It is not necessary for us to see empty shelves in supermarkets again to know that something is changing in the mass consumption supply chain. The impact of the pandemic boosted e-commerce and consolidated a new omnichannel purchasing model that requires the availability of products in multiple distribution channels.
This challenge hides, in reality, something much deeper. We are witnessing the birth of a new buyer profile, with other habits and interests, which is reformulating consumption and which demands the immediate readjustment of manufacturers, retailers and logistics operators to adapt the supply chain to a generational change in the consumer market. .
What changes will prevail in mass consumption?
A PwC report lists five of the big trends that will reshape stores as we know them today and that will imply changes in consumption:
- Full information available for the customer. Consumers will have more and more technological tools available to access much more exhaustive information about products and find out, for example, the number of stocks in a certain establishment.
- Personalized offer for each customer. The moment a customer enters a supermarket or clothing store, they will receive notifications of offers tailored to their shopping habits to influence their behavior.
- New forms of payment. Biometric payment services, such as facial recognition, will end up prevailing in establishments to speed up payment as much as possible.
- More added value in sales. Customers who decide to go physically to establishments will do so in search of experiences other than those provided by e-commerce, so retailers must offer added value in their operations.
- Robots in stores. Automation will have a full impact on our consumption model and robots will be increasingly integrated into establishments to control inventory, help us select the purchase or for home delivery.
How will consumer logistics respond to this transformation?
Different studies carried out by international consultancies, such as McKinsey or Deloitte, agree that this new consumption model will imply a technological leap in the supply chain, in which manufacturers, businesses and, of course, logistics operators are involved. These are five of the main challenges that consumer logistics will have to respond to in the future:
- Comprehensive monitoring. Sales through different channels will mean greater complexity in inventory control, so more efficient management will be key, with precise knowledge of the location, inventory status and movement of stocks, as well as an accurate insight into customer demand.
- An autonomous supply chain. Logistics operations will be connected with the rest of the departments of the manufacturing or distributing company, with better information and a greater volume of data, so that the supply chain can operate more autonomously and more flexibly, making "smart" decisions related to procurement, production, storage and logistics.
- Knowing customer demand. Consumers will be at the center and the supply chain will focus its strategy on them. Technology will make it possible to detect and link supply and demand, collect data on consumers and use this information to improve logistics operations.
- More transparency throughout the entire chain. Technological digitization will provide total transparency of the supply chain, which will allow acting with greater knowledge in areas such as corporate responsibility and sustainability, since companies will have full monitoring of the chain of custody of a product.
- Process automation. Companies will increase their commitment to automating their storage and order preparation processes to respond to the growing volume of omnichannel purchases and a more demanding consumer for whom delivery times are increasingly decisive.
The cooperation of all the actors, key to consumer logistics
Rhenus Group has become one of the main logistics providers in the consumer goods market and is the partner of manufacturers and retailers in sectors such as food, cosmetics, drugstore or fashion, among many others.
This experience has allowed us to accumulate great specialization in the needs of an industry "that demands very defined logistics and transport characteristics, with fluctuating volumes and that require flexible and uninterrupted process dynamics", as Andreu Gutiérrez, Country Sales Director Road of Rhenus Logistics in Spain, points out.
In his opinion, "the great pending challenge for the consumer goods sector is technological and from Rhenus we are firmly committed to the adoption of new tools to be a benchmark in logistics innovation for this market".
Andreu Gutiérrez highlights a second factor that he considers decisive in guaranteeing the success of the supply chain in this market: cooperation between manufacturers, retailers and logistics operators. "We are witnessing an era of transversal changes to the entire consumption model, which are redefining both the structure of physical stores and the manufacturing model or stock needs, so it is essential to work together with all the links to guarantee a complete transformation, which fully responds to the new consumer demands”, concludes the director of Rhenus Logistics in Spain.