It’s hard to compete with Amazon Prime and is free two-day shipping, and few retailers have the customer base or the deep pockets to develop competitive programs.
One thing merchants are doing to take on Amazon is to implement omnichannel ship-from-store programs. Buy fulfilling orders from their stores, ship-from-store provides a unique opportunity to level the playing field and get merchandise in the hands of the customer quickly and cheaply.
The bottom line is customers are not concerned where their order is coming from. But according to a blog post by Forrester analyst Peter Sheldon, customers are so accustomed to Amazon’s “Be cheap, Be fast” mantra. So offering a ship-from-store strategy can help merchants in their last stand in the war on Amazon.
The opportunity to disrupt traditional supply chain constraints is real and the rewards are high, Sheldon writes in this Forrester report. By leveraging existing store inventory across other selling channels, retailers can drastically reduce the volume of online sales that are lost due to out-of-stock inventory situations. Furthermore, stores can also benefit by allowing associates to “save the sale” using another store’s inventory.