As ecommerce continues its upward growth, more and more merchants are considering and leveraging drop shipping, in which manufacturers or distributors handle and ship orders directly to the end customer. The benefits are clear: there are lower inventory costs and less risk, since retailers don’t have to stockpile inventory that might not sell.

In many ways, ecommerce is leading the charge in the modern retail market. For one, online retail has managed to stave off some of the economic downturn. Online retail spending reached $44.3 billion in the first quarter of this year – the tenth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth, according to Comscore. Internet retailers claimed 7 percent of the U.S. retail market last year, with sales totaling almost $200 billion, according to Forrester Research Inc.

A recent study by Retail Systems Research (RSR) reveals that while more retailers are employing cross-channel distribution models, retailers are still not fully leveraging perhaps their biggest source of inventory - stores.