Designer Brands shifts online orders to warehouses to boost efficiency

Group 1 - Designer Brands has improved its in-stock levels of regular-priced products to about 70%, indicating progress in inventory availability [3] - The company is strategically reducing its choice count for the latter half of 2025 by 25% while increasing the depth of its inventory by 15% to enhance inventory productivity [4] - Designer Brands ended the second quarter with total inventories down 5% year over year [4] Group 2 - Other companies, such as Target and Nordstrom Rack, are also reevaluating their in-store fulfillment strategies to optimize supply chain operations [5][6] - Target is scaling back on in-store fulfillment operations to enhance the customer retail experience, advising some stores to shut down e-commerce packing stations [5] - Nordstrom Rack has slowed in-store fulfillment to simplify operations and reduce order cancellations [6] Group 3 - Designer Brands is shifting U.S. inventory between digital fulfillment centers and store locations to optimize in-store product availability [7] - The company reported that over 80% of its digital demand was fulfilled through logistics centers in the second quarter, which is more operationally efficient than fulfilling from stores [7]