Changing Consumer Mindset Needs A Change Of Retail Technology
80% of consumers say they are less inclined to visit a store when the website doesn’t provide current product availability, according to the 2017 Kibo Software survey. This staggering statistic underlines the need for retailers to improve inventory accuracy and automate their business processes through the use of retail technology like radio frequency identification (RFID).
“Prior to introducing RFID, retailers generally took inventory just once or twice a year, providing stock accuracy of just 60%,” explains a new whitepaper by Mojix. “By replacing barcodes with an RFID system they can increase inventory count rates from 200 to 12,000+ items per hour, meaning retailers can now take stock twice a month or more, leading to accuracies of 95% or higher,” the report highlights.
“The Future of RFID in Retail: Finding Value Beyond Efficiency” looks beyond the traditional motivations for RFID adoption and explores the wide ranging benefit the technology brings to the retail sector. It demonstrates unequivocally that RFID is making a direct and positive impact on sales, as well as overall profits, it also highlights that those retailers that are slow to adopt will be left behind.
It is not the pioneering retailers that are forcing this evolution however, nor the technology solution providers. A new generation of millennial shoppers, who have grown up with technology and abundant choice, are forcing retailers to provide services like omni-channel retail to meet their demand for products whenever, wherever and however suits them at the time. As Jon Wright, River Island’s head of loss prevention and safety, puts it:
“The consumer’s mindset has changed so much that they do not accept the product is not available when they want it. There is so much competition that they can get a pair of jeans anywhere. Consumers are pushing the retailers to know what product they have and where they have it at any given moment.”
