 1 of 10 orders, disappointing 10% of their customers on a regular basis. Only 6% of retailers and brands have a canceled order rate of less than 1%. Seventy-two percent of retailers and direct to consumer brands want to reduce cancellations but are challenged by inaccurate inventory data.
"Neither retailers nor customers find it acceptable to cancel orders," said Nicola Kinsella, SVP of Global Marketing at Fluent Commerce. "However, without a clear view of inventory across all sales channels, it's hard to know what is truly available. Retailers are sometimes themselves surprised and are forced to do the unthinkable. To close the gap between demand and revenue, retailers and brands need accurate, unified views of inventory data."
According to the survey, 58% of retailers and direct to consumer brands have less than 80% inventory accuracy. Most retailers are challenged by outdated data from POS and ERP systems, legacy system integration issues, or siloed inventory views.
The survey suggested improvements were being made by leading retailers. The top 7% of retailers surveyed are sending inventory updates every five minutes or less. Some of them conduct live calls rather than relying on cached data, particularly for high velocity SKUs. And 80% of retailers and direct to consumer brands believe it is important to improve inventory availability data on the product pages and search results.
Other retailers are making their advertising platforms inventory aware. Nearly a quarter of retailers and direct to consumer brands say they share inventory data on their advertising platform, or plan to do so in the next 12 months.
"When it comes to improving conversion rates and revenue, it's critical to set and maintain clear expectations," said Kinsella. "No one wants to click on an ad only to find that item is out of stock. Or even more frustrating, go through the process of completing the purchase only to have their order cancelled later. That's why retailers must maintain accurate inventory data to cultivate trust and an ongoing positive relationship with customers."
For a full copy of the report, click here.
About Fluent Commerce
Fluent Commerce is a global software company focused on inventory available data management at scale and distributed order management (DOM) for commerce. Both B2C and B2B organizations rely on their cloud native, highly flexible and fully scalable solutions to transform fulfillment complexity into a competitive advantage. Fluent Order Management provides accurate, real-time inventory availability across all locations, order orchestration, fulfillment optimization, fulfillment location management, in-store pick and pack, customer service, and reporting. This enables retailers, brands, and B2B organizations to ensure they never oversell or undersell and to deliver their orders profitably every time.
Fluent Commerce works with organizations such as JD Sports, L'Oréal, Prada Group, Aldo, LVMH, Psycho Bunny and Breitling. For more information visit fluentcommerce.com
Media Contact
Myra Austin, Touchdown PR, (701) 340-7859, [email protected]
SOURCE Fluent Commerce
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