Retail and Distribution

The Overall Business Environment in the Retail and Distribution Sector

The retail and distribution sector is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by digitalization, changing consumer behavior, and competitive pressure. Retailers must now compete with extremely agile e-commerce pure players, while also facing established players who are reinventing their business models with hybrid formats, phygital approaches, or completely redesigned customer journeys.

Consumers, who are more demanding and better informed, expect a seamless omnichannel shopping experience, where the transition from online to in-store is frictionless. In this context, managing the last mile has become a significant operational and economic challenge: fast delivery, cost optimization, real-time availability, and reduction of transportation-related emissions. At the same time, environmental regulations are pushing retailers to rethink their practices, whether in terms of waste management, the circular economy, energy consumption, or carbon footprint. Consumers are also demanding greater transparency regarding the origin of products, their production conditions, their environmental impact, and their quality.

To remain competitive, companies must rethink their entire value chain: digitize points of sale, streamline customer journeys, optimize the supply chain, secure supplies, and enhance the agility of their logistics models. Their ability to combine technological innovation, operational excellence, and a commitment to sustainability is becoming a decisive advantage in a rapidly evolving market.

  • Manuel Jarry

    Directeur commercial

Challenges in the retail and distribution sector as seen by Cubik

3.2 M

This is the number of employees in the entire retail sector in France, representing 20% of employees in primarily market-oriented sectors (INSEE 2020)

Managing Costs and Economic Pressure

In an environment marked by price pressure and increasingly tight margins, industry players must navigate ever-higher customer expectations. The need to contain costs while maintaining a high level of service is becoming a delicate balancing act. This requires optimizing every link in the chain to boost profitability without sacrificing customer satisfaction.

Retail and distribution companies must thoroughly rethink their internal processes, which are sometimes cumbersome and prone to malfunctions. From the warehouse to the point of sale—including order fulfillment, logistics, and inventory management—every step must be streamlined to reduce wait times, stockouts, and costly returns. The challenge is to increase efficiency, minimize waste, and improve service quality, all while maintaining an impeccable customer experience in an environment where margins are already very tight.

Transparency and Sustainability of Supply Chains

Consumers are demanding greater transparency regarding the origin of products, their production conditions, their environmental impact, and related social practices. Whether it’s food, textiles, cosmetics, or everyday products, they want to ensure that the entire supply chain meets ethical and sustainable standards. This demand requires companies to build more responsible supply chains and implement detailed end-to-end traceability, from production to delivery.

Supply Chain Security

Today, the supply chain is facing increasing instability due to international tensions, fluctuating transportation costs, and a growing number of risks. To address these challenges, retailers must secure their supply chains, ensure the reliability of their partners, and better manage their procurement. This control is essential to guarantee product availability, avoid stockouts, and maintain their competitiveness in an increasingly demanding market.

196.4 billion euros

This is the projected revenue for the e-commerce sector in France in 2025 ( FEVAD 2025). In 2026, this figure is expected to exceed 200 billion euros for the first time.

How We Help Our Clients Overcome Their Challenges

At Cubik, we help companies in the retail and distribution sectors address their key strategic challenges by working across their entire value chain. These challenges are deeply intertwined: streamlining operations, controlling costs, securing the supply chain, and ensuring transparency can no longer be addressed separately.

Businesses in the retail and distribution sectors must now address these challenges through a systemic approach that combines operational excellence, financial management, and a commitment to sustainability. It is this overall coherence that will enable them to remain resilient, competitive, and aligned with market expectations.

Our approach combines operational performance, economic resilience, and a commitment to sustainability to build a more efficient and responsible industry that is aligned with consumer expectations.

Our 9 areas of support:

We help retail companies optimize their operations—from the store to logistics—by applying Lean Management principles to sustainably improve financial performance, the customer experience, and employee engagement.
Our strength lies in our ability to operate across the entire value chain, coordinating logistics flows, point-of-sale practices, and the operational management of teams.

We analyze and optimize physical and information flows to ensure that products are available when needed:
  • Optimization of flows between warehouses and retail locations (receiving, storage, restocking),
  • Reducing stockouts and excess inventory,
  • Streamlining shelf-stocking and order-fulfillment operations.
We take into account industry trends, including:
  • Development of shelf picking (drive-thru, e-commerce),
  • Omnichannel Workflow Management,
  • Organizations adapting to new customer expectations (speed, availability, personalization).

We work directly in stores to improve day-to-day operational performance:
  • Simplifying team tasks (stocking shelves, handling payments, preparing orders),
  • Reduction of operational irritants,
  • Optimizing the layout of spaces (storage areas, aisles, order-fulfillment zones).
Our approach aims to put the customer back at the center of our operations by ensuring:
  • Improved product availability,
  • Smooth routes,
  • Consistent service quality.

We help businesses in the retail and distribution sectors manage their expenses at every level of the value chain by combining detailed cost analysis, process optimization, and strategic alignment.

Our approach focuses on:

  • Operating costs (logistics, inventory, omnichannel flows)
  • Purchasing costs (negotiation, quality, supplier partnerships)
  • Operating costs (space, utilities, shared expenses).

We implement economic management tools (dashboards, visual management) to reduce waste, improve productivity, and enable us to reinvest the savings in innovation.

We help you define your decarbonization roadmap, identify priority areas for action, and engage your suppliers in this process. Our support includes providing tools and training for your procurement staff to enable them to effectively manage your suppliers’ actions and meet your climate commitments.

We develop a shared low-carbon strategy by incorporating sustainable procurement criteria, providing technical and financial support to your partners, and promoting logistical collaboration (resource sharing, sustainable packaging, and short supply chains). Through monitoring metrics and value-creation mechanisms, we accelerate the transition, strengthen the resilience of your supply chain, and meet consumer expectations.

We help retailers formalize and implement robust, tailored operational standards:
  • definition of best practices (shelving, inventory management, order fulfillment, merchandising),
  • formalization of simple, visual, and actionable standards,
  • Consistent deployment across the network, adapted to local conditions.
The goal: to ensure consistent performance across multiple sites while giving field teams the freedom to take initiative.

We help teams better manage their operations based on customer flow and operational constraints:
  • Detailed analysis of customer traffic (foot traffic, peak activity periods),
  • Sizing teams based on actual workload,
  • Schedule optimization (versatility, workload leveling, task prioritization).
This approach makes it possible to:
  • Reduce overcapacity and underutilization,
  • Improving productivity,
  • Improve working conditions for our teams.

We implement simple and effective systems to manage our operations:
  • Customer-focused metrics (product availability, wait times, service quality),
  • Visual management in stores and warehouses, M
  • Short, regular driving routines.
Thanks to our Lean Retail approach, your teams gain greater autonomy and the ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances.

We address all areas related to loss reduction, particularly in businesses with a strong product focus:
  • Optimizing production levels at retail locations (e.g., bakeries, delis),
  • Managing volumes based on sales forecasts,
  • Reducing unsold inventory and markdowns,
  • Improving Best-Before and Use-By Date Management Practices.
Example: In our bakery, we adjust production volumes to match actual demand as closely as possible, taking into account daily and hourly fluctuations, in order to significantly reduce waste while ensuring the quality of the products on the shelves.