Early Signs of Retail’s Recovery from the USA and Europe

While nothing is for certain, most signs point towards this current period being the latter/final stage of the pandemic, particularly for Europe and the USA. With vaccinations beginning to roll-out at scale and many European countries beginning to ease restrictions and lockdowns, many experts are hopeful regarding the outlook for retail over the next few months.

Europe’s recovery: a mixed bag

Across Europe, the outlook is mixed. According to analysis from Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Co, whilst demand for struggling categories like fashion is predicted to increase, the ongoing effect of lockdowns is cause for concern. So, whilst recovery is expected, it will likely be to a lesser extent than other markets.

However, we have seen some encouraging signs despite lockdowns, as the BRC-KPMG retail sales monitor found that in February UK sales increased by 1% year-on-year. As stores are allowed to open back up the numbers will continue to improve, H&M said sales in the March 1st to March 13th period were up 10 per cent in local currencies as many countries, including single-biggest market Germany, began allowing some stores to reopen.

US recovery: encouraging signs for fashion and brick-and-mortar stores

For the United States, the signs are fairly positive, with retail sales in 2021 expected to perform significantly better than in 2020, according to McKinsey and BoF. Additionally, recent findings from Coresight Research’s US Consumer Tracker found that, for fashion retail, the proportion of consumers that are purchasing clothing and footwear in-store was higher than those buying online for the first time since the pandemic – a major milestone for the sector’s recovery.

The report found several reasons for the US apparel industry to be optimistic, as 13% of respondents reported buying more clothing and footwear than pre-crisis, the highest level surveyed so far this year. Meanwhile, the apparel category witnessed the largest decline, of almost 6%, in consumers that are buying less than pre-crisis. Sales in apparel and other ‘discretionary’ categories were the worst affected by the pandemic, so these early signs of recovery are encouraging.

How have brands have shifted in the last year?

It’s been well reported how the global pandemic has affected shopping habits and caused a major increase in eCommerce penetration. According to data from IBM’s U.S. Retail Index (2020), the pandemic accelerated the growth of digital shopping by roughly five years.

This paradigm shift is reflected in the strategies of major retailers since the pandemic. With online becoming, at least temporarily, the primary shopping channel many retailers leant into and reinforced their eCommerce operations. But for the majority of retailers with significant physical store footprints, this was not enough, and the most successful brands developed their omnichannel offerings to better leverage their stores in the new digital-first world:

Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS) is here to stay

Many retailers were investing in omnichannel services like BOPIS/Click and Collect well before the pandemic, but since then it has become something of a must-have and may remain so well beyond the pandemic. Retailers that had invested in Omnichannel before last year have reaped the benefits, as BOPIS saw YoY growth of 130% in June 2020. These retailers include US powerhouse Target who saw their curbside delivery service grow 500% year-on-year.

Stores as fulfilment centres

Similarly, brands with the infrastructure and agility to do so have been investing and leaning into in-store fulfilment throughout the pandemic. The advantages of this are considerable as it allows retailers to leverage their stores to service online customers. Target again made massive gains from this last year, reporting fulfilling 90% of their online orders directly from their stores, cutting fulfilment costs by 90% and contributing to a 100% increase in online sales compared to 2019.

Major fashion retailers are betting on Direct to Consumer (DTC)

Another major strategic shift that we have seen accelerated by the pandemic is the direct-to-consumer model. Although this model is nothing new, the fact that major global fashion retailers like Nike, adidas and Levi’s are evolving their strategy to become DTC-first is hugely significant. At the height of the pandemic, adidas saw their eCommerce sales increase by 93% but don’t think of this as a temporary shift – adidas recently announced that they’re aiming for DTC to account for 50% of their sales by 2025.

Long-term strategies taking shape?

So, what can we learn from these changes? Are these simply temporary shifts to navigate unprecedented times, or are they indicative of long-term industry change? The answer seems somewhere in the middle. Although the huge increase in digital sales that were seen at the height of the pandemic is already starting to fall away, the consensus is that a proportion of this change will be ‘sticky’ and digital sales will permanently remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.

