Consumers expect value, quality, lifestyle and immediacy. Never before has merchandising relied so heavily upon raw supply chain performance to satisfy fickle buyers and grow their brands. Look at Walmart and Amazon. While Walmart is turbo-charging online sales (with great results released this week) and adding logistics infrastructure to satisfy the online growth, Amazon is building bricks and mortar presence to better connect the customer. Both aim to make it as quick and easy as possible for customers to find / buy / try / keep-or-return products. Truly a battle of the giants! Value, quality, lifestyle and immediacy are even more important for other retailers. To compete with the giants, they will need to capitalize on their agility and deliver differentiated lifestyles to consumers through winning brands and tighter integration of merchandising and supply chain. Merchants, global sourcing managers, vendors and external partners will have to collaborate more, improve data quality and gain enterprise visibility of products across the lengthy journey from concept to DC. Cross-functional product lifecycle management will be just one of the keys to success.