St
ra
te
g
y
ANNUA
L
OMN
IC
HANN
EL
R
E
PO
R
T
32 DC VELOCITY NOVEMBER 2018 www.dcvelocity.com
retail store involves many variables, so we asked respondents to share their main criteria. The primary reason cited
was inventory constraints or stockouts at the local DC ( 63
percent). That was followed by distance to the customer
delivery location ( 53 percent) and resource constraints at
the DC ( 13 percent).
“Survey respondents indicated that they frequently use
stores for e-commerce picking, packing, and shipping when
DCs are unable to meet overall order volumes,” said ARC
Senior Research Analyst Chris Cunnane, who oversaw the
research and compiled the results. “In this case, when the
DC is flooded with orders and will not be able to meet
delivery timeframes, it will [hand off] the order to a local
store to make sure the customer gets the order when they
expect it.”
To get a better sense of store-based fulfillment practices,
the survey also asked respondents how they handled e-com-
merce orders filled through a store. The overwhelming
majority (94 percent) said the stores both picked orders and
shipped them to customers. Another 59 percent said their
stores picked orders and held them for customer pickup,
“The most popular method for store fulfillment, as
Order at store, fulfill from warehouse 51
Rebalancing inventory, ship excess inventory
from one store to another 40
Return to store, even when goods are ordered online 37
Parcel return, even when goods were bought in a store 33
Order at store, fulfill from another store 19
Other 19
Note: Percentages add up to more than 100 because respondents were
allowed to select multiple responses.
EXHIBIT 1
Which omnichannel capabilities
do you currently enable?
(% of respondents)
Technology Currently Do not use, Do not use,
use but plan to use and do not plan to use
Warehouse management system (WMS) 80 7 13
Transportation management system (TMS) 76 19 6
Total-landed-cost analytics 61 20 19
Bar-code scanning on the store floor or in
the backroom (not at point of sale) 60 19 21
Distributed order management (offers common
view of systemwide inventory, event management) 59 27 14
Labor/Workforce management system 58 20 22
Inventory optimization 57 31 11
Demand management 56 27 17
Real-time inventory location application for
the store 43 21 36
Reverse logistics system (robust returns processing) 41 28 31
Cost-of-quality analytics (analyzes what fulfillment
mistakes cost in terms of lost customers) 35 29 36
RFID at the store 15 31 54
Note: Percentages add up to more than 100 because of rounding.
EXHIBIT 2
Which of the following technologies do you currently use as part of your
omnichannel initiative?
(% of respondents)
