Stock-outs drive buyers elsewhere – survey

Some 57 per cent of in-store shoppers experiencing stock-outs have gone elsewhere or simply not bought at all, according to a survey by GT Nexus in association with YouGov.

And 65 per cent of online shoppers experiencing stock-outs at a favourite site went elsewhere or didn’t buy at all, the survey said.

Some 83 per cent of UK consumers surveyed have found the product they wanted to buy unavailable in-store during the past 12 months, while 70 per cent have found the same online.

The availability of fashion and footwear caused most frustration; when asked about their most frustrating experience of out of stock items, a third of disappointed UK shoppers (33 per cent in-store; 34 per cent online) said the product they wanted to purchase but was unavailable was a clothing and footwear item.

“Retailers have invested fortunes in technology to predict customer demand. Yet, many still struggle to co-ordinate the flow of products based on their predictions and taking account of all the unexpected disruptions that can occur that are difficult if not impossible to plan for,” said Boris Felgendreher of GT Nexus.

Felgendreher said that while retailers continued to invest in the front-end of their business, they were lagging in their ability to execute the movement of goods; the ability to sense and respond to demand through greater inventory visibility and intelligence.

“To remain competitive, savvy business leaders are starting to embrace cloud technology so that they can not only collaborate with their trading partners in real-time, but also respond to sudden bursts in demand.”

Source: logisticsmanager.com