UK retail software vendor, Detego, is partnering with French RFID systems integrator IER to help fashion retailers improve inventory accuracy for more effective omni channel strategies. According to the two companies, the combination of Detego’s in-store analytics and merchandising software and IER’s IOT tracking solutions will offer the best of both worlds: item-level stock management and visibility which means knowing exactly where an article is in real-time.
“Knowing whether a particular t-shirt is hidden on a shelf, in a store, in transit, or in the warehouse, is something that’s crucial to effective customer service and can make the difference between making a sale or not,” says Uwe Hennig, CEO at Detego. “So without reliable information on stocks and sales, retailers can’t possibly expect to deliver on their omni-channel promises for ‘click and collect’ or same-day deliveries.”
Detego has already helped a number of retailers – including the UK’s largest clothing retailer – make the most out of digitally connecting every item of clothing and using its software to analyse stock movements thanks to tiny, imbedded radio-frequency identity (RFID) tags. This has typically led to near 100% stock accuracy and a considerable reduction in out-of-stocks and lost sales.
IER provides RFID-enabled self-service checkout machines and handheld scanners for automatically counting and processing bulked goods and 24/7 services and support.
“By partnering with IER, we look forward to bringing our software and improved visibility to French retailers across Europe,” says Hennig. “It will bring fashion retailers a step closer towards more connectivity and ensure a digital transformation that’s essential in today’s connected world.”
The Detego solution can be viewed in IER’s Lab in Paris, showing a mock ‘store of the future’.
“In combination with Detego´s real-time in-store analytical software and merchandising applications, IER can assure the integration of end-to-end solutions for omni-channel retailing, from warehouse to store,” says Christophe Agaësse, Director of Business Unit Track & Trace at IER. “Our shared resources and know-how will multiply the opportunities and benefits they bring to our joint customers. Retailers expect the best overall offer and the best services and, through our partnership, we expect to become a key player in a very competitive market.”
Retail software specialist, Detego, announces today that it has reached the milestone of having now digitally connected over a billion items of clothing, in a bid to help several European retailers gain actionable insights into product ranges and customer behaviour. Both the UK and Germany are leading the field in adopting RFID (radio-frequency identity) technology, accounting for around seventy percent of the European fashion business. However, only a small percentage of the total fashion retail market has yet to fully embrace RFID and connected smart devices, say experts.
According to research by IDTechEx, RFID in retail is seeing rapid growth. IDTechEx estimates the total value of the RFID market to be worth over $10 billion and expects it to rise to $18.6 billion over the next decade. This is largely attributed to the falling cost of tags – today just a few pence each, depending on volumes – not to mention the advantages offered by automated tracking and real-time visibility of every article in stock.
“The cost of RFID tags has fallen so much over the last decade that most fashion retailers are now seeing the sense of item-level visibility and the more detailed analytics it supports,” says Uwe Hennig, chief executive at Detego. “Connected technologies enable fashion retailers to automate processes and reduce administrative duties, freeing up staff to focus on customer service. Combined with near 100% inventory accuracy, this leads to an enhanced shopping experience and higher sales conversion rates.”
Hennig says that with so many consumers now expecting higher levels of service, such as ‘click and collect’, retailers are coping by sending more inventory to stores and over-compensating: “This is a bad idea. Too much stock always leads to excessive discounting and lower margins.”
Detego is currently rolling out its software across 900 stores for a global sports brand, at a rate of about twenty stores a week, to improve the in-store experience for consumers and to support the brand´s omni-channel strategies. The retailer is gradually adding RFID tags to every article of clothing and footwear so that it can manage all 80 million items in real time. Using Detego’s software, it will even be able to measure the time it takes to replenish shelves. This will mean that if, for example, it takes longer than ten minutes for a pair of running shoes to be replaced on a shelf, an alert can automatically be sent to prompt sales staff to do so.
Other Detego customers are using fixed ceiling reader systems and RFID to track the movement of goods; while people counting systems can recommend the ideal number of staff needed at different times of the day. Using Detego’s software also helps redistribute merchandise after seeing that some products appear to be more popular when sold online, whereas others never make it beyond the fitting room. Customers can even look forward to being able to try on a different size or colour of garment, simply by clicking on an interactive mirror to alert sales staff to bring another directly from the back-room, or shop floor.
The technology company itself is enjoying significant growth of around fifty percent a year, as more and more retailers are turning to analytics, RFID and other in-store technologies. It puts its success down to retailers increasingly wanting cloud-based retail solutions with the promise of faster, pay-as-you-go software implementations, Hennig says.
