As retailers expand their direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels to meet modern consumer expectations, they face a range of complex challenges: unpredictable demand patterns leading to stockouts or overstock, complex multi-node fulfillment decisions that impact delivery speed and cost, and last-mile coordination challenges that can make or break customer satisfaction.
DTC retailers particularly struggle with:
With so many retailers focusing on DTC these days, it is interesting to see how they are successfully tackling these challenges using new tools and technologies. Efforts to streamline data strategy, boost customer satisfaction, and improve profit margins have been reinvigorated with a new, game-changing element: Generative AI.
For order management and the last mile, retail operations teams can now leverage Generative AI to optimize fulfillment logistics centralized in their order management platform. And, it all contributes to delivering consistently on the customer experience, being more data-driven, reducing costs, and improving profit margins.
In this blog, we’ll explore examples of omnichannel retail strategies and how Generative AI is unlocking new opportunities and eliminating frustrating challenges for DTC brands.
Successful retailers are finding success by focusing on their DTC channels. Here’s how a few notable brands have navigated the transition:
As the retail landscape shifts, retailers are aiming to reach the ever-higher customer expectation bar by focusing on growth and efficiency based on their system maturity and operational scale. Here are three major areas where retailers are investing:
Retailers with less mature omnichannel strategies are launching store fulfillment processes like Buy Online, Pick-Up In-Store (BOPIS), and ship-from-store. This improves e-commerce metrics by increasing delivery speed, reducing shipping costs, and improving customer satisfaction.
What we’re hearing from fabric customers: A $500M+ ECOM GMV retailer shared how optimizing its fulfillment processes was critical to scaling its e-commerce demand.
Retailers with customized e-commerce systems are prioritizing the customer service experience. The challenge lies in gathering actionable insights to deliver personalized customer interactions. Without a cloud-based OMS and robust real-time data platform to run their e-commerce operations, gaining visibility into the customer journey is difficult.
What we’re hearing from fabric customers: Retailers in the $500M–$2B ECOM GMV range are expressing a strong need for enhanced order management insights to support personalized experiences and improve order fulfillment.
Larger retailers with legacy systems, like on-premise implementations of Manhattan Associates or IBM Sterling, are seeking to reduce their total cost of ownership. With the high costs of upgrades and maintenance, transitioning to cloud-based platforms lowers those operational expenses and offers real-time data insights. This shift provides scalability, speed, and insights without the burden and expense of managing a complex infrastructure.
What we’re hearing from fabric customers: A retailer with $600M+ DTC e-commerce revenue faced a $10M estimate to upgrade from their on-premises DOM deployment to a new cloud version of their existing system.
fabric Order Management System (OMS) offers retailers a centralized platform for managing orders, inventory, and fulfillment across multiple channels. By integrating real-time data analysis, trend detection, and intelligent suggestions, fabric OMS ensures seamless operations and a unified view of the DTC customer journey.
fabric’s Generative AI builds on this with an AI-powered assistant that optimizes last-mile order orchestration. Powered by agentic AI that performs specific tasks with the help of large language models (LLMs), this AI assistant offers real-time insights and suggestions for improving DTC operations and other fulfillment efficiency.
fabric’s Generative AI-powered assistant sits atop fabric’s modern OMS and delivers the following key benefits:
As the DTC landscape evolves, purpose-built technology is critical for success. Retailers aiming to streamline DTC fulfillment, enhance the customer experience, and reduce the costs associated with legacy systems can benefit from a modern OMS powered by AI.
fabric’s AI-powered OMS services enable retailers to modernize their omnichannel strategies, reduce operational complexity, and drive long-term growth. Today, an emerging component of that growth is DTC. By leveraging these tools, businesses can future-proof their entire retail strategy, lower total costs, and improve customer satisfaction and profitability across every channel.
Ready to move ahead in a world where 70% of shopping begins online? Watch our on-demand webinar, “The Future of Retail: Thriving in the Age of AI and Connected Commerce,” led by experts Jay Topper and Jenna Flateman Posner, as they explore how AI is transforming retail operations.
Director of Product Management @ fabric. Previously Digital Product Manager @ Bed, Bath, & Beyond.