Omnichannel in retail: available inventory across all channels

Today, customers move seamlessly between online stores, brick-and-mortar locations, marketplaces, and mobile devices, and expect reliable, consistent information about products, prices, and availability everywhere they go. An omnichannel strategy is therefore no longer an option—it’s a necessity.What happens behind the scenes is crucial: Only when products, prices, and—above all—inventory are consistently available across all channels, ideally in real time, can customers shop, reserve, pick up, or return items across channels without any disruption. This article explains what matters most in omnichannel commerce and order management in retail and how REMIRA’s software solutions for omnichannel commerce and order management connect the channels.

What omnichannel commerce must deliver in retail today

The shift between the physical and digital shopping worlds has long been the norm. Customers want a seamless, consistent experience across all touchpoints. For retailers, this results in several specific requirements:

• Omnishopping as the norm: Services like Click & Collect and in-store returns are expected.
• Consistent availability of information: Identical, reliable details on products, prices, and inventory across all channels and stores.
• Near-real-time inventory: If inventory is updated infrequently, the risk of sold-out items increases, especially for high-demand products.
• Low churn threshold: If an item is not available in the desired version, the customer will buy from a competitor unless they can place a digital order on the spot.
• Dynamic competition: Retailers without an omnichannel offering risk losing customers to better-connected providers.

The technical foundation for this is seamless data exchange between the online store, physical stores, marketplaces, POS, warehouse, customer data, and backend systems.

Single source of truth: available inventory across all channels (Available to Promise)

REMIRA connects online stores, brick-and-mortar stores, marketplaces, POS, warehouses, customer data, and backend systems so that retailers can reliably manage cross-channel processes. This creates a Single Source of Truth for brick-and-mortar retail and e-commerce, technically provided via a web service.

REMIRA calculates cross-channel available inventory (Available to Promise) using virtual warehouses: physical warehouses can be grouped as desired—and multiple times—into virtual warehouses that are assigned to a specific sales channel. Combined with a safety stock allocation for each virtual warehouse, this yields the ATP per channel. For example, a retailer can intentionally report lower available inventory to a marketplace like Amazon than to its own web store to avoid penalties for out-of-stock sales.

Inventory levels are synchronized across channels within seconds. The synchronization occurs via a push mechanism through a buffered message queue, ensuring that even massive changes can be processed and no data is lost in the event of a power outage.

Order Management: managing orders across channels

The REMIRA Order Management System centrally manages orders across all sales channels, checks availability in real time, and automatically forwards each order to the optimal fulfillment location. PIM, warehouse management, online store, and marketplace functions are integrated.

Order splitting, sourcing rules, and inventory reservation are available for distributed order orchestration. By default, the system determines the optimal fulfillment location based on proximity to the customer, costs (fulfillment from a single warehouse whenever possible), and inventory; custom rules can be easily added. Orders from all channels (online store, retail store, marketplace, phone) are consolidated and managed uniformly because inventory is checked in real time.

Statuses and exceptions—such as partial deliveries, cancellations, or backorders—can be fully mapped: Each action can trigger an event, set a status, and initiate follow-up processes, such as automatic email notifications. The type and scope of statuses are configurable.

Fulfillment options for a seamless shopping experience

Using the omnichannel features, retailers can offer their customers flexible options between online and in-store shopping:

• Click & Collect and Click & Reserve: Buy or reserve online, pick up in-store
• Ship from Store and Ship from Warehouse: Ship from a store or warehouse
• Endless Aisle: Display products that are out of stock on a tablet and arrange for delivery or in-store pickup
• Same Day: Same-day delivery
• Return-in-Store and Return Shipping: Cross-channel returns via mail or in-store

Shipping service providers are connected via interfaces, with shipping and label management; REMIRA recommends ShipCloud or Heidler, for example, as integrations.

Marketplaces and Sales Channels

In principle, all marketplaces and sales channels can be integrated; integration with Amazon, Otto, and eBay is particularly deep. Prices and inventory levels are transferred to the marketplace, and orders are synchronized bidirectionally (depending on the respective marketplace). The solution is particularly well-suited for retailers in the fashion, footwear, and lifestyle sectors, for both small and large retailers. Through POS, the mobile store management app, and the order management system, REMIRA also covers other industries such as books, furniture, and electronics.

On the sales floor and at the Point of Sale

The REMIRA Mobile Store Management app is an all-in-one tool for store staff, combining checkout, omnichannel functions, and store management: mobile checkout on the sales floor, stock availability checks, reservations, stock transfers, merchandise receipt, price tagging, label printing, and inventory.

The POS Integrated Store Solutions offer full omnichannel capabilities (Click & Reserve, Click & Collect, Ship from Store, Endless Aisle, E-Bon), an open API and service architecture, real-time data synchronization, mobile checkout to reduce lines, and tamper-proof security with GDPR and GoBD certification.

In addition, digital components such as digital receipts and interactive information touchpoints (digital signage) on the sales floor enhance the shopping experience and customer service.

Integration with ERP and SAP

A high-performance omnichannel strategy requires seamless data exchange with leading systems. The REMIRA solution can be integrated with SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Comarch, Intex, other ERP systems, or existing middleware. Instead of rigid standard interfaces, a flexible interface framework is used that leverages APIs or OpenAPI, EDI, file exchange, or middleware such as Lobster, SAP Integration Suite, MuleSoft, or Boomi, depending on the specific situation.

Internally, the solution works with cross-product transport objects, such as those for items, prices, or inventory. This keeps the REMIRA ecosystem harmonized while allowing external integrations to be flexibly customized. Implementation often begins with a clearly defined minimum viable product—such as item and price data—which is then expanded step by step.

Why REMIRA: all omnichannel components from a single source

REMIRA’s key differentiator is the seamless integration of all components necessary for omnichannel operations—out of the box and from a single source: POS, Mobile POS, Mobile Store Management App, Retail Media, and the Order Management System. This leads to faster project implementation with proven standard processes and lower project costs. REMIRA can be deployed either as a complete platform or as an add-on to the existing inventory management system.

When selecting an omnichannel commerce platform for retail, you should consider the following criteria:

• Real-time inventory visibility and a single source of truth across all channels
• Comprehensive fulfillment options (Click & Collect, Ship from Store, Endless Aisle, Same Day, Return-in-Store)
• An integrated order management system with distributed order management
• Deep marketplace integration (Amazon, Otto, eBay) and seamless POS and store integration
• Integration with the existing ERP or SAP system with reasonable time-to-value, scalability, and compliance (GDPR, GoBD)

Case Studies and References

A real-world example is INTERSPORT KRUMHOLZ, one of the largest retailers in the INTERSPORT network with approximately 50,000 SKUs and five brick-and-mortar stores. Using the REMIRA app for digital store management, the retailer achieved increased consulting capacity on the sales floor, mobile checkout via smartphone or tablet, shorter wait times, and significantly optimized back-office processes. Additional case studies are available at remira.com/de/referenzen.