Warehouse and Storefront - Best practices for inventory accuracy

Ask the Experts
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Please share your ideas and workflows for using Infoplus in a dual warehouse/retail environment. How do you ensure that your picking is optimized?

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Clarification on Dual Warehouse/Retail Environment in Infoplus

Hello,

Thank you for sharing this post on using Infoplus in a dual warehouse/retail environment. We have an existing/unused retail space in our warehouse and was already toying with this idea. I wanted to clarify and expand on your ideas and workflows for optimizing picking processes. Specifically, are you considering building a setup where we can establish a new zone called a retail showroom?

Here’s the scenario we’re exploring:

  • Our 3PL cannot directly sell products and collect payments from consumers potentially due to licensing and zoning requirements, depending on the type of products we handle for our 3PL customers.
  • We aim to create a showroom where products from various 3PL customers are displayed physically and in a web interface. Customers can browse and add items to their cart.
  • When a purchase is made through this interface, orders would first be sent to each 3PL customer’s individual online website with a specialized pickup option from us as a 3PL provider.
  • Through the cart connection in Infoplus, the combined line items from all lines of business would be consolidated into a single order in Infoplus, to be fulfilled via pickup.
  • Our 3PL provider’s retail space will serve as a showroom for local consumers, but all sales transactions will occur through each 3PL customer’s individual website.
  • To facilitate this, we plan to set up iPads or web browser access in the showroom with QR codes on products. Customers can scan and buy directly on each 3PL customer’s website, and fulfillment will be managed through Infoplus as a pickup to hopefully still comply with regulations and contractual agreements.
  • To ensure picking is optimized, anything in the retail showroom zone is either not picked at all or used as a last resort. Some 3PL customers’ products can be designated as open products for demonstration purposes, with no direct salespeople to ensure us, the 3PL provider is not selling the product, just providing a service by displaying to aid in the consumers decision to purchase from our 3PL customer. Item records can contain an inventory quantity field set to “demonstration” or “open box.” In the warehouse table, we can toggle “this warehouse has a retail showroom” which will unlock the related records to ensure no confusion occurs with regular operations.

Any advice or additional workflows to consider would be greatly appreciated.

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@dnguyen
Thanks for your post!
What an interesting concept. As a thought experiment, We would like to work as a team to see where we could take this type of 3PL/Customer interaction within the bounds of the current version of Infoplus.
As you know, having several Lines of Business on a single order is not supported within the current version of Infoplus. However, the system is very customizable and we look for every opportunity to add features that push the envelope of what is possible. We would like to follow up with you both here and directly on this soon. Thanks!

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