Rental & salaries are usually the top two cost items on retailers’ P&L. How can they manage these effectively in the face of the online shopping trend?

Some retailers (like Robinsons) have totally gone online. But is this the best thing to do since there are still customers who prefer to do physical shopping? There are others who have adopted an omni-channel approach – which I think may be the way to go. But it will require careful management of processes so that the experience of the shopper is not compromised.

Take inventory as an example. You need to maintain two separate sets of inventory, yet attempt to optimise it such that either channel can draw on the other. The online customer cannot experience a situation where his order was given to the customer who was at the store physically. Just how ready are retailers to embrace such operations? Check out this article.