Being in retail business and managing the supply chain is a tough thing to do and the reason is clear: Many companies pursue similar strategies and thus advantage comes from execution!

The same situation has led the Canadian retailer Loblaw to liquidate its non-food inventory. The company told The Globe and Mail that it will liquidate a host of non-food goods such as electronics, home items, kitchen wares, bathroom fixtures and bedding and expects to incur a pretax charge of between $100-million and $120-million on the liquidation.

"This was just essentially excess inventory that had been built up over time," said company spokesman Geoffrey Wilson. "This is all good inventory that we could have sold through our retail system, but it would have taken a significant amount of time. And, to free up our supply chain and to avoid future costs associated with storing and moving this inventory around, we made the decision to take the liquidation process."