Detego, a specialist in real-time business intelligence for the fashion retail industry, is launching Detego InStore 4.2, making it the first vendor to offer in-store software with comprehensive functionalities for omni-channel retailing. Many international fashion retailers, including G-Star and Marc O’Polo, already use Detego InStore for providing real-time transparency on individual items across multiple channels. Following the introduction of Detego software and RFID tags on every item of clothing, a recent pilot with one global fashion brand revealed that it was able to boost sales and improve inventory management across its mobile, store and online business. Other live projects have shown Detego’s software to increase merchandise inventory accuracy from an industry average of around 75 percent to up to 99 percent. The latest release features a number of standard applications for omni-channel retailing, including ‘click & reserve’, ‘ship-from-store’ and ‘return-to-store’, enabling fashion retailers to more effectively manage popular services like same-day deliveries.
“Detego InStore bridges the gap between online and offline retailing and allows fashion retailers to support their customers at every touchpoint, along the entire customer journey,” says Uwe Hennig, CEO at Detego. “It means that stocks will be used more intelligently and omni-channel retailing strategies can be implemented in a more cost-efficient way.”
The cloud-based Detego retail software differs from many rivals by providing item-level visibility of merchandise, whatever the channel, as well as offering a complete in-store solution with comprehensive omni-channel applications (including hardware, service components and updates), all for a monthly subscription fee, rather than large upfront investment. The software is particularly geared towards fashion retailers because of the need to closely monitor so many ranges, styles, colours and sizes, as well as the inherent costs of over-supply and discounting. Detego says that franchisees and consession stores are also built into the software’s omni-channel set-up to ensure a positive brand experience across all channels for customers.
“Consumers no longer distinguish between online and offline, or brand-owned and franchise stores, but rather expect a seamless shopping experience across all channels,” says Hennig. “And this can be achieved without the constraint of increasing stocks in stores.”
Detego, a provider of business intelligence for the highly-competitive fashion industry, announced today that the company is partnering with Software AG (Frankfurt TecDAX: SOW), to provide retailers with the ability to seamlessly incorporate real-time analytics and merchandise visibility at the item-level, enable retailers to interact with their customers and bring them on innovative ‘digital’ journeys, and transform their businesses without the need to replace their existing technology infrastructure.
The Detego suite provides granular insights into a retailers inventory, including real-time, item-level location (in the store, backroom and warehouse), a hands-free RFID system, comprehensive analytics and reporting. Software AG’s Digital Business Platform provides the “Integration glue’ to easily incorporate the Detego suite with their ERP and CRM systems, as well as their overall IT infrastructure.
Oliver Guy, retail industry director, Software AG said: “Digital transformation is a disruptive force that helps retailers become significantly more competitive and remain healthier for the long term as rapid change obliterates traditional business methods. By connecting to, and orchestrating across, a retailers’ IT ecosystem, the combined solution of Software AG’s Digital Business Platform and the Detego suite introduces an entirely fresh way to interact with customers, to promote unique value propositions, and to go to market in diverse and exciting ways.”
Detego enables fashion retailers to leverage one of their greatest investments – their brick and mortar stores – by transforming them into omni-channel hubs. Partnering with Software AG enables Detego to set a new benchmark in rapid and cost-efficient deployment of in-store software.
Uwe Hennig, chief executive officer, Detego, said: “Retailers around the globe are striving to create an omni-channel shopping experience. We are delighted to be working with Software AG by providing powerful new capabilities that evolve existing business models and design innovative omni-channel experiences, optimize legacy retail systems, and will generate new revenue streams. Time, cost and investment protection are key factors for fashion retailers when implementing digital store and omni-channel strategies.”
Software AG helps many retailers with their omni-channel strategies. Understanding inventory across the business is a first step towards being able to fulfill customer promises in an omni-channel environment. Without it, excess inventory and missed orders can result.
Oliver Guy also noted: “Importantly, digital transformation is more than an IT upgrade or add-on; it’s a completely different way to think and achieve things. Software AG understands this and introduced the Digital Business Platform to enable this digital transformation from retail store to digital showroom. And, since retailers must be able to connect to different, disparate merchandize and ecommerce systems from multiple technology vendors, Software AG offers a vendor agnostic approach to system integration. This means there is no vendor lock-in or lock-out to worry about.”
The combined Detego/Software AG solution is available on Software AG’s Digital Marketplace – a one-stop shop for digitalization solutions and development essentials from Software AG, its partners and customers.
For more information on omni-channel transformation using the Digital Business Platform, please visit: http://connected-retail.softwareag.com/.
Detego, the market leader in real time business intelligence for fashion retail, is the first vendor to offer in-store software that provides out-of-the-box support for fixed RFID readers.
Removing the need for store assistants to manually scan using handheld RFID readers, the hands-free reader system with Detego InStore creates complete inventory transparency and near 100% inventory accuracy and provides completely new insights into the in-store business. The implementation of Detego InStore and state-of-the art, hands-free RFID technologies enables fashion retailers to both automatise processes and reduce administrative duties, freeing staff to focus on customer service. In combination with increased inventory transparency, this leads to an enhanced shopping experience and a higher sales conversion rate. For retailers looking to implement an omnichannel strategy, Detego InStore and fixed reader infrastructure lays the right foundation through constant real-time transparency on item level.
Retail digitalisation and omnichannel strategies put a burden of transparency on merchandise flow and efficient channel coordination. Detego InStore with fixed reader infrastructure enables fashion retailers to automatically collect data from their entire range of articles in real-time with no scanning needed. This provides them with a reliable inventory and transparency without human intervention, meaning high quality data at a low operational expense.
The implementation of fixed reader infrastructure and real-time analytics opens up completely new opportunities for fashion retailers to gain deeper insights into their in-store operations and how to actively manage them. Through constant transparency of the flow of goods, a retailer can analyse the movement of products in-store, revealing insights such as which items are most frequently tried-on and subsequently bought; or those which never make it to the fitting room or Point of Sale. This analysis helps to avoid out-of-stock situations and enables fashion retailers to optimise their offerings and product presentation for higher revenue generation.
The RFID-based Detego Suite for real-time analytics and article transparency is already successfully in use by many leading fashion retailers. For Detego InStore with fixed reader infrastructure, Detego provides a competitive fixed monthly rate, including the hardware and software as a complete package, allowing customers to benefit from measurement and analysis of customer behaviour at a low cost.
Uwe Hennig, CEO of Detego, commented: “In today´s world of omnichannel retailing, article accuracy across all systems is no longer optional. RFID applications in fashion retail have already proven their business benefits. Fixed ceiling readers have now reached a level of technical sophistication and price point that allows for constant and fully automated stocktaking on the sales floor. We are glad to be the first software provider to offer in-store software for fixed readers for the fashion retail market. Successful customer implementations of this software have proven that hands-free reader infrastructure and real-time analytics open up completely new possibilities for managing and optimising in-store operations.”
Detego, the leader in business intelligence for fashion retailers, was selected for the prestigious “Red Herring Top 100 Europe” Award. The international Red Herring Business Magazine assigns its award since 1996 and thereby rewards the most promising high-tech start-ups in Europe, Asia and the USA. More than 20 quantitative and qualitative criteria are incorporated into the analysis and assessment by the jury. Detego was selected and added to the “Red Herring Top 100” list due to its high innovative capacity, its groundbreaking innovations for the fashion retail sector and its enormous growth potential. The award ceremony will take place in Amsterdam on April 12th.
Detego was chosen for the category “Retail Technology” and is being seen as one of the most innovative and promising high-tech businesses in Europe. The company develops and distributes a suite of software products for real-time analysis and article transparency and allows fashion retailers to meet the challenges of digitalisation and ever-changing customer requirements.
In a multi-stage selection process, the companies were rated on criteria such as the financial result, technology & innovation, management, business strategy as well as the market potential. Red Herring’s list has become a mark of distinction for start-up companies and Detego joins prominent previous Top 100 Global alumni including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Spotify, Tesla and Salesforce.com. As a consequence, the Red Herring Award is also an important indicator of the potential of start-ups for investors.
Uwe Hennig, CEO at Detego: “We are pleased to receive this award, especially as it confirms our position as an innovative leader in fashion retail technology. This benefits our customers; with our products and innovative strength, we ensure that international fashion retailers are prepared for current as well as future challenges.”
Detego, the leader in business intelligence for fashion retailers, showed the great and the good of the UK’s retail industry a vision of the future in association with Marks and Spencer, Intel, Impinj and noted futurologist Patrick Dixon.
On Tuesday 8th this week Detego and partners presented a vision of a consumer-centric, emotionally engaged retail future to an audience of retail insiders at the Advantage Austria in London. Attendees learnt how a foundation for meeting the expectations of shoppers, especially millennials, is borne by emotional connection and satisfaction delivered by integrated retail services.
Detego, the fashion business intelligence provider, assembled leading speakers to demonstrate how traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers can gain back sales from online competitors and build efficient omni-channel retailing without upsetting their existing infrastructure. The key is to integrate and add intelligence to pivot existing services by better stock control and awareness – and therefore the use of staff.
Patrick Dixon, Futurist, kicked off the event with a talk entitled ‘How to create customer magic’. Patrick promoted emotional engagement through satisfaction as the key driver, making a case against the customer frustrations that retailers must overcome.
He was followed by Richard Jenkins, Head of RFID Strategic Development at Marks and Spencer, presenting ‘The Future Today – RFID @ Marks & Spencer’. Richard’s case study shared insights based on learnings over 11 years using tagging technology to boost intelligence in hundreds of stores. Richard explained the project’s primary use cases: Improving inventory accuracy; reducing out of stock lines; increasing on floor availability; loss prevention. Additionally, benefits were delivered for Marks and Spencer in: Cycle counting strategies; conversion; enhanced customer experience, e.g. within fitting rooms; and the chain’s omni-channel strategy.
Goetz Pfeifferling, Sr. Director of Business Development, Global Retail at Impinj, shared insights from a case study of the joint Detego-Impinj project with the brand G-Star in a New York franchise store, ‘Full automated in-store inventory visibility’ explaining how to maximise time spent on the shop floor with customers with greater stock intelligence. Impinj’s hands-free ceiling reader system combined with Detego’s software products for real-time analytics and item level visibility deliver the G-Star franchisee complete transparency of their in-store business in real-time, enabling exceptional customer experience and product availability.
Wrapping up the event with ‘Intel in retail – enabling the ‘big pivot’’ was Matthew Ward, EMEA Retail Enabling Manager at Intel Corporation. Matthew’s core theme was that ‘the insights ‘kings’ will win’. Well-known disruptors ranging from the growth of e-commerce, cross channel behaviour, and mobile and 10-screen life, have all fundamentally changed retail delivery. No facet of omni-channel service has remained the same, and the traditional ‘4 Ps’ have become commoditised. Leaders have used data-led insights to strategically redefine the store and massively shift brand trust as all retailers discover that the old rules no longer apply.
Finally, Uwe Hennig, CEO, Detego, sharing his ‘Actionable Insights – In-store analytics makes the store shopper visible’ tying the speakers’ themes together. Attendees were able to change the way they view the entire retail supply chain, from distribution centres via the shop floor into the hands of shoppers and learnt invaluable techniques to future-proof their businesses.
Uwe Hennig, CEO at Detego, explained, “Consumer expectations and desires have sky-rocketed and few retailers have been able to adapt to really wow consumers and keep up with tech-driven service expectations. We aim to show how fashion retailers can lead the whole retail sector in operational excellence and customer enchantment.”
Detego, the leader in business intelligence for fashion retailers and its partner RIoT Insight, an independent solution provider of innovative, practical, complete and integrated best in class RFID and IoT solutions announced today that they have realized the first fully integrated end-to-end solution with fixed RFID reader infrastructure in fashion retail at a New York City G-STAR RAW store owned by Denimwall Inc.
Impinj’s hands-free ceiling reader system combined with Detego’s software products for real-time analytics and item level visibility and RIoT’s BYOD mobile apps are seamlessly integrated with Denimwall’s existing retail system to deliver Denimwall complete transparency of their in-store business in real-time enabling exceptional customer experience by product availability.
G-Star RAW is a designer clothing company with 400 stores globally. North American G-Star franchisee Denimwall Inc., owner of the Union Square store and six other locations, was looking for a true hassle-free end-to-end solution for article visibility to establish a high level of stock accuracy in the store in order to offer best in class product availability and the best possible shopping experience for their customers and to prepare for omni-channel retail.
The integrated RAIN RFID solution uses the Impinj platform including ItemSense software and xArray gateways for “hands-free” infrastructure, and delivers item-level visibility and in-store analytics with Detego InStore and RIoT mobile apps. It allows Denimwall Inc. to automatically collect data about their merchandise, providing accurate inventory information and real-time transparency – all hands-free, without human intervention. Based on perpetual inventory feeds, out-of-stock situations are automatically detected and mitigated by means of an optimized replenishment process leading to a consistently high on-floor availability. The real-time, item-level transparency also enables Denimwall Inc. to better fulfill orders for click & collect. Manual administrative processes are reduced to a minimum, giving the sales personnel the time to engage with the customer in order to provide an improved customer experience.
