Retail supply chain management is the process of managing the logistics of a product, from raw materials to delivering finished goods to a customer.

A successful retail supply chain is based on mastering accurate and flexible inventory management and product assortments that appeal to in-store and online shoppers. 

Gartner recommends the following steps to improve your retail supply chain management:

• Ensure that store product assortments are appropriate to meet the needs of walk-in and online shoppers by focusing on the role of the store in serving all members of its geographical community.
• Increase order fulfillment flexibility and performance by holding inventory from distribution centers in a truly channel-agnostic manner.
• Develop capabilities to improve product-level store inventory accuracy by amending counting processes and investing in RFID technologies.
• Develop holistic order fulfillment by using a portfolio approach to measure the profitability of fulfillment services.
• Optimize demand forecast accuracy by including data inputs to better represent the historical demand environment.
• Obtain insight into consumers’ future fulfillment choices by developing forecasts at a more granular level than just where they purchase products.

Merchandising, inventory and operations execution (MIOE), also referred to as supply chain execution, is focused on execution-oriented applications, including warehouse management systems (WMSs), transportation management systems (TMSs), global trade management (GTM) systems, and other execution applications, such as real-time decision support systems (for example, dynamic routing and dynamic sourcing systems) and supply chain visibility systems within the enterprise, as well as throughout the extended supply chain.

The market for in-store logistics systems is emerging and growing. Increasingly, retailers are using store inventory to support online order fulfillment. The key benefits of in-store logistics systems are to manage the fulfillment (picking, packing and dispatch) of online orders at scale within a store environment so that consumers experience an optimal level of on-time and complete fulfillment of their orders, whether being collected in-store or shipped to them from the store. Gartner defines the scope of in-store logistics processes as consisting of seven key functional capabilities which are product receipt, product put-away, inventory management, sales floor replenishment, picking optimization, packing optimization and dispatch process.