It's enough to scare the daylights out of retailers: $1.75tr in lost revenue due to overstocks, out-of-stocks and preventable returns. Welcome to ''The Ghost Economy.'' The term comes from new research conducted by IHL Group on behalf of OrderDynamics. It looks at the costs that retailers rack up by failing to understand what's happening in their businesses today. The problem rests in large part with the additional challenges posed by e-commerce and the advent of the omnichannel. Many retailers have yet to coordinate their efforts across all channels, resulting in pockets of inventory that drag down the bottom line. They just can't seem to match supply with demand. On this episode, we speak with Kevin Sterneckert, chief marketing officer with OrderDynamics, who explains how retailers got into this mess, and how they can escape it. No need for an exorcist: just a comprehensive approach to customer and inventory data, updated far more frequently than it is today.

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