Once Upon A Time, Accurate Inventory Management Was Difficult
Once upon a time, retail inventory management was slow, difficult, inaccurate and painful – then came Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
Under the old barcode system, major retailers would take inventory as little as once or twice per year, content with accuracy as low as 60%, essentially opening the door to lost sales from out-of-stock products and making shrink invisible for months at a time. Now, with RFID-enabled retail inventory management, inventory can be taken weekly, daily or even hourly with accuracy higher than 95%. RFID also enables omni-channel retail as well as other value-adding services, revolutionizing retail across the board.
Enter Omni-Channel
With the rise of online retail, omni-channel has become the “must have” retail solution for brick and mortar retailers. Omni-channel allows them to provide e-commerce style retailing, such as better loyalty schemes and home delivery, while seamlessly retaining all the benefits of their high street stores. Omni-channel, which is now demanded by the modern consumer, is impossible without accurate inventory, and accurate inventory is made possible by RFID inventory management.
Modern consumers can access retailers around the world; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. They expect fast delivery times, ease of return and replacement; they expect to be able to shop in-store then have items delivered or shop online then collect in-store. The modern consumer is tech-savvy, demanding, social media fluent and loyal to retailers that offer everything they expect.
For the modern consumer omni-channel retail represents the ultimate shopping experience, creating the freedom and flexibility to serve their every need. For the modern retail inventory manager, however, omni-channel represents a new challenge of unprecedented proportions. A world where stores act like warehouses and warehouses act like stores, a world of non-stop orders and returns, where the slightest human error can create significant inefficiencies and all within a world with an ever increasing number of products and customizations.
The Value of High Inventory Accuracy
Isn’t it about time that people stop trying (and failing) to accurately keep track of inventory, and instead let the products keep track of themselves?
Using market leading RFID solutions, we can do exactly that. Sophisticated and fully scalable RFID inventory management systems are essentially making omni-channel possible, and ushering in a new, more profitable, era of retail.
Accurate management of retail inventory with the Mojix ViZix™ IoT Platform Solutio
RFID-enabled inventory management allows stock to be tracked throughout the store, meaning staff can see what’s in the back room, find misplaced items, and indentify potential shrink with ease. Such accuracy means the in-store products will be in the right places to avoid lost sales. For online orders, if inventory data isn’t accurate, orders may be filled hundreds of miles away, when they could be fulfilled at a local store, creating inefficiencies that will directly impact the retailers bottom line.
In addition, RFID offers additional value for inventory management by optimizing the supply chain, tracking logistics, enabling personalization and even monitoring the condition of products to avoid damage.
While beginning with “once upon a time” might be a bit of an exaggeration; if you consider all the advantages of RFID for retail inventory management, retailers still using barcodes might as well be living in the distant past.
A solid and well-performing management system helps reduce a company’s carry-costs, which in another sense of the words is how much is your inventory costing you. Inventory management software monitors the flow of items as they are purchased from the vendor.
With a higher level of technology, businesses can use this great opportunity to make improvements and to increase quality as much as possible to attract customers. In controlling the inventory, computers and functions are also used for keying of items and for inventory checks.