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Planograms and Shelf Resets in the Beauty Aisle

The moment a purchase order (PO) lands is when most beauty brands, especially those used to selling direct to consumers, exhale in relief. The buyer said yes and the product is going into stores. It feels like the finish line. 

However, this moment isn’t actually the end. The product still needs to achieve a desirable shelf placement, which isn’t as easy as it might seem at first.  

A purchase order gets your product into a retailer's system. But a 

decides where that product actually lives on the shelf: which shelf, how many facings, and which products flank it on either side. And those planograms are subject to occasional 

, which decide whether it keeps that spot the next time the category gets rebuilt, gets reduced to one facing on the bottom shelf, or drops out of the assortment entirely. 

That gap between landing the order and understanding the shelf is where most 

 (DTC) beauty brands get caught off guard the first time their category resets. This piece is about closing that gap: how planograms actually get built, how resets actually get executed, and what a brand has to bring to the table to earn space and keep it. 

 is the visual blueprint a retailer uses to decide exactly where a product sits on the shelf. Strip away the merchandising jargon, and it comes down to three decisions for every single SKU: 

Retailers build these blueprints with category and space-planning teams, using specialized planning tools that model the entire set down to the inch. Vendor input can inform the process (sales data, new item specs, 

), but the retailer makes the final call. What they're optimizing for is not any single brand's success, but rather sales per linear foot across the whole category, a shopping flow that makes sense from a browsing standpoint, and a mix that reflects how people actually shop the aisle. 

Beauty categories make this harder than almost any other category. A skincare or color cosmetics line review can involve hundreds of SKUs across a handful of brands, each with multiple shades, sizes, and formulations that all read as separate line items. Add line extensions and limited editions, and a beauty planogram gets rebuilt more often, argued over more intensely, and broken more easily than the planogram for a stable category like laundry detergent or canned soup. 

Why Beauty Resets More Than Almost Anything Else on the Floor 

Beauty is one of the most complex and rapidly changing segments in retail. Color trends shift with the season, skincare actives go in and out of favor as new research and influencer attention build momentum, and claims like "clean" or "dermatologist-tested" rise and fall in importance to shoppers faster than a planogram is built to handle. A set designed around last year's desirable ingredients can look dated within a single reset cycle. 

Newness itself has become a category expectation. Beauty shoppers browse the aisle the way they browse a feed: partly to buy, partly to see what's new. Retailers feel that pressure directly, since a shelf that looks the same reset after reset reads as a category losing relevance. That pushes retailers to refresh 

 on a predictable cadence instead of waiting for products to earn their way off the shelf through attrition. 

Retailers respond with reset calendars built for that pace. Most chains rework the beauty aisle a couple of times a year at minimum, timed to seasonal sets and major line reviews, with additional smaller updates layered in between for launches and promotions. 

The Cycle Starts Months Before the Shelf Changes 

The reset cycle actually starts months before the shelf changes. Traced back from reset day, it breaks down into four stages. 

For a DTC-native brand, the useful shift is knowing where the real decisions get made in that sequence. The shelf visibly changes on reset day, but the outcome was determined back in stages one and two. Brands that understand this timeline can make sure to plan their data, packaging, and inventory around it well in advance. 

How Do Beauty Brands Earn and Keep Shelf Space 

Everything up to this point explains why the shelf changes and when. This section is about what a brand actually has to bring to the table to be on the winning side of that change, and to still be there at the next reset. 

Category managers reallocate facings based on what a product actually did on the shelf, not what it might do. A reset is a performance review for every SKU in the category, and the products with strong sell-through velocity are given more space or better position, while the products with weak velocity get cut down. 

"Good" sell-through evidence is specific and verifiable, including metrics such as unit sales per store per week, sell-through rate against what was shipped in, and trend direction over the last several periods, ideally broken out by store or region if the retailer supports it. 

Vague claims about brand momentum or social buzz don't carry weight in a line review. The retailer already has its own read on your velocity from its point-of-sale data. A brand that walks in without that same data, or worse, without knowing it, is negotiating from a position of guesswork against a buyer who has the facts. 

