Deliveries turning up late; receiving promotional emails for out of stock items; orders being cancelled due to lack of stock availability- sound familiar? Unfortunately for many consumers around the world, this type of experience was the norm during the holidays.

We recently ran a contest on Twitter where we asked shoppers to report back their positive and negative experiences during the holiday season, utilizing the #GhostEconomy hashtag. More than 350 entrants took to Twitter to tell us exactly what hauntings they were seeing in their retail experiences. While not all were negative with some consumers boasting fast delivery and great deals during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, there is an overarching theme that can be established from looking at the #GhostEconomy hashtag.

The media took notice of these consumer frustrations, and you can read some of the coverage in Retail Times and Retail Systems.

It is clear the Ghost Economy is touching all corners of retail. Representing an $800 billion data and inventory disconnect, the Ghost Economy is haunting even some of the most established retailers and brands in the market:

• One of Europe’s largest online premium beauty retailer’s, allowed an out of stock item to be ordered by a customer, who found out eight days later that their item was in fact out of stock and couldn’t be delivered.
• A well-known multinational clothing company, left it 11 days before contacting a customer to let them know the product they had ordered was out of stock.
• Another global beauty brand sent promotional emails to customers for products that were out of stock, leaving recipients frustrated.
• An American multinational retail company, very well known globally, left a customer wondering where their online order was for two weeks, with the order status rendered at the ‘processing’ stage. This same retailer also cancelled a customer’s order several days after purchase due to lack of stock availability, resulting in the customer missing out on Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.
• Several global retailers also had customers complaining about late deliveries, with orders not arriving in time for Christmas, or orders arriving damaged or in poor condition.

These examples highlight just how real the Ghost Economy is. During retail’s busiest time of year, disconnects in inventory, operations, shipping and delivery cannot afford to happen.

With these disconnects unravelling the omni-channel channel experience for consumers globally, it’s clear many retailers and brands will have suffered extensively during the holidays.

With 2015 predicted to be a year filled with more retail technology investments than ever, retailers needs to understand the disconnects in their businesses and invest in products and solutions that will allow them to deliver the seamless retail experience every customer has come to want and now expect. Retailers need to act now to avoid further disappointment and make the holiday season of 2015 one to remember.