It’s no secret that retail is undergoing some pretty big changes and will undoubtedly see even more significant shifts in the coming years. While most people are extolling the impact of digitization on retail, there is, in my opinion, a very fundamental and profound shift underway.

The shift is to the EACH supply chain.

Supply chain efficiency is about density. Filling up trucks, planes and trains. Delivering bigger orders. Driving the unit handling cost down. Makes sense and for any retailer, having a reasonable and competitive cost structure is important.

The world, however, is changing. Two major shifts are driving us towards the EACH supply chain – customer expectations and product proliferation/marketing.

Most retail supply chain professionals gained their supply chain knowledge in the world of logistics. It was about moving boxes and cases between facilities. Many, even to this day, don’t really consider the store part of the supply chain. They’ve been conditioned to be content once the product leaves a facility, destined to a store. And measures, to date, reflected that. Fill rates were measured and reported on based on if orders left a facility on time and in full.

It’s only relatively recently that retail supply chain executives began to measure store in-stock and, sometimes, on-shelf availability. Try to find a retailer that measures and reports on store inventory accuracy? It’s a tough search. Yet, having an accurate on-hand balance at store level is becoming more and more a necessity – not only to deliver an excellent customer experience but, importantly, to enable the supply chain to perform, particularly in an omni-channel world.

Retail supply chain thinking, however, needs to extend beyond the store. It needs to, and does, include the customer. The customer is now empowered – armed with finger-tip product and delivery knowledge and their expectations are on the rise.

Customers buy in EACHes, not cases – whether in store, or online and, as we all know, online volume is increasing and that trend will likely continue. Meaning, of course, that the retail supply chain needs to be re-thought and re-architected to deliver in EACH.

When omni-channel was in its infancy, many retailers set up a dedicated distribution centre (DC) to process and fulfill online orders. DC’s, however, traditionally don’t deal with EACHes very well. Combine that with the cost of home delivery and omni-channel fulfillment has been, to date, a losing proposition for most retailers.

Retailers have traditionally set their shelf configurations to hold more than a case quantity and have set their replenishment strategy such that once the on hand balance reaches a minimum level, then an additional case can be ordered to, hopefully, flow directly to and fit on the shelf.

The problem is that all these cases take up too much space and inventory and, often, the arrival of a case of a specific product results in enough inventory to last for weeks and sometimes months. What retailers are beginning to realize is that if they can flow product closer to the EACH rate in which they are demanded, more products can fit on the shelf and be available in the store for presentation to customers.

It’s hard enough for retailers to encourage and entice customers to shop in store and one way is to increase the breadth of assortment – along, of course, with making the shopping experience unique, entertaining and fun.

Marketing and advertising is also evolving to an EACH philosophy and that’s also pressuring the retail supply chain to be EACH-capable. The proliferation of mobile device ads and offers are targeted specifically to people based on data and learnings from individual consumers shopping and search habits. The result? Further demands in EACHes.

Product proliferation is also necessitating the EACH supply chain. The “endless aisle”, as it’s sometimes called, is upon us, and think about the number of possible products available for purchase from Amazon, or on the web in general – it’s staggering and, again, will only increase.

Amazon, of course, is the poster-child of the EACH supply chain. Think about what they’ve been up to over their 20 years of existence. Making online shopping as easy and seamless as possible, while slowly and steadily moving fulfillment closer and closer to the consumer – reducing times and costs in the process. Inherently they understood and have shaped the thinking towards the EACH supply chain and continue to work to reduce costs and, more importantly, cycle times and customer friction.

As customers shift more of their consumption to online this necessitates thinking and designing the flow of inventory from supply to consumer. What’s emerging as a viable model is for retailers to leverage the store to deliver to the customer – either by encouraging/rewarding for picking up in store, or by delivering from store to home.

On the planning front, Flowcasting should be considered a foundational process to facilitate and enable the EACH supply chain. Given many retailers will evolve to delivering the EACH demand from store level, then it’s logical and sensible to plan the total consumer demand from store level. Some of the sales in the store will be through the cash register, some by customer pick-up and still others by shipping from store to home.

Regardless, it’s still a sale and this sales history would be used, in aggregate, at store level to forecast future consumer demand for that store/supply point. Since Flowcasting re-forecasts and re-plans the entire supply chain daily, shifts in demand are quickly assessed, and translated into meaningful plans for all partners in the retail supply chain.

Retail and retail supply chains are undergoing massive changes. I believe that, at the heart of this transformation, is the shift to the EACH supply chain.

Of course, you may not agree and that’s cool.

After all, as the old saying goes – to EACH their own.