Planogram tools run on exact measurements and clean product imagery. Height, width, depth, and case pack quantities all feed directly into how a set gets built. 

A product that's taller or wider than the data on file can crowd its neighbors, get misplaced, or get pulled from the plan entirely rather than risk a set that doesn't physically work. The same goes for imagery: retailers use product images for the visual planogram and often for the shelf tag or digital listing, so a blurry, outdated, or mismatched image creates friction at every stage that follows. 

For a retailer, shelf-ready is an operational standard. It means the case opens fast, the product fits the fixture it's assigned to, and the packaging holds up through the physical reset itself, when store teams are moving quickly and handling volume. 

DTC-native brands often stumble at this step. Packaging designed to create a great unboxing moment on a customer's doorstep is optimized for a completely different job than packaging built to survive a retail supply chain. A case that requires extra tools to open, or product that shifts and gets damaged in transit, can fail a retail-readiness check even when the product inside is excellent. 

Adjacency simply means which products sit on either side of yours on the shelf, and it matters more than most new suppliers expect. A shopper in the beauty aisle reads the shelf as a whole, not one SKU in isolation. The products beside yours signal what your product is for, who it's for, and how it compares to something the shopper already recognizes. 

The case for a specific spot on the shelf can't just be a pitch about your brand. It has to be an argument in the retailer's own category logic: why your product's presence next to a specific set of neighbors increases basket size, supports a clear shopper mission, or fills a real gap in how the category is organized. 

Retailers think in terms of shopper missions and category flow. A brand that shows up with a clear, data-backed adjacency argument, framed in those terms, has a real position to negotiate from. A brand that only has a story about who it is has a much weaker case. 

None of the above matters if the item itself isn't ready. Every new SKU needs to be set up in the retailer's system, complete with accurate data, well before the deadline, and it needs to be in stock and able to ship in time to land on shelf on reset day. 

A brand can have a strong product, great sell-through data from other retailers, a compelling adjacency case, and shelf-ready packaging, and still miss the reset entirely because the item wasn't set up in time or the inventory wasn't ready to ship. If the item isn't in the system and in stock by the cutoff, it won’t make the shelf.  

Bring the Data, Skip the Reformatting Work 

Every retailer runs its own version of this data requirement: different templates, different attribute lists, different systems for receiving dimensions, images, and item details. For a beauty brand managing that across a growing list of trading partners, it means reformatting the same product data over and over, right up against a deadline that decides whether a SKU makes the next planogram at all. 

SPS Assortment is built for that exact problem. It centralizes your 

 once, then checks, transforms, and delivers it to each trading partner in the format that partner requires, no manual reformatting, no spreadsheet juggling, and no missed submission window because a file didn't match a retailer's template. For a brand trying to stay ahead of the reset calendar this piece just walked through, that's the difference between chasing deadlines retailer by retailer and having the data groundwork already in place before the next line review starts. 

What Is Floor-Ready Merchandise? A Guide to Apparel Retail Compliance 

 shipment to a department store or specialty retailer, 

 can feel overwhelming. Every retailer seems to have different rules for tickets, hangers, packaging, and carton labels, making it easy to wonder whether they're simply adding more compliance hurdles. While it may seem that way, these rules and regulations have a clear purpose. 

Floor-ready merchandise follows one consistent principle: merchandise should move from the receiving dock to the sales floor with as little handling as possible. Every requirement exists to eliminate unnecessary work for the retailer. When products arrive correctly ticketed, packaged, labeled, and documented, store associates can focus on selling merchandise instead of preparing it. 

Once you understand that goal, retailer routing guides become much easier to navigate. The details vary from one retailer to another, but the underlying system stays the same. 

This article explains that system. It covers the four core components of floor-ready merchandise (ticketing, hangers, packaging, and carton labeling) and explains how they work together to reduce handling, improve receiving, and help suppliers avoid costly compliance deductions. 

