Abstract:

Walmart US CEO Bill Simon recently caused something of a news stir when he said the retail giant had a bad out of stock problem in its stores, and it is getting worse.” Simon added that "We run out quickly and the new stuff doesn't come in.”

Walmart is hardly alone in this thorny challenge. Research has consistently shown that a high levels of retail stockouts persist, though the impact varies dramatically by retail sector. Though many of the root causes of OOS can be traced to poor execution, too often retailers over look an obvious source of OOS and other service issue, which result in losses in store sales and accompanying margins: vendor on-time, fill-rate and accuracy levels. Driving improvements here will have a direct impact on store services level and/or safety stock levels by reducing supply variability.

In this outstanding broadcast, we tackle the impact of vendor performance on store service levels, inventories, safety stock, sales and margins from A to Z. Featuring Camille Fratanduono from auto parts retailer PepBoys, SCDigest Dan Gilmore on “40 years of out-of-stock research,” Joe Shamir of ToolsGroup on the math of vendor variability and its impact on store service, and Greg Holder and Richard Wilhjelm of Compliance Networks.