This is an excerpt from Thursday’s (4/8) Point of Sale retail supply chain newsletter sponsored by ArcBest.
In Point of Sale episode 8, BMO Senior Retail and Ecommerce Analyst Simeon Siegel, while detailing his admiration for off-price retailers, said, “The off-price business convinced shoppers to be their employees.” For the chance at discounted products, the customer supplies much of the labor necessary for an order to reach its destination. The same holds true for retailers in general, but especially for off-prices (think TJMaxx, Ross, even to a lesser extent Costco) where product isn’t carefully curated, but rather hastily thrown around in many cases. The customer performs most stages of fulfillment: pick, pack and ship.
For most of modern retail’s life, the industry has been able to leverage plentiful labor at zero cost. But during the pandemic, the steady flow of labor halted just as demand poured in. Online shopping growth that was expected to take years occurred in months, and in response, retailers ramped up various fulfillment options to meet customers’ shifting preferences. BOPIS, curbside pickup and ship-from-store became staples of every retailer’s omnichannel strategy. But in all those options, consumers shifted labor they used to perform on to retailers.
If the triple-digit online sales and BOPIS growth rates from behemoths like Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Best Buy didn’t convince you the omnichannel future…
