Work Notes of Shangchao O2O Project —— What should I do if the goods are out of stock offline after placing an online order?

Shangchao O2O, as its name implies, is an O2O project that orders online and delivers goods in offline supermarkets.

Look at the software evaluation of several supermarkets that are currently in the limelight. Many users who are angry with a certain star complain the most that they can clearly place an order online, but after placing an order, the picker goes to the shelf to pick up the goods, but can't pick up the goods.

Even some companies didn't inform users for a long time after the goods were out of stock, and didn't inform them that they didn't deliver the goods immediately because they didn't wait for the goods to arrive. This experience can consume the trust of users at one time and never look back.

However, with such a poor experience, why do several companies in the industry often have this situation and can't solve it well?

When I first entered this industry, I was also confused. Homeplus, a Korean supermarket, is a well-developed and well-operated Shangchao O2O APP. They openly take "whether they are willing to accept out-of-stock exchange" as a fixed option and put it in the order placing process.

At that time, I strongly opposed this function and thought that this kind of thing should not become a routine process. We should try our best to end it.

However, it was later discovered in the course of the project that this form of O2O, the shortage of orders, is indeed an industry problem.

The reason for this is the following：

1 and offline inventory systems in Shang Chao do not support real-time synchronization.

Shangchao O2O project, whether it is a third-party purchasing or a supermarket self-operated, the delivery is generally on the shelf of the store. In addition to online circulation, goods will also circulate offline. Therefore, the inventory information needs to synchronize the data of the two in time to ensure real-time accuracy. Offline inventory deduction needs to be connected to POS cashier system and then updated to OMS system. The OMS server in the store does not support online business originally, but only serves as the daily demand of the store, so real-time update has great pressure on the system. So there will be a time difference in inventory synchronization. About an hour.

So when online users place an order, they see the inventory that can still be sold online. In fact, offline users may have paid the bill and cleared the inventory, which will lead to the above problems.

2. the fish that escaped from the net in the shopping cart

The background system can only synchronize to the closed-loop payment order, that is, the paid and submitted inventory online and offline will be deducted, and the goods put into the shopping cart by customers cannot be counted. So this part will also lead to the error of commodity inventory.

3. Store inventory is low.

Generally, the main business advantage in Shang Chao is the variety of SKUs, so some products that become "structured goods" will not be overstocked, and only when they are almost out of stock will they place orders. Even if it is not a structural commodity, there may always be some commodities such as toiletries and snacks to meet the diversified needs of users, but in order to improve the turnover efficiency, there will not be more. Therefore, it is more likely that the goods will be out of stock that day.

4. There are no accurate inventory statistics for fresh and joint venture commodities, as well as commodities that A enters and B exits.

Fresh goods with irregular packaging, such as a whole fish and a whole box of vegetables, are all bought by gold, and the inventory is not counted according to the packaging specifications. Other large-packaged goods, such as a whole box of water, are not allowed to be sold by bottle when they are sold, and they are originally for online system inventory.

5. It is inconvenient to pick up the goods in the back warehouse of the store.

This seemingly easiest reason to overcome is actually the most difficult to overcome, and a large part of the shortage is due to this. Because the store picks the goods, the inventory statistics are the inventory before and after the actual store. The replenishment of the front shelf is often not so timely, and the feasibility of letting the picker enter the back cabin to pick up the goods is also very low, because in order to expand the business area, the back warehouse generally does not leave a large position, and it may often only be enough for one person to enter and exit. Then it's inconvenient to pick the goods.

To sum up, due to various reasons, it is because the current Shangchao O2O project regards the Shang Chao store in the popular business district of the city as its own e-commerce inventory warehouse. However, the inventory rules of this warehouse are naturally not set for e-commerce.

Originally, it was only for inventory to see how many goods to order tomorrow, and it did not exist as a front desk support field. If offline customers are really out of stock, they won't think they have it. Moving online is different, which will lead to expected errors.

As a project that started less than one or two years ago, although offline shopping malls have realized the fierceness of e-commerce, it is really not a day or two for online systems to make a global transformation.

In view of the above problems, we can do some expedient measures. In the course of the project, we have also made some system and business reforms, which can temporarily alleviate the order penetration rate of some picking shortages and reduce user dissatisfaction.

1. Set safety stock.

The number of goods that can be sold on the Internet minus a "safety stock" is the above-mentioned inventory difference caused by various fish that cannot be counted due to time difference, physical displacement and other reasons.

At the beginning, the business requirements were set according to the percentage, but our project director strongly opposed it, because according to the percentage, if the remaining quantity sold on that day is small, the safety stock may be too small to play a role in the end.

