The retail distribution business is a very essential aspect of retail. This is the supply of products to retail centers. This can be via direct store delivery or via a distributor’s supply. Direct store delivery is the supply from the manufacturer to the point of retail while the distributor’s supply is that line that consists of the distributor.

The retailer is the player in the supply chain that sells to customers. Getting the product to the retail outlet is not something that can be done without proper planning and strategy. Here are some essential things in retail distribution that you may need to be concerned about.

Distributed Order Management

Distributed order management systems are designed to intelligently arrange orders across the multiple systems and processes utilized by the parties involved in replenishing an order. The best way to achieve this is to provide a single, global view of all available inventory, to source the line item components of each order with purpose and consideration, ensuring that the business can meet both current and future demand while optimizing inventory, logistics, and asset utilization.

Warehouse Management and Execution Systems

These are computerized systems used in distribution operations (Logistics) and are functionally equivalent to a manufacturing execution system. Distribution operations are a form of a manufacturing operation that receive, store and track inbound material and then select and combine (assemble) various materials to form a finished product, order, or shipment. Features of a warehouse management and execution systems track and control work process. The software organizes, sequences, and synchronizes work resources to complete the assembly and shipment of finished product.

Autonomous Robots

This is a robot that performs behaviors or tasks with a high degree of autonomy. An autonomous robot such as a delivery robot is used for delivering goods. As of February 2017, there were several notable companies developing delivery robots. This can be very effective as less human labor is used in the delivery process. It can be cost effective in the long run as there is just purchase price and maintenance costs to be settled in the long run. More, due to the effectiveness of robots, the job can be better and faster done.

Augmented Reality

This is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real-world are “augmented” by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory, and olfactory. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive (i.e. additive to the natural environment) or destructive (i.e. masking of natural environment) and is seamlessly interwoven with the physical world such that it is perceived as an immersive aspect of the real environment.

The Future: Blockchain

A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved record cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks. This allows the participants to verify and audits transactions independently and relatively inexpensively. This can be very helpful for distribution data organization.