Retail Modernisation

Sterling Home & Living, a home goods and furnishings retailer with stores across the UK alongside an online catalogue, is preparing for its busiest seasonal trading period. Store inventory, warehouse stock and the online catalogue are maintained in three separate systems that sync only overnight.

During the previous peak season, this lag contributed to a number of online orders being accepted for stock that was, in reality, already allocated to in-store customers — creating cancellations and customer service escalations at exactly the time of year when service quality matters most.

Given the fixed seasonal deadline, the project plan is built backward from the peak trading date, with contingency built into each phase rather than a single end-to-end timeline that leaves no room for adjustment. Discovery and solution design are compressed into a focused initial phase, prioritising the inventory and order visibility features most critical to the seasonal risk, with lower-priority configuration deferred to a second phase after peak season.

A Business Central implementation with Dynamics 365 Commerce integration brings warehouse, store and online inventory onto a shared real-time model. Warehouse and store inventory processes go live first, with the online catalogue integration following once the core inventory model is confirmed stable — leaving a buffer of live operation before the seasonal peak begins.

Retailers entering a seasonal peak with this kind of foundation typically gain a single, real-time inventory view across warehouse, store and online channels — substantially reducing oversell scenarios during high-volume periods.

With that foundation in place, a natural second phase usually shifts focus to deeper reporting and loyalty features, building on a stable base rather than rushing change alongside a seasonal cutover.