Third-party direct delivery for non-stock articles

Project overview

The retailer wanted to sell more items than it could reasonably stock in stores or in the distribution center. Non-stock articles represented a commercial opportunity, but the execution model needed to remain controlled. The chosen scenario was a third-party process in which the customer order triggers procurement from the vendor and the vendor ships directly to the customer.

Business challenges

• Special-order items created manual procurement effort after the sales conversation had already taken place.
• Users needed visibility into both the customer-facing and supplier-facing side of the transaction.
• The process had to support commercial expansion without increasing inventory risk.
• Billing discipline could weaken if vendor execution and customer order status were not linked.

SAP Retail solution design

• Structured the scenario as a third-party sales process for non-stock items.
• Used automatic purchase requisition creation from the sales order item.
• Converted the requisition into a vendor purchase order for direct supply to the customer.
• Aligned vendor invoice verification and customer billing with the same end-to-end order logic.

Expected business impact

• Expanded the sellable assortment without forcing the retailer to hold local stock.
• Reduced the inventory burden for slow-moving or customer-specific items.
• Improved visibility from customer request to vendor execution.
• Created a scalable model for special orders and endless-aisle sales.

Recommended next steps

The next stage can include customer-facing status communication, vendor service-level monitoring and margin analysis by special-order category.