As for brands exploring new models like DTC and Omnichannel, there is no doubt that these strategies will continue and remain relevant well beyond the pandemic. The demand and benefits of such models were there pre-COVID, and these changes have simply been accelerated.

The fact that many of these examples of omnichannel success come from the US is no accident. With the states having had fewer full lockdowns than their European counterparts, the success of these strategies could make a valuable lesson for European retailers looking to navigate the coming year – as consumer sentiment remains unstable and may well be signs of a more long-term shift in retail globally.

Preparing for Retail’s recovery: Short-term priorities

Taking Stock: Inventory Control will be Vital for Reopening Stores

As stores come out of lockdown across Europe, taking control of inventory will be a top priority. The first step will be taking stock and ensuring brands know exactly what they have in their inventories. For some stores, inventory management may have broken down due to lockdowns, particularly if stores have been used to fulfil online orders but do not have the IT infrastructure to keep effectively manage this.

Beyond this, the question of older or out-of-season products will present a challenge. Stores will already be dealing with bloated inventories due to lower sales and shutdowns, so maintaining optimal inventory levels and potentially selling marked-down products to make room for new stock will be a priority.

Continue to leverage online

Retailers should have invested in their digital channels at the start of the pandemic (and ideally before this). Even with stores opening back up, the increase in digital sales will remain high initially, and some will be sticky post-pandemic – just how much remains to be seen.

Retailers who continue to invest and develop in their digital and omnichannel offerings will profit post-pandemic. We have seen plenty of evidence supporting this from both the US and Chinese markets, so European retailers should follow suit and continue to offer flexible options to customers, many of whom may remain sceptical about returning to stores for some months to come.

Mastering fulfilment

With this consumer uncertainty and ongoing eCommerce penetration – making sure retailers deliver on fulfilment remains a priority. We can again look to target as an example, their same-day delivery sales went up 218% this quarter, showing the opportunity is there for retailers who can go the extra mile with their fulfilment, and even dare to compete with the eCommerce powerhouse of Amazon.

The cost of annual stocktakes

The upfront cost  

Physical inventory counts are big operations that are expensive to perform. Doing a wall-to-wall stocktake of everything in a store (backroom and salesfloor) takes a lot of time and manhours. To perform a physical inventory count, retailers have two options:

Carry out the stocktake internally

One option is for a store to carry out the inventory itself. This is tricky but not impossible, provided the staff are organised, attentive and know what they’re doing. The major downside is how labour intensive it is, requiring a lot of store staff, making working around opening hours difficult (more on this later).

For independent or particularly well-staffed stores, internal stocktakes can work. The issue is it does not scale. For a retailer with hundreds of stores, asking every one of them to perform such an operation once or twice a year puts a lot of pressure on store management – and the results will be inconsistent at best

Use a third-party service

Using a specialist service to perform the physical inventory does have its advantages. First off, the accuracy of the stocktake is likely to be more reliable, and it is easier to scale up the use of such a service to more and more stores. The major downside is the considerable cost. Whilst it depends on the service used and the size of the store, these stocktakes can cost around $2000 – $3000 per store. Assuming each store only performs such a count once a year, when scaled across tens or hundreds of stores, the cost becomes immense.

The disruption to stores

Regardless of who you have performing the physical stocktake, the other question is when. A full inventory takes time, whilst it naturally depends on the size of the store and the team, it will likely take half a day at a minimum.

The suboptimal results

So those are the implications for actually performing annual/bi-annual stocktakes for retail stores, but there is something else to consider…

The fact is manual inventory counts give you subpar results. Even with supporting technology like barcode scanners, the margin for manual error is still significant meaning right from the outset you will still have errors and discrepancies. A much bigger factor – performing stock counts once or twice a year is simply not enough anymore. Sure, you may have 90% accuracy every 6 months, but what about the time in-between?