Retailers designed floor-ready programs to reduce labor throughout the supply chain. Instead of unpacking merchandise, applying price tickets, replacing hangers, or relabeling cartons inside the distribution center, retailers expect suppliers to complete that work before the shipment leaves the factory or distribution partner. 

The concept isn't new. The apparel industry's Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions (VICS) floor-ready initiative began in the early 1990s as part of a broader effort to reduce lead times and standardize merchandise preparation. Today, those principles continue through 

 and retailer-specific compliance programs. 

Although every retailer publishes its own standards, they all support the same objective: merchandise should arrive ready to receive, ready to replenish, and ready to sell. 

Understanding that objective changes how suppliers approach compliance. Instead of treating each retailer's manual as a collection of unrelated rules, they can recognize familiar patterns and adapt more quickly when requirements change. 

Ticketing Begins With Accurate Item Data 

Every UPC barcode, retail price, size, color, and radio frequency identification (RFID) tag depends on accurate item setup before production begins. If the underlying item information is incorrect, the ticket will also be incorrect, creating problems that often aren't discovered until the shipment reaches the retailer. 

For many years, floor-ready ticketing focused primarily on UPC barcodes and retail price labels. Today, 

 has become an increasingly important part of apparel compliance. Retailers including 

, Macy's, Nordstrom, and Target have expanded RFID requirements across apparel and other merchandise categories because RFID improves inventory accuracy and supports omnichannel fulfillment. 

While each retailer defines its own ticket layout, placement rules, and RFID requirements, the purpose remains consistent. Every item should scan correctly the first time without additional labeling or manual corrections. 

That's why ticketing starts long before a label is printed. Accurate product information, synchronized pricing, and consistent electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions all help ensure that the physical ticket matches the retailer's item records. 

For suppliers, this connects floor-ready execution directly to the item setup processes discussed earlier in this series. Strong item data produces accurate tickets. Accurate tickets support faster receiving and fewer compliance issues. 

If ticketing prepares merchandise for inventory systems, hangers prepare merchandise for the sales floor. 

 as a common starting point, helping suppliers and retailers standardize presentation across many apparel categories. Buyers also decide whether merchandise should arrive garment on hanger (GOH) or folded, depending on the product and merchandising plan. 

Beyond those shared standards, however, retailer requirements become much more specific. 

Some retailers require approved hanger styles for individual categories. Others prohibit branded hanger logos or specify different hanger colors, clips, or hook styles. Department stores may require premium hanger types for tailored clothing or other specialty merchandise. Retailers such as Belk and Von Maur publish detailed hanger requirements that reflect their merchandising strategies while supporting the same operational goal. 

Using the wrong hanger creates more than a presentation issue. When merchandise arrives on unapproved, damaged, or incorrect hangers, distribution center employees often need to remove garments from cartons, replace hangers, inspect the product, and rebuild the shipment before it moves to stores. That additional handling increases labor costs, delays merchandise availability, and often results in 

 that suppliers could have prevented. Over time, this can strain the supplier/retailer relationship. 

Understanding the reason behind hanger requirements makes those retailer differences easier to manage. The specifications may vary, but every requirement supports faster movement from receiving to the sales floor. 

Packaging Turns Planning Into Execution 

Floor-ready packaging builds on the assortment planning decisions discussed in the previous article in this series. 

Earlier, we looked at size curves, assortments, and prepack configurations, decisions that determine what goes into each pack. Floor-ready packaging determines how those products physically arrive at the retailer for receiving.  

The goal is simple: store employees should be able to remove merchandise from its packaging and place it on the sales floor with minimal effort. 

That objective shapes nearly every packaging requirement. Retailers commonly define acceptable polybags, folding methods, protective materials, and presentation standards. Many also encourage suppliers to eliminate unnecessary packaging materials that increase labor, disposal costs, and waste without improving product protection. 

Rather than viewing these requirements as individual compliance rules, suppliers should recognize them as another application of the same operating principle introduced at the beginning of this article. Every unnecessary layer of packaging creates another step before merchandise reaches customers. 

