What is the current trend in retail operations for inventory control?

Firms have been able to reduce their inventories for several reasons. Companies are focused their efforts on reducing setup or order costs. The lower these costs, the smaller the economic order quantities. In addition, companies are working closer with the vendors to manage relationships to reduce the product lead times and product throughput times significantly. But still Retail operations are not reached happy by reducing their safety stock level to reduce inventory because of indefinite forecasting of sale.