Typically store inventories run at 60-80% Item Level accuracy. However, stores will rarely report such low numbers because:

A) They only calculate accuracy after a stocktake

B) They are working on an SKU (stock-keeping Unit) level, and not an item-level.

C) Errors in stocktaking procedures mean stock file and actual inventory do not match, i.e., the accuracy quoted is not accurate

This level of stock inaccuracy also comes at a cost – and it’s a steep one. Stock inaccuracy causes three problems for stores.

Overstock – Excess stock, a result of the inventory list not showing items that are present in the store. Often compounded by stores carrying ‘safety stock’ for key products.

Understock – A lack of product, a result of the store inventory showing items that aren’t really there. Also called ‘phantom stock’, one of the main causes of this is theft. Understock leads to products becoming out-of-stock altogether, meaning lost sales and revenue.

Dead Stock – For perishable products, dead stock means products that can no longer be sold. While sectors like fashion don’t have this problem having stock sat unsold in backrooms can lead to products falling out of season, resulting in mark-downs and profit loss.

The bottom line of this inaccuracy? 10-15% higher working capital in stores, as a result of bloated inventories, and 5-10% of sales being lost simply due to stock not being available for customers to buy.

The alternatives to annual stocktakes

Cycle counts

A cycle count is where a store performs a partial count of a specific portion of store stock. Instead of performing an annual stock take once or twice a year, you might perform a cycle count several times a quarter. Essentially, you are breaking down the annual count into several mini stocktakes.

This has many benefits over annual stocktake – less disruption to the store, less labour intensive and (since it can be done by store staff) it’s cheaper. It can also help avoid the large variation that you get when there is a larger gap between takes.

While this is certainly better, cycle counts require a lot of coordination and still have the same problem as all manual stock counts: they are time-consuming and inaccurate. So, whilst cycle counts will reduce the costs compared to annual stocktakes, the cost of the inaccuracy will stay the same.

RFID   

Having looked at the costs and problems associated with manual yearly stocktakes, you’d be forgiven for thinking successful large-scale brands don’t operate like this – and they don’t.

Radiofrequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that allows stores to perform rapid inventory counts, via product tags that emit a small radiofrequency. Stores that have implemented RFID can perform weekly or even daily stocktakes, as a single member of staff with an RFID reader can count thousands of items in minutes. The result of this is RFID stores have typical inventory accuracy of 99%, and no more need of annual stock takes.

Installing RFID in stores is a reasonably big project and requires some upfront investment. However, if you look at the cost of performing third-party stocktakes every year alone that money could be used to fund the RFID project and it delivers a stronger return of investment than regular physical inventories. This without mentioning the various other benefits of the technology, which you can read about here.

Complete Supply chain visibility was once an optional bonus for retailers, but in the modern industry it is becoming more and more of a necessity.

Whilst in the past, limited tracking of shipments in the supply chain was commonplace, in the modern environment with its more complex supply chains, delivery options and increasing customer expectations, retailers need to do more.

This isn’t just us saying so, retailers recognise this too. According to a report by Zebra Technologies, 72% of retailers are working on digitizing their supply chains in order to achieve real-time visibility.

The ‘New’ Challenges:

Multi/omni-channel businesses – It seems like an age ago, but traditional retail supply chains went in one direction and to one place – stores. Now almost all retailers also run their businesses online meaning their they operate on multiple sales channels, therefore, their supply chains service far more destinations than before.

Multiple delivery options – A relatively recent challenge created by the growth of online and the already mentioned omnichannel purchasing options. Retailers want to offer their customers as much stock and as many purchasing options as possible, but without the technology to support it, this can cause problems. In an Accenture survey, respondents claimed that 31 percent of their Ship from Store orders triggered a split shipment.

Customer expectations – Customer expectations has shifted. In a 2019 report, it was found that Half of shoppers reported abandoning a purchase due to a lack of cross-channel buying options. This is a major impact on sales, and many retailers are starting to adapt to the change in expectations.

The Old Challenges:

Supply chain inefficiency – Supply chain inefficiencies and miscommunication through “Chinese Whispers” are costing UK businesses over £1.5bn in lost productivity according to analysis of industry data from Zencargo.

