How Omnichannel Brands Can Compete Effectively

Author
David Packman, Senior Content Manager

Published Date
December 13, 2023

2024 will be here sooner than some brands can fulfill a standard order, and while our predictions for the trends of the coming year will drop early Q1, we figured the best way to celebrate the last 365 days is by revisiting the best lessons we can glean from the past.

Over the last several decades, consumer behavior has shifted and with it, new challenges and opportunities have arisen for brands and their supply chains.

Not too long ago, almost all consumer purchases were done in a brick and mortar location, with most of these purchases confined to big box retailers. With the advent of e-commerce, the availability of choice exploded and brands have had to adopt an omnichannel approach to find and reach consumers where they are - on their websites, social channels, and other physical and digital marketplaces.

In our 2023 keynote presentation, our CEO and co-founder, Sean Henry, shares how Stord is helping brands overcome the complexities and costs when constrained and limited with a traditional sales and logistics approach rather than positioned to compete effectively with an omnichannel sales and cloud supply chain approach.

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There’s a lot in here about how you should look at your supply chain operations and the technologies that are available to optimize it. But if you’re interested in how to sell more, save money and eliminate headaches, you won’t be disappointed!
I highly recommend you watch the entire video, but if you need a TL;DR version here it is.

Challenges Most Brands Are Facing

1. Scale Drives Complexity: Adopting more sales channels and marketplaces creates a complex ecosystem of orders and inventories that often do not integrate with one another leading to inaccurate reporting.

2. Increased Operational Challenges: This often leads to the need for added support and new fulfillment providers or an increased internal fulfillment footprint. External solutions often run on warehouse management systems that do not connect with your order management system and historical fulfillment centers often are stuck with outdated (Excel and whiteboards) processes, leading to confusion and increased operational costs.

3. Growing Customer Issues: This leaves brands seemingly blind to their inventory, forcing a significant effort and spend on getting packages out the door, while also facing more customer complaint tickets. The lack of integrations creates limited visibility to properly solve complaints in a timely manner, leaving no time for improving customer experience, products, or optimizing fulfillment savings.

How Modern Omnichannel Brands Succeed Today

4. Single, Scalable Solution: By bringing all B2B and DTC fulfillment under one modern supply chain partner’s umbrella, brands can easily unlock flexible fulfillment space to scale and manage based on customer demand. This provides access to multi-node solutions, bringing products closer to end customers and reducing the burden with disparate software tools.

5. Integrated, Cloud-based Technology: Operating modern, high-volume fulfillment centers with integrated software ensures all centers operate efficiently, driving customer satisfaction. The same warehouse management system (WMS) tracks all orders and inventory, providing seamless order status updates regardless of where sales originated or were fulfilled.

6. Cloud Supply Chain: Combining supply chain services with integrated and innovative technology creates a cloud supply chain, allowing brands to access enterprise-level fulfillment capabilities via a shared solution. This collaboration enables brands to focus on their customers and products, making their supply chain a competitive advantage.

If 2023 has taught us anything, it is that the problems brands face aren’t going away anytime soon. Clinging to legacy fulfillment practices only creates more headaches and costs.

Brands must think holistically about their fulfillment strategies. Quality and assembly will spell the difference for success in 2024 and beyond.

Transcript - A Paradigm Shift for Supply Chains

Please join me in welcoming Sean Henry, CEO and co-founder of Stord.

Today, I’ll discuss trends we see in supply chains and our cloud supply chain solutions, including our product roadmap and innovations for 2023 and beyond.

Over the last two decades, consumers shifted from retail stores to omnichannel proliferation, causing brands to compete based on their supply chains. This has resulted in increasingly complex operations, leading to fragmentation and incomplete solutions.

Brands now manage third-party logistics (3PL) to meet customer expectations. However, as of 2016, over 90% of enterprises actively used a 3PL, causing further complexity.

Physical and digital fragmentation creates challenges for brands as they must navigate various logistics and digital systems without strings attached, making it difficult to efficiently operate.

Cloud supply chain converges these aspects into a unified, scalable platform, allowing brands to focus on their products and customers, ultimately leading to greater efficiency and competitiveness.

The four pillars of capability essential for competing today in a cloud supply chain include:

1. End-to-End Logistics Capability: Essential to effectively move products to consumers.
2. Integrated Software: Ensures data from various systems is unified and usable for better decision-making.
3. Intelligence-Driven Designs: Leverages data for insights and better inventory management.
4. Scalable Infrastructure: Enables swift adaptation to increasing demand and changes in the market.

Stord optimizes the supply chain continuum, delivering from the manufacturer's port to the customer's doorstep while integrating software to maximize efficiency.

In addition, Stord’s software, including Stord One Commerce (OMS) and Stord One Warehouse (WMS), addresses challenges like omnichannel proliferation, rising customer service costs, and last-mile delivery complexities.

Our Stord One Commerce platform helps manage inventory, assists in order routing, and improves customer service response times while reducing costs. Likewise, Stord One Warehouse is designed for scalable operations, enhancing labor management and inventory tracking to improve efficiency and throughput.

Overall, Stord continues innovating to provide our customers with unique solutions for their fulfillment needs, ensuring they maintain a competitive edge in today’s market.