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: