This year’s report breaks down key trends and hard truths facing supply chain teams: Why visibility gaps are still slowing recovery, how supplier diversification improves resilience, the role tech stacks play in moving faster and what top-performing teams are doing differently.

See how your strategy compares—and where there’s room to improve.

Prior to the imposition of trade tariffs by the United States in April 2025, retailers already knew that they had a lot of work to do to enable an agile response to sudden changes in either supply or demand.  

Now, in the face of new pressures in the global supply chain, it is more important than ever for retailers to use modeling techniques to better anticipate disruptions and potential corrective actions, to monitor the flow of goods at a more granular level, and to respond quickly to exception conditions when they inevitably occur.

With today’s volatile trade landscape and unpredictable global supply chain disruptions, e-commerce retailers can’t risk alienating customers — or leaking profits — through stockouts. Yet overselling remains a serious problem, with 40 percent of sellers cancelling one in 10 orders and the cost of out-of-stocks estimated at $ 1.2 trillion in 2024.

Overselling occurs when demand exceeds available inventory, leaving consumers facing the dreaded “out of stock” notification after being charged for an item. As a result, overselling erodes consumer confidence, creating serious brand reputation and bottom-line issues for e-commerce retailers as consumers abandon their purchases, turn to competitors, and potentially share negative reviews. Notably, nearly 70 percent of shoppers claim their perception of a business is damaged when an item is out of stock after being told it was available online.

Detailed digital simulations could help to model supply chains and offset risks, easing supply chain challenges. But there are high barriers to widespread adoption.Supply chains are the central nervous system of the global economy, facilitating the movement of billions of dollars in trade every day. But as the past few years have shown, disruptions are hard to predict. 

As companies look for ways to offset these risks, attention has turned to so-called digital twins. These detailed simulations of real-world objects, systems or processes are built with real-time data and provide snapshots that can help firms to monitor threats, test different scenarios and improve decision-making. 

Bamboo Rose and The Interline are proud to present the second annual survey research report, The State of Retail Supply Chains & Sourcing Strategies in 2025. Building on last year’s insights, this in-depth report provides unparalleled analysis of the evolving landscape of global retail supply chains and sourcing strategies, offering a clear view of the priorities, challenges, and opportunities shaping the industry.

Effective lead time management is a critical factor in securing supply chain efficiency and cost control, since lead time represents the total time required for a product or material to move through the supply chain, as measured from the time of ordering to the time of delivery.

Lead time typically encompasses various supply chain stages, including order processing, manufacturing, transportation, and delivery. It can be scrutinised at a high level, by looking at overall supply chain lead time, or with more granularity by zooming in to elements such as supplier lead time and customer-order lead time.

Consumers have taken control of the marketplace over the past decade, pushing online and traditional merchants alike to create flexible shopping solutions. This has blurred the lines somewhat between the physical and the digital, and encouraging the propagation of what’s become known as Omnichannel commerce.

What is Omnichannel E-Commerce? What Consumers Want

Omnichannel commerce doesn’t just mean offering customers a choice between purchasing their goods online or in-store. The scope is much broader, with consumers desiring home delivery, but with the option to return products into stores when necessary. They want to order online and collect their orders in-store. They even want to view products in stores, but then place orders online for delivery to their front doors.

NVIDIA’s second annual State of AI in Retail and CPG survey report —with hundreds of responses from industry professionals— provides insights into the adoption and investment of AI, the specific adoption of generative AI, the top use cases and challenges, and how the industry is using AI in the supply chain.

• Discover the benefits of AI and how the industry is integrating it into digital retail, the supply chain, physical store management, and more.