[CodeWriter23]

What the author is saying is they used the “closer to customer” argument as a smoke screen to cover the fact that they performed a logisticextomy last year.

The fact of the matter is logistic operations in the Midwest are favorable for the medium range retailer. In the post-warehouse age, when the book your NYC customer wants is in Seattle, you’re paying Zone 8 rates to USPS instead of Zone 3 from Indiana to NYC (or Seattle).

[goofingaround]

I don't see the logistics argument in the article.

The article states i) distraction from in-store sales for employees, ii) removing inventory from store shelves, and iii) no credit for stores.

The "stores don't get credit" argument is weak. The article implies that corporate is siphoning credit from stores to online. Sales are down 6% across the board. Samestore sales down 6.5%, online sales down 4.5%. Omnichannel does not create those numbers.

Anyway, the logistics argument depends on more than rates. Fulfilling from a midwest warehouse can be cheap; a warehouse full of product sliding down a markdown curve can be expensive.

I've been surprised by the merchant pushback to omnichannel. I've been hearing "there are no cash registers in the warehouse", etc. for years. Now we expose more inventory to customers and stores complain about selling to the wrong (usually ecommerce) customer.

[CodeWriter23]

It’s an illustration, not an argument. The prior deletion of the logistics operation illustrates the company has been on the chopping block / raider mode for some time.

[emodendroket]

My understanding of the article was that they were poorly managing the inventory and therefore unnecessarily cannibalizing their own sales.