The setting of this safety stock is a very empirical thing. At first, our IT staff learned that the store's ordering system has a "DMS" value. This is the average sales of goods in 30 days. It's used to order food. For example, there are 10 goods in the warehouse now, and 5 pieces are sold every day on average, so they are out of stock in two days, and the order system will place an order.

Our IT colleagues naively think that we can borrow this figure directly, because we have a safe inventory, and we have to subtract the number of goods circulating offline (shopping carts and settled) in the time difference. DMS value is positively related to the speed of commodity circulation. By adding a suitable coefficient to it, we can get the number of commodities circulating offline within a certain time error. It is a perfect formula to set up organizations according to the inventory management classification of stores. Overcome industry problems!

At the meeting, there was a great opinion on offline operation, saying that it would be good to set a percentage! We rejected it and were moved by the perfect theory we imagined. Adhere to the use of DMS values and ask them to give a DMS coefficient by classification. At the end of the operation, I said, well, usually my store will have 7 days' inventory, so the DM coefficient will be set to 2 or 5 days' inventory for you to sell online, that's enough. So the number of online sales = actual inventory -2*DMS(30-day average daily sales). For example, if you sell 2 pieces a day, theoretically, the store should have 14 in stock, and the number of online sales is 10. In addition, DMS has different values for promotion period and non-promotion period.

Theoretically, it is better to do this than by percentage, which prevents the problem that the safety stock may become infinitely small with the change of inventory.

We still have doubts about this formula, and we always feel that something is wrong, but there seems to be no other good way. So I did it and ran it for a while.

After running for a while, the operation came to us angrily and said, there is a lot missing! Many fast-moving consumer goods, there is the possibility of bad goods within 5 months! Or simply pick it in the corner and don't pick it out!

We were dumbfounded.

Run to the backstage of the offline store and pull the data. In fact, 70% DMS is less than 0. 1! Because many goods, as mentioned above, exist as structural goods in order to keep the number of SKUs, and they are only sold once a few days. On average, it is basically a small value. It doesn't work.

Finally, I decided to set the absolute safety stock value according to the most primitive method! Subdivided into hundreds of small categories, set according to the experience value of offline operation and ordering departments.

It has been running for some time now, so it should be said that the shortage rate has declined. But it's inevitable. The follow-up still needs to continue to explore.

2. Save the shortage notice in time.

Because short-term shortage is inevitable, it is very important to communicate with customers in this case. At present, a customer service center has been set up online, and offline stores also have some part-time customer service for physical customers. At first, online customer service was used to communicate the shortage, but the intermediate process was very long, which would affect the timeliness. If you let the consignee contact the customer directly, I'm afraid their language ability is not professional. So under the compromise, let the store customer service do this communication first. Current practice. This process is ok, and it can basically communicate in time.

3. What is the coupon and refund?

The shortage problem involves not only inventory, but also the subsequent financial refund process of preferential activity rules. For example, an activity we are doing now is that people over 88 can get coupons for 10 yuan. So once the out-of-stock order is dissatisfied, will this coupon still be used?

This problem has been discussed for a long time. From the perspective of user experience, it is absolutely necessary. After all, it is the seller's fault. But this will involve the problem of losing money, which is not the most serious. The most serious thing is that it is stuck in internal financial accounting. I have to say,

In the whole internal process, financial bookkeeping actually occupies the greatest energy and resistance. This is a management problem, which is another matter.

At present, it is a compromise, and the specific experience is actually very poor, so I won't go into details. I want to say that the internal resistance of such a project that is deeply integrated with traditional industries will far exceed your imagination. Ok, the first line of online stores is very cooperative, at present.

4. fresh stocks? A is out of stock in B.

As for the unquantifiable inventory mentioned before, the current cooking method is that some stores prepackage it and put it into inventory management separately;

The goods that A enters and B exits are transformed in the system, and A is transformed into B;

The inventory of fresh goods that cannot be quantified and counted should be taken out every day and maintained manually in the online store system.

The current strategy, mainly the above points, can be said that from the beginning of operation to now, the problem of large-scale shortage has been controlled. However, the outstanding problem is still a process that needs to be subverted from online and offline operation management to supply chain management and then to system management.

The supermarket under the crowded business circle may become a good warehouse for e-commerce in the last mile. O2O not only adds a sales channel, but also deeply transforms the user's touch mode and the physical rush transportation mode of goods.

The problem of picking goods only exposed the tip of the iceberg. These two formats are integrated and learn from each other. With the further differentiation of consumption habits, the future will be a process of violent collision and change.