This consumer trend in technology purchasing up 12% over last year, and the total spend is expected to be up by over 6% to reach $18.5 billion this year.
Calculators, either basic or of scientific/graphing variety, will be in over half of tech shoppers’ back to school shopping baskets. While other tech products experience sales peaks around the holidays, calculators are decidedly not a typical stocking stuffer – the back to school season is by far the most significant spike in calculator sales all year.
Calculator manufacturers, in the midst of their most important sales period of the year, need to be managing their online inventory daily. With so many back to school shoppers planning to shop for calculators and other back to school supplies at an online retailer this year, winning the category includes outstanding online out-of-stock management.
Online Out-of-stock Management a Top Priority During Sales Peak
Being out-of-stock is problematic both online and off, but can have more profound and long-lasting effects on your electronics brand online. In physical stores, retailers typically carry four to six weeks of inventory versus only two to three online. An unexpected spike in demand or poor forecasting and inventory management all can put pressure on the low stocks of online stores.
On the physical shelf, if one product is out of stock, your brand’s full calculator assortment, shelved next to the out-of-stock item, offers a ready substitution. This isn’t the case online, where products are presented one at a time, catalogue-style, and your full calculator assortment may not make it into the shoppers’ line of sight as they ponder a substitution for your out-of-stock calculator.
At many online retailers, your out-of-stock status will be noted on search results below your image and on your product page. At others that include products sold by marketplace sellers--such as Tesco.com/direct, Amazon, and Walmart.com--your item might appear in stock, your product page will include all of your beautiful product page content, but the buy box will be controlled by a marketplace seller who will win the sale when a shopper selects the item.
Long Term Online Out-of-Stock Impacts Can Be Worse Than a Few Lost Sales
The immediate loss of a sale is the obvious risk of being out-of-stock, but longer-term impacts can be more detrimental to your brand. In the medium term, out-of-stocks hurt your search rank. Many retailers take availability status and length of time out-of-stock into account when they determine search results. When shoppers research their calculator purchases, you will miss the chance to influence a future purchase since your product will be buried in search results and won’t be “on shelf” for shoppers until you address inventory outages and rebuild your search rank.
In the longer term, you risk being pulled altogether from online listings at stores concerned about poor inventory management. You also risk your brand integrity and brand loyalty, frustrating prospective buyers who are forced to choose between abandoning their cart to look for your item at another store and finding a substitutable product, potentially losing their loyalty for good.
How Top Back to School Categories Can Manage Online Out-of-Stocks
Given the high seasonality of calculators around the back to school shopping season, calculator brand, and other brands that experience peak sales during the back to school shopping period, must be strategic about inventory management by following these steps:
- Understand what product availability outages mean across online stores to understand the different levels of risk and how to prioritize. How can shoppers tell an item is out-of-stock? Can they be notified when an item is back in stock? Are substitutions presented on the product page? Are there marketplace items that win the buy box when a brand’s item is out of stock?
- Track product availability across store and geographies daily. Monitor online inventory consistently so that you are able to react quickly to outages, especially during foreseeable demand spikes like back to school season.
- Be prepared to react quickly to online out-of-stocks. Have a plan in place for how to address issues immediately, particularly for your top selling items. Knowing that your search results can be impacted by out-of-stocks, have a plan in place to take remedial action and build your search ranking back up to its former glory.
- Use availability data to better partner with online stores. Daily availability data can be a useful tool in joint business planning between brands and retailers. Traditionally, brand Sales teams negotiate availability commitments with physical stores, often in the realm of 95% availability, and can hold stores to task. Monitoring online availability closely, brands and online retailers can align on availability levels and hold each other accountable to those agreements.