Supply chain shrinkage – According to the National Security Survey, businesses in the United States lose $45.2 billion through inventory shrinkage a year. Whilst retail stores make up the majority of this, supply chains still experience large amounts of inventory shrink, particularly when they have no visibility of products.

The Detego Platform allows retailers to gain complete visibility over their operations

If you’re looking for a solution or partner to help achieve better supply chain visibility, consider our platform!

Using RFID item level-tagging, the cloud-based Detego platform gives each individual item a unique digital identity. Items are then tracked from factory to shop floor using radio frequency identification (RFID) methods. RFID makes this possible as inbound, outbound and even exception handling can then be done through RFID reads – which are fast, accurate and can be done without opening cartons.

Since RFID works on the individual item-level, the result of this is complete visibility of the supply chain. The platform utilises the IoT to create a complete overview of every single product in the supply chain, as its cloud hosted this can be close to real-time and is the ‘single point of truth’ for the entire business.

Online returns have been a challenge for retailers since the beginning of eCommerce. This is because of both their volume compared to normal stores, and the costs associated with processing them. In the wake of COVID-19, this problem could prove more critical then ever, as online becomes retailers’ singular sales channel. There is already early evidence of this, with preliminary data from Quantum Metric showing that eCommerce associated with Brick and Mortar retailers saw an average revenue weekly growth rate increase of 52%, and Nike Inc.’s digital sales went up by 36%.

The eCommerce returns dilemma

Online shopping is popular for a reason, but the convenience and choice of eCommerce comes at the price of not being able to ‘try before you buy’ for customers.

This simple difference is the reason online returns are so much more prevalent than for Brick and Mortar stores. In eCommerce the customers’ homes becomes the fitting room. And, just like any fitting room, products end up back on the shelves. According to Happy Returns, while shoppers return only 10% of what they buy in stores, they send back up to 50% of what they buy online.

This is compounded by customers accounting for this when ordering online. A survey from Barclays found that 30% of shoppers deliberately over-purchase and subsequently return unwanted items. Additionally, 20% regularly order multiple versions (often sizes) of the same item so they could make their mind up when they are delivered, all of which is facilitated by the retailer at great cost.

While it might seem logical to have stricter returns policies, or make customers cover the cost of returns, consumer expectations make this a risky strategy. According to the 2017 UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper survey, 68% of shoppers view returns policies before making a purchase. This leaves retailers with a catch-22 situation when it comes to losing out on online sales or losing profits from processing the inevitable returns that comes with those sales.

What are the challenges of retail returns?

So why are returns such a strain on retailers?

Cost of returns – First and foremost is the simple cost of returns. Since returns are in themselves essentially lost sales, the added cost of returning them, which according to CNBC is on average 30% of the purchase price, can heavily impact retailer’s margins.

Processing returns and reverse logistics – On top of this is the resources and effort of processing returns and getting the stock back available to be sold as quickly as possible. This reverse logistics can be particularly challenging and can result in returned stock not being available for purchase again for some time, often leading to out-of-stocks on the webshop. According to the Barclays report, 57% of retailers say that dealing with returns has a negative impact on the day-to-day running of their business.

Contamination concerns with COVID-19? – A unique and recent challenge, particularly for apparel retailers, is dealing with the potential contamination and contact of returned good with the COVID-19 virus. Initial research suggests that the virus can only survive on fabric surfaces for 24 hours, but for up to 72 on plastics like packaging. This will need to be addressed by eCommerce retailers who continue trading throughout the epidemic.

Return fraud – This is a challenge shared by brick-and-mortar stores. Fraudulent returns cost the US alone 27 billion dollars a year. This can involve the ‘returning’ of stolen merchandise for cash, stealing receipts to enable a false return or using someone else’s receipt to return unpurchased store stock. Naturally, using receipts for returns presents a risk, APPRISS found that receipted returns are more than twice as likely to be fraudulent as other methods.