Ship from Store: Everything you need to know
Seventy-nine percent of online shoppers will switch to another brand if a product is out of stock. Lost sales, customer dissatisfaction, shoppers turning to the competition… Online stock shortages are a nightmare for multichannel retailers, especially those subject to strong sales seasonality.
And yet, an effective solution exists: Ship from Store, also known as store fulfilment. The concept is simple: prepare and ship online orders from your physical stores.
How does it work? What are its benefits? How can it be implemented? Find out in this article.
What is Ship from Store?
Ship from Store is a logistics solution designed for cross-channel retailers. It allows a product purchased online to be shipped from a physical store.
Historically, an order placed on an e-commerce site would be processed by a dedicated warehouse or distribution centre. However, this system leads to stock shortages, especially when there is a high demand for a specific product.
With Ship from Store, stores can take over from the warehouse when it does not have the necessary stock to serve the customer order.
The result: a significantly reduced online unavailability rate.
This is called order orchestration. This automatic and alternative allocation of an order to the stock point best able to serve the customer is made possible thanks to the deployment of an Order Management System (OMS) and the unification of stock.
Ship from Store is one of the most profitable omnichannel solutions: shortly after its implementation, online sales increase by up to 25%.
5 benefits of Ship from Store
1. Ship from Store increases orders and turnover
The equation is simple: more available products = more orders.
With an average online unavailability rate of 22% at the beginning of the season and 41% during the clearance period, the loss of revenue can be substantial.
Enabling store fulfilment can improve the performance of your e-commerce channel with revenue growth of up to 25%.
2. Ship from Store improves customer satisfaction
Competition in retail is tough. To engage every potential customer, nothing can be left to chance.
According to a Mastercard report, 73% of people consider product unavailability as their biggest frustration.
Giving online shoppers access to products available in-store is therefore essential to satisfy your customers.
3. Ship from Store helps reduce delivery costs
Thanks to its self-learning algorithms, the OMS assigns each order to the best store to fulfil it based on stock levels, carrier availability and customer proximity.
As a result, delivery costs are optimised. By bringing the shipping point closer to the customer, delivery times are also reduced. This further improves customer satisfaction.
4. Ship from Store optimises the flow of store stock
Stock rotation is very important in stores, where the space available for storage is smaller than in warehouses.
Many stores find themselves with unsold stock, especially at the end of the season. When new products arrive, this can be a problem.
Selling these items online allows you to optimise the flow of your store stock.
5. Ship from Store provides additional motivation for store associates
While store fulfilment creates new responsibilities for staff, these activities will be embraced as long as a fair incentive system is in place.
It is important to decide on the distribution of the turnover and whether the sale will benefit the e-commerce channel, the physical channel, or both. Ship from Store can thus help the store achieve its sales targets.
In addition, the preparation and dispatch of orders brings variety to the store team’s daily work.
OneStock: Europe’s leading OMS and Ship from Store provider
Ship from Store is a real opportunity for both physical retail and e-commerce. Just like Click and Collect or Order in Store, it allows you to make the most of all your sales channels.
As the European leader in Order Management Systems, OneStock can help you implement these essential omnichannel solutions.
