Endless Aisle in Retail: Expand Assortment Without More Inventory

Many people have experienced the irritation of showing up at a retailer to purchase an item, only to realize it has been sold out already. If the supply of goods is unreliable, no matter if you shop at a discount store or a local butcher, customers may drift to other stores. For this reason, endless aisle retail is an essential approach.

Since retailers have many different options for products, their customers can get exactly what they need whenever they visit a store or shop online. If you give them a straightforward service, they might not consider other companies and can become more loyal to your brand.

There are times in online shopping when we find a small collection of goods available or discover that some products are never there, which can make us change stores.

In today’s retail landscape, store space is limited, but customer expectations are limitless. Shoppers want variety, convenience, and the ability to get the exact product they want, whether it’s physically on the shelf or not. That’s where the endless aisle comes in.

By bridging the gap between in-store and online products, the endless aisle lets retailers offer products from their suppliers, even if they’re not physically stocked in the store. 

“Upon visiting a store and finding a product they want is out of stock, 17% of U.S. online adults say they would use their mobile devices to make an immediate purchase at a competitor’s website; 37% say they will buy that item from an online retailer when they get home, and 35% say they will just go to a different store to buy it.” - Forrester Research

As retailers, losing your customer base can be mitigated by offering a unified shopping experience online and in-store. An omnichannel approach to retail has quickly become integral to remaining in today’s competitive climate, especially as larger retailers have openly embraced omnichannel experiences.

To keep up with the experiences these larger stores have started to present to their customers, an endless aisle model for your customers can help them find what they need through your e-commerce pages or brick-and-mortar locations.

What is an Endless Aisle? 

Endless aisles in retail are designed to expand the range of products available to customers by allowing you to offer more than what is physically stocked in-store. The endless aisle refers to providing access to a broader selection of products that may not be in your inventory but can be ordered directly from suppliers or via special orders. This model enhances customer satisfaction by enabling them to purchase items that would typically be unavailable on-site.

Large retailers have taken notice of the vast potential of endless aisles present, using them to expand offerings beyond what they could normally carry in stores. Walmart Canada, for example, added 175 new third-party grocery sellers through their Walmart Canada grocery options back in 2021. This has allowed them to offer more niche options to their customers — and they’ve achieved major growth since implementation; grocery orders from their marketplace grew 6x from 2020, with increased average order sizes.

Adopting an endless aisle retail model allows retailers to expand their product offerings without overwhelming inventory, providing a wider selection to customers. This can be achieved through in-store kiosks or, more commonly, via a web store, offering convenience and the opportunity to meet customers’ specific needs.

In-Store Kiosks

A kiosk is used to display your organization’s entire catalog, which includes everything from products that might be in inventory but not on shelves, to products offered by your suppliers that you can put on special order. It relies on customer independence and self-discovery — much like a customer would have if they searched for their products online.

An example of how kiosks work for customers can be seen in the video from Walmart below.

The effectiveness of in-store kiosks comes from customers ordering items that Walmart might not necessarily have on hand. Due to their logistics ability, they’re able to get any specialty product their wide range of suppliers might have within 48 hours for pickup. This combination mixes their online shopping experience with their in-store experience to create a unified whole for their customers. 

Online Endless Aisles with Dropshipping

Dropshipping is the most well-known approach to an endless aisle model and the easiest to set up. It allows you to present all of your products online, including products you can put up for special order — all on your retail web store. Not only are you offering your products for sale, but you can also offer everything your suppliers and distributors have available, magnifying the chances your customers find what they’re looking for from you. 

With an online endless aisle model, your customers have everything they need at their fingertips. They can choose whether to pick up directly from your store or have purchases shipped directly to their door from your suppliers (under your branding).

How Endless Aisle Works in Retail

Endless aisle retail connects your physical store with a much larger digital catalog, giving shoppers access to every product in your extended inventory, even if it isn’t on the shelf. The model relies on endless aisle technology, which links your POS, eCommerce platform, ERP, and supplier systems so that product data, pricing, and stock levels stay synchronized in real time.

Here’s how the process typically works in modern retail environments:

1. Product Discovery: A customer visits your store and can’t find a product in stock. Using an in-store kiosk, associate tablet, or mobile app, they browse your full digital catalog powered by your endless aisle technology.
   