Carton Labeling Connects the Physical Shipment to Retailer Systems 

Even perfectly prepared merchandise depends on accurate shipment information. 

 that uniquely identifies the shipment and allows the retailer to receive it efficiently. That label works together with the advance ship notice (ASN), which tells the retailer what to expect before the shipment arrives. 

This is where the physical and digital sides of floor-ready merchandise come together. 

When the carton label, the ASN, and the contents of the shipment all match, automated receiving systems can process freight quickly with little manual intervention. When they don't match, or a barcode doesn’t scan, the shipment often moves to manual receiving. That slows inventory availability, increases labor costs, and can trigger compliance deductions. 

Many suppliers think of carton labels as the final step in shipping. In reality, they're part of the same floor-ready system as tickets, hangers, and packaging. Every component needs to align for retailers to receive merchandise efficiently. 

The data behind those labels matters just as much as the labels themselves. Accurate item information, purchase orders, carton contents, and shipment documentation all contribute to successful receiving. That's where electronic data interchange (EDI) plays an important role. 

Decide Where to Perform Floor-Ready Work 

Every supplier needs a plan for completing floor-ready preparation, but the right approach depends on the business. 

Smaller brands often benefit from moving ticketing, hanger application, RFID tagging, and packaging upstream to the factory or to a 

. Completing this work where labor costs are lower can reduce expenses while helping shipments meet retailer requirements before they enter the supply chain. 

Larger suppliers may choose to perform some or all floor-ready work internally. Higher shipment volumes, dedicated compliance teams, and established quality control processes can justify that investment. 

When deciding where to perform floor-ready work, consider these factors: 

No matter where the work happens, the supplier remains responsible for the outcome. Outsourcing the process doesn't transfer responsibility for compliance. 

Treat Floor-Ready as a System, not a Checklist 

It's tempting to think of floor-ready merchandise as a long list of retailer-specific rules, but a more useful perspective is to view it as an operating system designed to reduce handling between the receiving dock and the sales floor. 

Ticketing starts with accurate item data. Hangers support consistent merchandising. Packaging allows store associates to prepare products quickly. Carton labels and 

 (ASNs) connect the physical shipment to retailer systems. Each requirement supports the same objective: helping merchandise move through the supply chain with fewer delays, fewer manual touches, and fewer opportunities for error. 

Retailer requirements will continue to evolve, particularly as RFID adoption expands across apparel and general merchandise categories. Suppliers who understand the system behind those requirements can adapt more quickly when retailer standards change. 

That understanding also protects margins. Preventing avoidable compliance deductions is often less expensive than disputing them later. Suppliers that consistently ship floor-ready merchandise reduce delays, improve retailer relationships, and get products onto the sales floor faster. 

The details will always vary from one retailer to another. Once you understand the logic behind floor-ready merchandise, those differences become easier to manage. Instead of learning a new system for every customer, you'll recognize the same operational principles applied in different ways. 

For the retailer-specific ticketing, hanger, packaging, RFID, and carton labeling requirements discussed in this article, refer to the appropriate 

 guide before production begins. Understanding the system is the first step. Applying each retailer's requirements consistently is what keeps merchandise moving efficiently from the dock to the sales floor. 

Want More Retailer-Specific Guides? Check These Out 

De voordelen van AI en e-commerce voor de detailhandel

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De afgelopen twintig jaar is de wereld steeds meer online gaan opereren. Van leveranciers die een groot deel van hun activiteiten naar e-commerce hebben verplaatst tot de opkomst van retailers die gebruikmaken van kunstmatige intelligentie (AI), een succesvolle supply chain moet zich aanpassen aan online- en automatiseringstrends om te kunnen overleven.

Nu de verschuiving naar AI en e-commerce de supply chain hervormt, moeten retailers en leveranciers deze kans aangrijpen om hun bedrijf verder te versterken.

