Excerpt from: North America Supply Chain and Logistics Strategy
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| November 20, 2007 | | Starting the day after Thanksgiving thru New Years the supply chain of the retail store will experience increased strain due to consumer demand. | The upcoming holiday season will be a difficult time for supply chain departments of retailers and manufacturers. Even though there is uncertainty in the economy as well as a housing slump the National Retail Federation predicts that the 2007 holiday season sales will be up 4% from last year. With this in mind retailers and manufactures tread a fine line on determining the balance of having too much inventory and having to conduct sales or not having enough inventory and losing potential sales. Some of the challenges retailers face is predicting what gift or gifts will be the big sellers and then ensuring that they can keep that product in stock. Also Suppliers need to make sourcing decisions early and when this is done demand is very uncertain. Also there appears to be a disconnect between point of sale (POS) data that retailers capture and how this information translates for the supplier. Retailers and suppliers need to ask themselves how quickly can I respond to my customers needs and is the information I am providing my suppliers useful enough for them to source correctly. | | |
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