Increase omnichannel retail agility with NetSuite | Baker Tilly

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Tech that bridges the gap between retailers and customers

Staying ahead or in line with consumer preferences and behaviors is difficult in the digital age. Retailers work to forecast customer needs, stock the right product levels, set the right price to target sales and margin, fulfill orders quickly, and then keep those buyers coming back for more.

At a macro level, companies deal with economic issues like inflation, rising business costs, labor constraints, and the need to automate and digitalize more of their operations, sales channels, and back-office functions.

Many middle-market retailers rely on basic accounting systems like QuickBooks, point of sale (POS) solutions from Shopify, and programs like Fishbowl for inventory management. They use spreadsheets to share data across these systems, few if any of which are integrated. These approaches may be sufficient for smaller organizations, but as retailers grow, take on new customers, add product lines, and expand into international markets, they can become liabilities pretty quickly.

Issues with point solutions

Point solutions and spreadsheets waste valuable time and human resources and impede accurate, timely reporting and good controls. Transactions must be keyed in by hand, there are no dashboards to support good decision-making, and different departments—sales, warehousing, marketing, finance—all work in silos and can’t effectively share data with one another.

These complexities compound for the many retailers that use third-party logistics providers (3PL) to manage distribution and logistics operations. Without direct connections to those providers’ systems, retailers can’t ever get good visibility into their inventory, distribution networks, and customers. That customer blind spot isn’t limited to 3PLs either; it often extends across the enterprise.

Better customer experience

As consumers become more price-sensitive, retailers need tools that help them forecast needs, manage inventory, and target pricing. This is especially critical in the digital realm, where the nearest competitor is a mouse click or screen tap away.

With NetSuite, retailers can strategize pricing by location, brand, or stockkeeping unit (SKU) and use that data to make educated, real-time decisions. This supports the omnichannel experience and effectively allows companies to always have the right stock in the right place and at the right price.

For retailers already using a POS from Shopify, BigCommerce, or another provider, Baker Tilly provides the direct integrations to NetSuite that retailers use to streamline their operations, gain a comprehensive view of their business, and create a great omnichannel experience for their customers.

NetSuite supports beauty retailer’s global growth

Knowing that no two retailers are exactly alike, NetSuite Retail Edition was built with a broad range of companies in mind. The end-to-end cloud management system provides:

Single source of data across the entire organization
Unified omnichannel platform for either B2B, B2C, or both
A 360-degree view of the entire operation
Out-of-the-box roles, reports, and dashboards

One growing e-commerce company wanted to overhaul its existing business systems and implement one that could manage its growing operation. The company was facing significant challenges with its current systems. For example, QuickBooks just wasn’t robust enough to support the beauty retailer’s growth trajectory and international expansion. And, the company’s disparate sales channels weren’t integrated, and its current technology prevented it from reaching its goals.

With extensive experience helping retailers shed archaic technology in favor of a modern, cloud-based ERP, Baker Tilly replaced QuickBooks with NetSuite to handle the e-commerce company’s robust day-to-day operations. We also developed integrations that unified the company’s new ERP with various third-party systems.

By leveraging a deep understanding of the retail industry, ERP technologies, and the e-commerce company’s specific goals, our advisors delivered a tailored solution that enhanced operational efficiency and drove growth. The solution included:

Inventory management, financials, and sales channels
Value-added tax (VAT) compliance
Support for international growth while maintaining current functions
Segregated responsibilities to prevent unauthorized users from entering transactions

Today, this beauty company has a unified ERP to manage its global sales channels and makes business decisions in real-time. Without manual processes it has improved operational efficiencies and eliminated VAT penalties. The company now has a scalable system to support its international expansion for years to come.

Improving the inventory management process

Efficient inventory management is critical to retail success. Across all channels and locations, retailers can benefit significantly by leveraging technology like NetSuite for inventory processes. Here’s why:

Advanced inventory management systems like NetSuite offer real-time visibility into stock levels, enabling retailers to make informed decisions about purchasing, allocation, and pricing.
By tracking product movement and identifying customer trends using NetSuite, retailers can avoid those dreaded stockouts and excess inventory. This helps them reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.
Technology-driven inventory management solutions like NetSuite streamline retail operations, automate tasks, enhance accuracy, and free up staff to focus on more strategic initiatives.
When integrated with POS and e-commerce platforms, NetSuite creates that seamless, omnichannel retail experience that all companies are striving for right now.

These and other benefits translate into real competitive advantages for retailers that are dealing with rising costs, margin compression, and antiquated technology systems that don’t perform like they used to. For newer e-commerce retailers are operating on QuickBooks and Fishbowl, Baker Tilly offers a pathway into the ERP world while also allowing companies to continue using some of their existing third-party applications if desired.

Capture more revenue

Retailers that may not want to invest the dollars in new technology because they believe what they’re using now isn’t broken. But they don’t always understand how much revenue they’re leaving on the table by not being able to adequately plan and manage inventory levels and location due to manual, unintegrated processes.

Take the brick-and-mortar retailer in Miami that was shipped 20 parkas in August. Like many retailers, this one relies on a nationwide merchandising strategy that doesn’t always factor in seasonal differences between states and regions. Not only was the Miami store unable to sell those parkas, but a few of its stores in the Northeast ran out of them early in the winter season and were unable to fulfill orders—all because no one knew that available parka inventory was sitting in a stockroom in Miami.

With NetSuite, all of a retailer’s data is updated and available in real-time in the cloud, whether a retailer operates fully online, has 300 stores, or a single store plus five distribution centers. All team members will be working from the same playbook when it comes to inventory positioning, availability, and commitments. The ERP’s Advanced Order Management solution allows for rule configuration to determine which distribution points should be fulfilling specific orders based on location, lead-time, service level, or availability.

Streamline returns

The ERP also manages the tricky returns process, which is top-of-mind for retailers that take back roughly $743 billion in merchandise—or around 14.5% of total retail sales—every year. Receiving, refunding, exchanging, inspecting, processing, and getting those goods back into the retail channel is a resource-intensive process that must be done right. When that doesn’t happen, customers notice and start to do business with retailers that do accept and process their returns quickly and efficiently.

Consider these recent statistics from emarketer:

21% of U.S. consumers making returns expect their refunds immediately.
33% expect their refunds within 24 hours.
40% say one day is the “longest acceptable” time to wait for a refund.

Customers also want a hassle-free returns experience, but buying online and returning or picking up in a brick-and-mortar store is a challenging scenario for a retailer with data scattered across different platforms and spreadsheets.

Some stores won’t take in-store returns from online purchases or other store locations because they can’t track the inventory. This is one of many ways that the customer may be negatively impacted when a retailer relies on various point systems to keep track of data, inventory, and pricing.

NetSuite Order Management’s capabilities simplify the returns process and increase profitability by returning merchandise to inventory immediately. Retailers can use the platform to accept returns from all channels, manage exchanges, issue credits, decide how to handle the return, and lay out returns process rules.

Returns are processed accurately, and saleable items are put back into inventory quickly, giving retailers yet another positive customer touchpoint and competitive advantage in the marketplace.