Retail chains growing their omnichannel operations hit an inventory visibility wall faster than they expect. Each store's POS shows that store's inventory. E-commerce shows warehouse inventory. Customer service shows a snapshot that's usually yesterday's. When a customer asks "do you have this in my size at the store near me?", nobody has a complete answer.
The fix teams often try doesn't work. The right fix is two D365 components that exist specifically for this problem.
Why batch exports and per-store databases fail
Nightly batch job exporting to e-commerce. E-commerce inventory is 24 hours stale. Customers order "in stock" items that sold out yesterday. Refund rates climb. Fulfillment teams hate it.
POS devices pulling from individual store databases. Each store is its own silo. Cross-store lookups don't exist. Customer calls one store, they don't know what the next store has, and the transfer-and-hold dance is manual.