Voordat we ingaan op de details van hoe retailers en leveranciers AI kunnen inzetten om hun bedrijf te laten groeien, zullen we eerst enkele belangrijke termen definiëren:

Met de opkomst van AI verandert e-commerce. Retailers en leveranciers moeten niet alleen vertrouwen op SEO, maar ook gebruikmaken van AiEO. Dit betekent dat retailers en leveranciers AI gebruiken door middel van:

Hoe kunnen retailers en leveranciers AI gebruiken om hun bedrijf te verbeteren?

E-commerce heeft de supply chain al stormenderhand veroverd, en retailers en leveranciers die zich hebben aangepast om e-commerce in hun bedrijf op te nemen, hebben een voorsprong gekregen. Tijdens de COVID-19-pandemie bijvoorbeeld maakten e-commerce-opties het verschil tussen een bloeiend bedrijf en een failliet bedrijf.

E-commerce is een vast onderdeel van de supply chain, maar blijft zich ontwikkelen met de opkomst van AI. Nu klanten die AI gebruiken om te winkelen steeds meer mainstream worden, is het voor retailers en leveranciers noodzakelijk geworden om zich aan te passen en AI in hun voordeel te gebruiken.

Walmart en Target hebben onlangs beide een samenwerking met OpenAI aangekondigd, waardoor klanten bij beide retailers rechtstreeks via ChatGPT kunnen winkelen. Dit is slechts één manier waarop retailers AI kunnen gebruiken. Andere manieren waarop zowel retailers als leveranciers AI kunnen inzetten voor hun bedrijf zijn:

Sommige leveranciers en retailers maken gebruik van AI door middel van winkelassistentie en agentische winkelpuien, wat een unieke invloed heeft op de verkooptrends en de vraagplanning.

AI-winkelassistentie en agentische winkelpuien

Rufus van Amazon en Sparky van Walmart zijn twee voorbeelden van hoe retailers AI inzetten als onderdeel van hun e-commerceactiviteiten. Rufus en Sparky zijn zelfontwikkelde AI's waarmee e-commerceklanten rechtstreeks op de website van de retailer kunnen chatten om hen te helpen de producten te vinden die ze zoeken. Walmart kan door zijn samenwerking met ChatGPT en zijn investering in Sparky AI zowel binnen als buiten zijn e-commercewinkel gebruiken.

Agentic storefronts, zoals Shopify, stellen grote retailers in staat om hun producten te promoten waar klanten ook met AI communiceren. Shopify is specifiek verbonden met ChatGPT, Copilot en Perplexity. Via Shopify bepalen leveranciers wat, hoe en waar hun producten in AI-chats verschijnen.

Nu reclame zich niet langer beperkt tot zoekmachineresultaten, maar ook via AI-chatbots wordt verspreid, is dit een belangrijke manier voor leveranciers om ervoor te zorgen dat hun producten op alle fronten onder de aandacht van consumenten komen.

Uitdagingen voor AI-shopping en agentische winkels

Een grote uitdaging waarmee leveranciers en retailers te maken kunnen krijgen bij de implementatie van AI-shopping of agentische winkels, is het waarborgen van de nauwkeurigheid van productgegevens. Onnauwkeurige gegevens kunnen ertoe leiden dat AI-chatbots onjuiste productinformatie aan klanten verstrekken.

Naarmate klanten steeds meer vertrouwen op chatbots voor online winkelen, wordt verkeerde informatie onmiddellijk zichtbaar voor de consument, wat leidt tot een gebrek aan vertrouwen in de producten die de retailer en/of leverancier probeert te promoten. Bovendien kunnen retailers en leveranciers, wanneer klanten de onjuiste informatie niet onmiddellijk opmerken, een stijging van het aantal retourzendingen zien, omdat klanten het product kopen om er vervolgens achter te komen dat het niet is wat ze zochten.

AI is niet alleen een trend; het versnelt de supply chain sneller dan retailers en leveranciers kunnen bijbenen. Om AI te gebruiken om aan de vraag te voldoen, zijn schone en verbonden gegevens nodig. AI-functies werken alleen zo goed als de gegevens die ze verwerken. Retailers en leveranciers moeten AI niet implementeren omwille van AI, maar moeten AI gebruiken om met en voor hen te werken in de echte wereld van de supply chain.

