At first glance, a slow-selling item on a store shelf looks like an easy markdown call. But with a connected inventory view, that same item may be helping fulfill online demand in another market, giving planners room to hold price.

That’s the promise of one pool of inventory. As shoppers move fluidly across digital and physical channels, retailers need pricing and allocation decisions that reflect how products are sold and fulfilled across the network.

“People are much more fluid about where they’re going to shop from,” said Nicholas Wegman, Ph.D., senior director and artificial intelligence scientist at Zebra Technologies. “They may do a lot of research online. They may be in the store, try things on, and then go home and order online.”

That behavior changes the meaning of demand. A product sitting in a store may still have value somewhere else in the network.

“When you price one, you have to think about the other and vice versa,” Wegman said.

When Store Inventory Has a Release Valve

For years, store inventory largely lived inside the four walls where it was placed, since moving excess product between locations rarely justified the cost. Omnichannel fulfillment has changed that equation, turning those units into a more flexible asset for the larger network.

That flexibility matters because store sales data alone can miss how a location is creating value. Retailers now need fulfillment data alongside sales data, including how often online orders are filled from stores and how those patterns vary across products and seasons. Without that visibility, a location can look slow on paper while supporting online demand in other markets.

Wegman described online demand as a “release valve” for store inventory. When retailers can use those units to fulfill digital orders, they can take pressure off local markdowns and avoid discounts the data doesn’t support.

“You should always be aware of, ‘What am I doing in store? What am I doing online? And how do those relate to each other?’” Wegman said.

Zebra’s one-pool approach is built for that dynamic. The platform treats online and in-store stock as one collective pool, using a unified system to optimize price by location against a global sell-through goal. For Wegman, the key is capturing fulfillment data “so that we can understand the real trends of what’s happening in your business,” giving teams a clearer picture of where demand actually lives.

Knowing When to Hold, Promote, or Mark Down

Markdowns have traditionally followed the calendar. As a season advances, products often move to the next planned discount level. That structure still has a role, but Wegman said retailers leave margin on the table when the calendar becomes the primary driver.

“When it comes to end-of-season inventory, sometimes an item is going to sell through in that store no matter what, and you should just sell through it as it is,” he said. “Another time, you need to take a deeper price because you have a bunch of inventory in that location.”

Local conditions and online demand can change which situation a retailer is actually facing. A cold snap can extend demand for coats past their planned markdown date; a color that suddenly trends online can mean a product headed for clearance sells through at full price instead.

Zebra Workcloud Lifecycle Pricing is built to catch that shift earlier. Wegman pointed to sell-through goals as an example: a retailer might plan to hit 70% sell-through before its first markdown, then discount further to reach 80%. If the data shows no realistic path to that 70% mark before the planned discount date, that’s a signal to start promoting sooner and clear inventory ahead of the markdown period.

“The earlier you can sell things in the season, the less pain you have to take at the back end,” Wegman said.

Where Better Allocation Reduces Markdown Pressure

While pricing can relieve strain later in the season, allocation shapes how much builds in the first place.

Wegman said traditional allocation often relies on broad rules, from minimum quantities and full-size runs to similar assortments sent across stores. That approach can miss real differences in local demand.

“Products are bought by individual people in individual stores,” he said.

AI-driven allocation through Zebra Workcloud Allocation accounts for that variation, along with the fulfillment strategy behind each location. Some retailers ship online orders from the closest available store to minimize delivery time; others designate certain higher-traffic locations as regional hubs staffed for ship-from-store volume. Those choices should influence where products go at the start of the season.

“The better you allocate your inventory, the less pricing action you’re going to have to take,” Wegman said.

One Inventory. Smarter Pricing.

Retail planning has always involved judgment. What’s changed is the scale of the work. Teams now make decisions across more channels and fulfillment paths than manual processes can comfortably support.

In the past, Wegman said, planners were often “peanut butter spreading the decision,” marking down a product by roughly the same amount in every store because there wasn’t time to do it any other way. Now, he said, “it’s about making more decisions”: holding price where demand is strong, promoting earlier when sell-through needs help, and marking down more deeply only where inventory is truly stuck.

As margin pressure grows and channel lines keep blurring, a single connected inventory view gives retailers a clearer read on where products should go and when prices should move.

Learn more about how Zebra Workcloud Lifecycle Pricing and Zebra Workcloud Allocation help retailers make smarter pricing, inventory, and allocation decisions across channels.