   
2. Order Placement: Once the item is found, the customer places the order directly through the kiosk or a sales associate. The endless aisle system sends that order to the right fulfillment source, either your warehouse, a partner store, or the supplier.
   
   
3. Order Fulfillment: The product ships from the selected location straight to the customer’s home or to your store for pickup. Because systems are connected through automation, there’s no manual data entry or re-keying.
   
   
4. Real-Time Synchronization: As the order is processed, the system automatically updates stock levels, invoices, and shipping information across your channels, ensuring accurate visibility for both staff and customers.

Endless Aisle Examples in Retail

A great example of endless aisles in action is Home Depot, where customers can use in-store kiosks to order items not available in the store and have them shipped to their homes. 

Similarly, Best Buy uses tablets and in-store apps to allow customers to view and purchase items that may not be available on the shop floor, providing the convenience of direct home delivery.

By adopting the endless aisle model, retailers can offer customers a wider selection of products, increase sales opportunities, and create a more seamless and enjoyable shopping experience, whether online or in-store.

The Benefits of Endless Aisles in Retail

Adopting the endless aisle retail model offers significant advantages to retailers looking to stay competitive and meet modern consumer expectations. Here are some key endless aisles benefits that can positively impact your business:

1. Higher sales volumes: By offering a broader product range, you increase the chances of customers purchasing directly from you instead of a competitor. Endless aisle technology enables you to expand your inventory without needing more in-store space. With more selection, customers are more likely to stay and complete their purchase, resulting in higher sales. Plus, the convenience of finding the exact product they want keeps them coming back. Walmart Canada expanded its assortment through endless aisles, growing grocery marketplace orders by 6x.
2. Customer retention: Provide a better shopping experience and retain more customers. If you have what your customers want, they’re more likely to remain loyal to your brand. With 50% of shoppers willing to go to your competitor if they can’t find the product, endless aisles can keep them coming back. 
3. Improved Operational Efficiency: With endless aisle technology, you avoid the need for excessive in-store inventories. Instead, products can be shipped directly from your suppliers, saving on storage and reducing overstocking. This leads to better inventory management, more efficient use of resources, and the ability to offer additional products without a large overhead.
4. Data collection: When you integrate an endless aisle through your eCommerce website or in-store kiosks, you gain valuable data about customer preferences. Tracking the demand for out-of-stock products helps you make smarter decisions about inventory. For example, if you’re a sporting goods retailer and notice a high demand for a specific jacket size or style, you may want to bring it into your store to meet that demand. This data-driven approach ensures you’re always aligned with what your customers want.
5. Broader Market Reach: Endless aisles also help you overcome the limitations of physical store space, allowing you to reach more customers. Whether via in-store kiosks or online platforms, you can offer a vast selection of products without the space restrictions of traditional retail models.
   
   

What Can Go Wrong with a DIY Endless Aisle

Let’s say you own a mid-sized electronics store and decide to implement an endless aisle to compete with some of the larger retailers. You decide to let your team handle this manually. Quickly, you become overwhelmed for three reasons:

1. You find that you need to manually track every one of your suppliers’ inventories consistently to update your online store. This requires manual changes to your shown inventory counts on your eCommerce sites whenever a product goes out of stock.
2. When a customer orders a product that isn’t in your store but is available through your supplier, you have to manually enter the order for them and wait for confirmation. If your supplier isn’t responsive, there’s a risk of delay or missing the order. Even when they do confirm, you risk delaying or missing the window for delivery entirely. This leads to unhappy customers waiting long periods for their specialty orders.
3. The manual reconciliation process of your orders, payments, and inventory levels now includes matching every online order with supplier invoices and updating your inventory system. This is a tedious process and requires meticulous attention to detail, all while hoping that no serious user errors are made. 

To avoid these situations, companies with successful endless aisle models integrate their POS systems with their suppliers, ERPs, and inventory management systems to automate the vast majority of work required for a true omnichannel approach.

The Challenge of Endless Aisles

To implement endless aisles, businesses need seamless integrations between in-store systems, online inventory, and supplier inventory. By far, the biggest challenge retailers face with endless aisles is the communication between them and their suppliers.