SPS Commerce heeft AI geïntegreerd in zijn kernoplossingen om ervoor te zorgen dat retailers en leveranciers voorop blijven lopen in het digitale tijdperk. Door AI in te zetten voor vraagvoorspelling, operationele efficiëntie, automatisering van compliance en realtime data-analyse, stelt SPS Commerce bedrijven in staat hun supply chains te optimaliseren en zich aan te passen aan veranderende markttrends.

Supplier Relationship Management: The UK and Irish Supplier Playbook

What Is Supplier Relationship Management From the Supplier Side?

Supplier relationship management (SRM) is usually described as something retailers do. They segment suppliers, score performance, and decide who gets preferential ranging, promotional slots, and better trading terms.

Suppliers manage relationships too. The difference is that supplier-side SRM tends to be reactive: a chargeback arrives, a scorecard conversation happens, a compliance issue surfaces. By then, the relationship is already under strain.

Proactive supplier relationship management reverses that sequence. Suppliers who do it well treat the retailer relationship as something to maintain actively, not respond to. They track their own performance before the retailer does. They communicate exceptions before the buyer has to ask. They keep their data accurate and their operations consistent, quarter after quarter.

Suppliers who operate this way protect their shelf position, stay in the conversation for commercial opportunities, and build credibility that strengthens over time.

Which Metrics UK Retailers Use to Score Their Suppliers

UK and Irish grocery retailers score suppliers on three core areas. Performance in these shapes ranging decisions, promotional access, and trading terms:

The percentage of ordered units delivered on time and in full. OTIF sits at the centre of most retailer scorecards across the UK market. A sustained pattern of missed OTIF targets is one of the fastest routes to a difficult commercial conversation with a buyer.

Invoices that don't match purchase orders, late or missing dispatch advice messages (DESADV), and incorrect product data each generate exceptions, chargebacks, and deductions. The hours spent resolving chargebacks and deductions are hours not spent growing the account.

How consistently a supplier meets the retailer's current specifications: document formats, submission windows, labelling requirements. Major UK retailers update their requirements independently.

 found that invoice discrepancy resolution and forecasting accuracy are the most common issues raised by suppliers against major UK retailers.

 The causes are operational, and so are the solutions.

What Proactive Supplier Compliance Looks Like Day-to-Day

Suppliers who score consistently well with UK and Irish retailers share a set of habits. Individually, each one is straightforward. Together, they define how a retailer experiences working with you.

Supply Chain Visibility and Supplier Management Tools

Scaling supplier relationship management requires 

: knowing what is happening across all trading partner connections at once, not just the accounts with the most volume or the most recent problems.

Most suppliers start with manual processes:

For a small number of accounts, that works. As the retailer base grows, the gaps between those processes become gaps in performance.

The right supplier management tools consolidate this. They surface exceptions before orders are affected, track compliance requirements centrally, and apply retailer spec updates automatically rather than leaving them in an internal queue.

SPS Commerce does this through a managed trading partner network that maintains live connections to major UK and Irish retailers. When a retailer updates a spec, connected suppliers get the change before it affects live transactions, without a manual update or internal IT work.

Choosing Supplier Relationship Management Software for UK and Irish Retail

Supplier relationship management software for UK and Irish suppliers needs to handle a specific kind of complexity: multiple retail accounts, each with its own EDI requirements, each updated at different times through different channels.

Generic tools handle data exchange. Managed supplier relationship management software carries the spec knowledge of the retailers themselves. That distinction shapes how much ongoing maintenance stays with your internal team after go-live.

When a UK retailer updates their DESADV specification, a supplier on a managed network gets the change applied before it hits live transactions. The compliance knowledge lives in the network, not in a change request backlog.

SPS Commerce manages more than 300,000 trading connections, including major UK and Irish retailers. When retailer specs change, connected suppliers get the update automatically, without a change request or internal IT work.

