Physical store registers updated stock levels during end-of-day batch processing, leaving online inventory counts out of sync for up to twenty-four hours. This lag caused frequent e-commerce overselling, forcing customer support teams to cancel hundreds of orders weekly. Furthermore, store managers could not fulfill online orders from local inventory, inflating regional shipping costs.
Unifying Omnichannel Inventory Across 50 Retail Stores and Digital Channels
An apparel brand operating fifty physical retail locations and a growing direct-to-consumer e-commerce storefront needed to eliminate inventory discrepancies between stores and online channels.
Challenge
Solution
FlipWorks engineered a real-time event-driven inventory middleware platform. We connected store POS registers and warehouse management databases to a centralized event bus built on Redis and PostgreSQL. The system processes inventory change events instantly and pushes updated stock counts to web and mobile storefronts via webhooks.
Result
- Eliminated online overselling and order cancellations caused by delayed inventory updates.
- Enabled Ship-from-Store capabilities across all fifty retail locations, reducing regional shipping costs.
- Accelerated inventory reconciliation cycles from daily batch runs to sub-second updates across all sales channels.