By adding endless aisles to your store, you’re adding another layer of logistical complexity. With them, companies have to start sending orders outside of a traditional schedule to meet consumer demand. This can quickly overwhelm any organization as inventory levels need to be tracked far more regularly, and order management processes need to be overhauled from the ground up to be more agile.

To make matters more complicated, endless aisles require a wide range of suppliers to get the most value. Adding new purchasing channels can be difficult for retail organizations, especially for piecemeal orders, due to the increase in backend complexity.

Traditional methods of order management and inventory keeping don’t work to make an effective endless aisle, as the labor required is too great. To simplify these issues, organizations must turn to order automation and connections between their POS systems and their suppliers.

An integrated POS can connect with order and inventory management systems, allowing your customers to order directly from your suppliers through you, and let you have accurate inventory counts. This simplifies the amount of work implementing an endless aisle system can be for your company, and provides better customer experiences.

Technology & Tools: Powering the Endless Aisle Experience

Manual methods simply can’t scale, especially when product catalogs expand and customer expectations for real-time availability and fast fulfillment increase.

This is where integration and automation become essential.

Integration Platforms

Integration Platforms as a Service (iPaaS) like MuleSoft, Zapier, and Dell Boomi help retailers connect disparate systems like POS, ERP, and online storefronts, without the need for custom code. These platforms act as middleware, facilitating smooth communication between your business applications and ensuring data flows consistently and in real time.

Inventory & Order Management Tools

Endless aisle execution requires clear visibility into both in-store and supplier inventory. Tools that centralize order management across channels are vital for preventing oversells, stockouts, and delays. The ability to sync data between warehouses, storefronts, and vendor systems ensures accurate availability and quicker delivery windows.

Simplifying Endless Aisles with OrderEase

Keeping your inventory, active sales, supplier inventories, and in-store systems doesn’t have to be a lot of work. Integrations and automation can save the day and make setting up your endless aisle easy.  By integrating your POS system with your vendors, you can place orders directly using one system, eliminating the need to swivel between multiple portals to order.

OrderEase connects your POS to your inventory management systems, ensuring an accurate inventory count (barring spoilage/damage/theft), and you can present it directly to your customers. OrderEase automates customer orders and sends your vendors clear shipping instructions, reducing manual steps and ensuring smooth fulfillment.

Endless Aisles Can Be For You

Endless aisles aren’t just a trend—they’re essential for staying competitive in modern retail, who want to stay competitive in an increasingly digital world. By offering a broader selection of products without the limitations of physical space, retailers can improve customer satisfaction, increase sales, and retain loyal shoppers. 

While the implementation of endless aisle retail does come with its challenges, such as logistical complexity and integration, the benefits far outweigh these hurdles. With the right technology, such as endless aisle technology and automated systems like OrderEase, retailers can streamline operations, enhance the shopping experience, and position themselves as leaders in omnichannel retailing. 

Embracing the endless aisle model today will not only help you meet current consumer expectations but also provide a foundation for long-term growth and success in an ever-evolving retail landscape.

Book a demo with OrderEase today.

FAQs

How does endless aisle technology improve the retail shopping experience?

Endless aisle technology expands product availability by allowing customers to browse and purchase items that are out of stock in-store. This enhances the retail experience by giving customers more options without the limitations of physical inventory. It also reduces the likelihood of losing sales to competitors, as customers can easily place orders for unavailable products. With real-time access to inventory, customers are assured they can always find the products they want, improving overall satisfaction and loyalty.

What are some real-world examples of an endless aisle in retail?

Endless aisle examples include Home Depot, which uses in-store kiosks to allow customers to order products not available on the shelves and have them shipped directly to their homes. Best Buy also utilizes this model, offering customers access to a broader range of electronics through in-store tablets and online ordering, ensuring the customer can get what they need even if it’s not physically in-store. These examples showcase how retailers are using endless aisle retail to enhance their product offerings and improve customer convenience.

Why is endless aisle important in an omnichannel retail strategy?

Endless aisle omnichannel strategies are crucial because they bridge the gap between physical and online shopping. This model ensures customers can access a broader range of products, whether they are shopping in-store, online, or via a mobile app. By offering endless aisles, retailers can meet consumer demand without overstocking or bloating their physical inventory. It creates a unified shopping experience, where customers can shop seamlessly across multiple channels, leading to improved customer retention and higher sales conversions.