For suppliers growing their retailer base, that has a compounding effect. Onboarding a new retail account through the SPS network is faster than building the connection from scratch, because the spec knowledge for that retailer already exists in the network. The same applies when existing retailers revise their requirements: the change is applied centrally, and connected suppliers stay compliant without tracking every update themselves.

Predictability Pays Off: The Hidden Cost of Order Volatility

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Retail used to win with speed, selection, and the ability to pivot fast. If you could respond quickly to trends, you would stay ahead. Companies that responded to trends quickly and moved inventory efficiently usually had the advantage. Today, retailers are finding that stability matters just as much as speed.

Demand now swings in sharper, less predictable cycles. Transportation costs fluctuate week to week, and labor availability changes month to month. Even with that uncertainty, retailers and suppliers are still expected to execute with remarkable precision.

Today, many teams spend as much time managing volatility as they do responding to demand. In that environment, predictability becomes a strategic asset. And across the market, retailers are already making the shift:  

In short, retailers are now engineering calm. The shift toward steadier, data-driven operations is clear. Yet even as supply chains become more resilient, one quiet destabilizer remains: 

The mid-cycle adjustments, delayed acknowledgments, quantity edits and shipment updates that happen after a truck is already rolling may seem minor on their own, but together they’re costly. They disrupt planning, confuse systems, slow execution and quietly drain cash, undermining the very stability retailers are working to build. And they happen every day, often unnoticed and almost always underestimated. 

When SPS Network Intelligence examined the real movement of orders across the retail network, the pattern became impossible to ignore. The analysis covered 

.2 million purchase orders, 4.8 million associated documents, and $9.7 billion in merchandise volume, which is a scale large enough to reveal where volatility starts, how it spreads and what it ultimately costs. 

Across that dataset, one signal cut through: order volatility is far more common, and far more expensive, than most teams realize. 

The findings were consistent across categories and order types: 

Every small change, whether a timing update or a line-level edit, creates a series of downstream ripple effects: delayed shipments, mismatched inventory, extended dwell times and lost sales opportunities. 

A single mid-cycle adjustment can trigger rework across ERP, WMS, transportation, and store systems. As one retail operations leader put it: “A single delayed PO can freeze a week’s worth of sales and tie up millions in inventory.” 

Volatility doesn’t just slow down one order. It compounds across the network, introducing friction at every handoff and silently pulling performance, liquidity and customer experience in the wrong direction. 

Explore the complete findings in our on-demand webinar:

What order volatility is and how it drives cost  

Volatility is a financial issue. At its core, order volatility is the variation or fluctuation that occurs throughout a purchase order’s lifecycle: timing updates, quantity edits, line-level changes or shipment corrections. These shifts often seem routine, but they introduce uncertainty at every step. And uncertainty creates rework, delays and added cost. 

Volatility can originate from multiple touchpoints: 

Each update triggers a downstream chain reaction. A single header-level change may force multiple revisions across ERP, WMS, carrier or 

. That rework absorbs time, slows decision-making and reduces the predictability of both shipments and inventory placement. SPS Network Intelligence found that even minor fluctuations compound as they move through the network, lengthening cycle times and increasing operational strain. 

How volatility impacts financial performance 

The financial impact is equally clear. When orders change mid-cycle, inventory spends more time in transition, tying up cash and extending the cash conversion cycle. Carrying costs (often 20–30% of inventory value) rise as goods sit idle or move inconsistently. 

Teams lean on expedited transportation to recover lost time. Missed windows introduce penalties, 

Across $9.7 billion in analyzed order volume, SPS identified more than $600 million in merchandise value exposed to volatility risk. The pattern is direct: the more an order changes, the more value is put at risk. 

This is why predictability matters more now than ever. In a market defined by thin margins, tight schedules, and unpredictable demand, stability looks like liquidity, profitability, and resilience. 

Volatility has become a direct threat to profitability, especially as margins shrink and demand grows more erratic. What used to be minor exceptions now trigger downstream delays, stranded inventory and costly last-minute workarounds.  

