How do I improve product availability in the online shop?

Overview: Supplier

Table of Contents

Alongside the price, one of the most important purchase criteria is how quickly a product can be delivered. That is why we attach particular importance to ensuring that our business partners meet the specified delivery dates. This is the only way to ensure that our customers, and thus also the end customers of your products, are not disappointed and that a long-term customer relationship can be established. The display of product availability in our online store is automatically calculated based on past data and should give our customers as accurate a picture as possible of the expected delivery time. The date range (outlined in red below) shows customers when they can expect the order.

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Observation period

Depending on your individual size, the model chooses a suitable period to measure your deliveries. For partners with many deliveries, it is sufficient to look at the deliveries from the last two weeks, while for smaller partners with few deliveries, we look up to two months or even further into the past to obtain enough data for a statistically significant statement.

Measurement

For each delivered position in this period, the delivery time is measured. How this measurement is done is explained in the next section.

Data cleaning

Outliers and odd cases are excluded from the database.

Weighting

Positions that lie further in the past or are considered by the model to be more unreliable than others (e.g. positions with missing tracking data) are weighted less heavily.

Availability display in the online shop

This data is then used to determine the availability of your products.
For goods that are shipped from your warehouse, we normally show the customer the 50th - 98th percentile.
This means that if your products are displayed in the online shop in e.g. 2-5 days, we know that 50% of the customer will receive their order within 2 days and 98% within 5 days.

Exception percentiles

If your 50th and 98th percentiles differ greatly (i.e. you have very different delivery times per item), the model will trim the data again to percentiles that are closer together. In this way, we avoid showing the end customer nonsensical information such as «You will receive the product between 1-30 days». Such exceptional percentiles could be, for example:

• 80th to 96th percentile

• 85th to 98th percentile

• etc.

Measurement for warehouse deliveries

We start measuring the delivery duration as soon as we have transmitted the order. The calculation is completed as soon as the order has been delivered to our incoming goods department at the respective locations and accepted.

Measurement for direct deliveries

For deliveries from your warehouse directly to the end customer, we calculate as follows:

• EDI
  We start counting the delivery days as soon as the order has been transmitted by us. The end point of the delivery period is the arrival at the end customer, for this the delivery date is read from the tracking information, which is determined from the Dispatch Notification (DELR).

• Manually via CMI
  If you have not automated the dispatch notification via EDI as described above, the arrival at the end customer is also taken as the end point of the delivery duration calculation. For this purpose, the delivery date is read from the tracking information that you specify in the CMI when sending the order.
  If you do not specify a tracking number, the time at which you set the status of the order item in the CMI to «shipped» is read instead, a flat rate of a few days (these vary depending on the destination country) is added for shipping. In the automatic offer selection, preference is given to partners who specify tracking numbers.

As a partner, you have several options to shorten your delivery time. One option is to ship the ordered goods immediately. Order items should in no case be held back and collected. Consequently, a list of other measures to optimise the measured delivery time.

Order days (days)

Among other things, the order days control the product availability display in the online store. The stored order days are very important because in our calculation we assume that you can receive and process the order(s) on these days. We have the possibility to configure an order day every day (Monday to Friday). More order days, therefore, mean a better availability display in the online store.

Order time (time)

The order time is the time at which we transmit our orders to you. The order time agreed with you is recorded in the Galaxus ERP and should be defined in such a way that after receiving the order, you can still prepare the products and hand them over to the carrier on the same day. After exceeding the order time, the days until the next order day are added to the availability display. A later order time, therefore, results in a slightly better availability display during the day. If required, several order times per order day can be stored.

Carrier / Dispatch partner

In addition to the order days and order times, close coordination with your shipping partner is required to ensure short delivery times. It should be clear to your forwarding agents that notification for delivery is necessary at our locations. Deliveries without a reserved timeslot will be rejected, and the carrier would have to re-register a timeslot and deliver the order, resulting in a worsened delivery time.

Stock data

One of the most important factors besides a good price is correct stock data (stock levels). Stock data that is always kept up to date enables almost accurate shopping and does not lead to any additional manual effort on either side. If the intervals between updates are set too large, the quantities ordered may no longer match your current stock levels. This leads to delayed delivery positions, which worsens the delivery time. Accordingly, it is important to have a high frequency of stock transmission: the more frequent, the better. If Galaxus orders goods for which they do not supply stock, these are excluded from the delivery duration calculation.

Restock Date, Restock Time

Using the stock data, we can read more detailed information about your stock into our system with two additional columns: «Restock Date» or «Restock Time». With the «Restock Date» you can give us a date, with the «Restock Time» it is the number of days until you expect another delivery. Either «Restock Time» or «Restock Date» can be implemented - it is technically not possible to implement both at the same time.

The availability display in the online store uses the «Restock Date» you specified and adds the delivery time. Just as with the stock data, it is important to specify Restock Dates and Restock Times as correctly as possible, since an overly optimistic specification will lead to a deterioration of the delivery time calculated for you in the long term.

• Restock Date
  The Restock Date allows you to give Galaxus an accurate indication of upcoming deliveries. Important: If you do not have a product in stock (0), but you expect an upcoming delivery of X pieces, you can give us this information via Restock Date so that our system can access it and place an order based on it.
  All options for optimizing availability and order processing can be found here: 1 Data Preparation Stage 1 | FILE STRUCTURE STOCKDATA

• Restock Time
  With the Restock Time option, you give our system a replenishment or provisioning time in work days. As with Restock Date, you can specify to our system so that automated orders will occur if you are not currently submitting stock to us.

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