5 Ways Retail Logistics Visibility Can Boost Profitability 

With multiple data silos, complex supply chains, and limited access to technology and automation that aligns well with its offerings, the retail sector faces multiple challenges in terms of logistical visibility. Multiple suppliers, distributors, and logistics providers create different silos of information that are difficult to access and use, making it difficult to gain a complete view of the supply chain. 

Further, many retailers lack the necessary technology and infrastructure to track and monitor their logistics operations in real-time, and different retailers use different systems and data formats, making it difficult to share information and collaborate. This lack of visibility spurs multiple inefficiencies leading to cost bleeds, delayed deliveries, higher delivery and transportation costs, inventory disasters, and much more. 

Intelligent retail logistics management platforms can not only overcome these challenges, but they can also improve the overall operations management, reduce invoicing errors, decrease the number of steps involved in the delivery and elevate CX. This helps reduce the overall cost of operations and unlock higher revenue. 

Take a quick look at the five crucial functions that retail logistics visibility can optimize and improve.

How Does Retail Logistics Visibility Improve Profitability

#1 – Real-Time Inventory Tracking

Stats suggest that businesses can lower their inventory costs by 10% by just cutting down stock-outs and overstocks. Further, intelligent supply chain management enables businesses to improve logistics costs by 15% and inventory levels by 35%. 

Automated logistics management solutions empower retailers with real-time visibility into their operations, assets (riders and vehicles), suppliers, processes, and service providers. By having real-time visibility into inventory levels, retailers can ensure that they always have the right products in stock and can quickly reorder products that are running low.

#2 – Improved Forecasting

Retailers need to constantly update their forecasts to keep up with changing consumer demand and trends. This high product turnover, coupled with seasonal fluctuations, lack of standardization, and disparate data sources, degrades forecasting at multiple levels. The recent surge in online selling and cross-border selling has led retailers to multi-channel retail, which has further contributed to the disjoint nature of operations. 

Retail logistics automation enables retailers to not only collect but to process and visualize the historical and recent data to draw actionable insights for crucial business decisions. With accurate data on past sales and inventory levels, retailers can more accurately forecast demand for products, reducing the risk of overstocking or stockouts.

#3 – Better Supplier Management

Managing multiple suppliers is a challenge owing to the lack of standardization and integrated management in retail. This leads to separate data and operation sets, rendering it impossible for retailers to make comprehensive and intelligent decisions related to purchasing, warehousing, invoicing, etc.

On the other hand, retail logistics automation platforms offer status standardization, enable consolidated supplier management, and empower retailers with comparative statistics for more profitable decision-making. Retailers can use logistics visibility to monitor supplier performance, ensuring that products are delivered on time and identifying any potential issues with the supply chain.

#4 – Increased Operational Efficiency

Owing to the disparate nature of operations, stakeholders, and data, retailers struggle with optimization and efficiency. They are unable to identify the optimization pockets and fail to create strategies for high-cost, time, and resource-efficient logistical operations. 

AI-powered retail logistics solutions leverage in-built smart workflows for every operation, namely – warehousing, distribution, transportation, and last mile delivery. Retailers can use in-built algorithms to automate allocation for orders and carriers, and can set multiple optimization criteria for efficiency. Also, real-time tracking of shipments and delivery times helps retailers optimize their logistics operations, reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction.

#5 – Enhanced Customer Service

Poor visibility across all the processes and operations makes it impossible for retailers to provide real-time updates to the end customers. They fail to distinguish between fake delivery attempts from real ones, minimize re-attempts via customer alerts, and more.

Retailers can use logistics visibility to provide customers with real-time updates on their order status, allowing them to track their packages and receive notifications when their products are out for delivery. This can help to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

While automation and digitization continue to be crucial for retailers, gaining logistical visibility is another critical step toward operational excellence and customer success. It helps increase on-time dispatch by 28%, reduce order-to-ship time by 12% and shipment returns by 4%, increase delivery NPS by 26%, and more.