The retailers making progress have one advantage: earlier visibility into when, where and why orders are changing. With that clarity, they plan better, react faster, and prevent issues before they spread. 

Predictability strengthens execution by improving visibility across the PO lifecycle, reducing shipment mismatches, sharpening cash-flow accuracy and enabling clearer retailer–supplier communication. Unpredictable orders do the opposite — slowing goods midstream, weakening forecasts and compounding cost across the network. 

Leading organizations counter volatility by focusing on a few core habits: 

These behaviors are part of a broader journey toward operational maturity. Most retailers progress through four stages of predictability, moving from reactive processes to more stable, data-driven execution. Each stage builds greater visibility, reduces variance, and strengthens financial performance, especially in high-volatility environments.  

Organizations that reach predictive maturity consistently see 12–18% better on-time delivery and 20–30% faster acknowledgment cycles, leading to fewer surprises, faster turns and stronger liquidity. 

Order volatility is the subtle force undermining even the best-built supply chains. Small changes ripple into delays, deductions, and trapped cash which end up costing far more than most teams realize.  

Leaders who take volatility seriously are already seeing the difference: fewer surprises, stronger turns, higher OTIF, and more confident planning.  

In a market defined by tight margins and unstable demand, predictability pays off, every single time.  

Learn more with the predictability pays off analysis 

Explore the research, data, and frameworks behind these findings in our new analysis, 

Predictability Pays Off

The Benefits of AI and eCommerce for Retail

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The world has been moving increasingly online for the better part of the last two decades. From suppliers moving large percentages of their business to e-commerce, to the rise in retailers tapping into artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, a successful supply chain must adjust to online and automation trends in order to survive. 

As the shift towards AI and e-commerce reshapes the supply chain, retailers and suppliers should use this opportunity to strengthen their business moving forward. 

Before jumping into the details of how retailers and suppliers can leverage AI to grow their business, let’s define some key terms: 

With the rise of AI, e-commerce is changing. Retailers and suppliers must depend on more than just SEO but also leverage AiEO. This looks like retailers and suppliers utilizing AI through:  

How Can Retailers and Suppliers Use AI to Benefit Their Business? 

E-commerce has already taken the supply chain by storm, and retailers and suppliers who have adjusted to include e-commerce in their business have gotten a leg up. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce options were the difference between a business thriving or going under. 

E-commerce is a well-established part of the supply chain, but it is continuing to evolve with the rise of AI. As customers using AI to shop becomes more mainstream, it has become necessary for retailers and suppliers to adapt and utilize AI to their advantage. 

 have both recently announced partnerships with OpenAI, which will allow customers to shop at both retailers directly through ChatGPT. This is just one way in which retailers can utilize AI. Some other ways that both retailers and suppliers can leverage AI for their business are: 

Some suppliers and retailers are leveraging AI through shopping assistance and agentic storefronts, which is having its own unique impact on sales trends and demand planning. 

AI Shopping Assistance and Agentic Storefronts 

Amazon’s Rufus and Walmart’s Sparky are two examples of how retailers are leveraging AI as part of their e-commerce business. Rufus and Sparky are home-built AIs that e-commerce customers can chat with directly on the retailer’s website to help them find the products they are looking for. For Walmart specifically, by its partnership with ChatGPT and its investment in Sparky, it is able to leverage AI both within and outside of its e-commerce storefront. 

Agentic storefronts, such as with Shopify, allow major retailers to promote their products wherever customers are conversing with AI. Shopify is specifically connected with ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity. Through Shopify, suppliers dictate what, how, and where their products appear in AI chats.  

With advertising moving beyond search engine results to AI chatbots, this is an important way suppliers can ensure their products are getting in front of consumers on all fronts. 

Challenges to AI Shopping and Agentic Storefronts 

One major challenge that suppliers and retailers might face in implementing AI shopping or agentic storefronts is ensuring that item data is accurate. Inaccurate data could lead to AI chatbots offering incorrect product information to customers.  

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