As COVID-19 Shifts Consumer Demand, Inventory Management Must Go Granular

Although many parts of the country are emerging from COVID-19 shutdowns, government and health officials anticipate that localized outbreaks could continue to impact retail operations in specific geographic locations going forward.

During the pandemic, consumers have adopted new habits that affect where and how often they will shop as restrictions ease. In grocery, for example, consumers shopped at fewer physical stores and bought more during each trip during the shutdown, according to FMI’s tracking of COVID-19 grocery shopping trends. Consumers also did more online purchasing, and although it’s too soon to know how much of that spending will come back to physical stores in the coming months, some experts believe there will be a permanent shift in favor of e-Commerce.

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About the Contributor

About the Contributor

Bhrugu leads our Technology Services group advising clients on technology strategy and implementation with responsibility for the development of technology products, services, and solutions that enable AArete client service teams worldwide to drive client performance improvement and digital transformation programs. He directs an international team of designers, technologists, and MBAs in building and integrating commercial and open-source platforms in analytics, data engineering/big data, data science, custom application development, and UX/UI design.