Amazon’s Inventory Is Its Best Marketing

While supply chain is on everyone's minds, at the forefront really is the simple notion of inventory. Inventory is marketing.

Amazon won this holiday season. Again. Even from personal experience, shopping elsewhere, many brands had two major issues.

  1. You couldn't trust what was on the website. Was there really stock behind the product detail page? Quite often, the answer was truly no. Browsing Amazon, you know the stock is there. You just do.

  2. Even if I wanted to still shop from them (local inventory across town), communication was extremely difficult. When you are shopping for the holidays, you need to make quicker decisions, and minutes matter. Often I would call into brands, only to be put on hold for 25 minutes. Then be dropped and forgotten about.

Did I mention this puts a renewed emphasis on "alternative stock" solutions like marketplaces and drop shipping programs for retailers, and even brands?

This post was inspired by an Emma Cosgrove post about Bed Bath and Beyond which needs major inventory and supply chain transformation:

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
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When A Marketplace Is Needed

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The Relationship Between eCommerce, Technology, and Politics