Based on RIoTs deep fashion retail and retail systems experience coupled with Detego´s proven software suite for business intelligence which is on the edge of technological advances also in terms of hands-free infrastructure, the solution was deployed in a very short time frame. The fast implementation and deployment was underpinned by a lean and agile approach to immediately realize the aimed business benefits for Denimwall Inc.
“Our primary objective was to significantly increase inventory accuracy to enable an exceptional in-store omni-channel customer experience”, stated Craig Leonard, Denimwall CEO. “Our goal was to automatically achieve 98%+ item level accuracy and we are achieving that and more. The increased accuracy has also other major benefits including significantly improving our on-shelf product availability by empowering our brand ambassadors with a BYOD smartphone app advising them in real-time of items needing replenishment; alerting them to potential theft, enabling
them to scan an item and pull up live in-store availability and more. Another impressive benefit has been significantly faster POS checkout”, said Leonard.
Shayni Rae, Denimwall, Director Store Operations added, “With the Detego, Impinj, RIoT system, we have the ability to remotely monitor sales floor replenishment time and loss prevention performance across our network of stores.”
“The benefits of the store pilot have exceeded our expectations and we are now looking to expand it to our other locations”, concluded Craig Leonard.
RIoT, Detego and Impinj will be hosting store tours of the live system for interested retailers during this year’s NRF Big Show Jan 17-19 in NYC, NY. If you would like to join the G-Star store tour please contact Detego: events@detego.com
Enso Detego, the leader in business intelligence for fashion retailers, today welcomes two new members to its advisory board: Steve Gray and Torsten Strauch.
Steve Gray, an experienced CEO within FMCG, retail and marketing services, joins as a non-executive director. Gray brings knowledge of customer loyalty and CRM systems in the retailer sector. His experience will enable Detego to further develop its consumer engagement strategy.
Torsten Strauch, senior VP Retail at Smartrac Technology, based in Cologne, also joins as a non-executive director this month. Torsten has over 10 years’ experience in radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. Detego will benefit from Strauch’s knowledge in new technologies as the business continues to develop through technology innovation.
Uwe Hennig, CEO, Detego, explained, “Torsten and Steve bring additional skills and experiences to the Detego team. They will boost our ability to enable efficient omnichannel and customer experience applications for fashion retailers.”
Gray played a leading role in the success of dunnhumby, working with Tesco, Kroger and their key suppliers. He repeated this with emnos, working with Carrefour, Metro, Morrisons, Waitrose, British Gas, BP, Camelot and BA/Air Miles.
Strauch comes to Detego with a background at Smartrac Technology, Checkpoint Systems and Intermec by Honeywell. He brings a wealth of experience in the development of strategic RFID adoption programs in retail and in driving a product road map and development in cooperation with R&D.
Detego, software vendor for real-time store analysis and article transparency in fashion retailing, has selected the digital future in textile retail and the motto “Follow your retail future” as their central theme for the EuroCIS 2016 which runs from February 23rd to 25th (hall 9, booth C03). Better connecting the customer to the store and the brand, including all the technical implementation possibilities, are the focal points in the process. To this end, the Austrian company presents the products of their Detego Suite 4.1 which consist of Detego InStore for real-time article transparency in the store and stockroom, Detego InWarehoue for inventory transparency at the item level in the central warehouse as well as the store analysis and oversight product Detego InReports. Detego InStore prevents “out of stock” situations, ensuring optimal merchandise presentation and article availability on the sales floor. It delivers comprehensive analysis and reporting functionality that covers the inventory situation in real-time in a way that is unrivalled both for the store manager and the category manager as well as top management. With the suite of products, Detego supports the omni-channel strategies of the textile retailer and ensures an integral shopping experience for consumers over all channels. The software from Detego complements managed services like software as a service (SaaS) along with various financing models.
Data Analysis as a Basis for Strategic Decision Making for Retailers
In-store analytics is key in proactive store management. Only retailers who leave nothing to chance can be successful. Sales that took place in the previous year or overall size distribution for all stores that is based on historical values can run contrary to reality. Access to real-time data that provides an overview of inventory currently in stock is a prerequisite for taking effective action. For this reason, the issue of data analysis and its practical interpretation is becoming more and more important as the basis for making decisions in terms of retail strategies. The use of the products from Detego provides a reliable overview of the inventory situation. Retailers can control stock in a targeted way, sending the merchandise to the place where it’s in demand. Moreover, Detego is working together with customers and retailing experts in its own Future Think Tanks to come up with imaginative ideas and strategies, for example big data follow in fashion retail, that can be practically applied in order to provide improved customer service.
Fashion Future Store
The technological foundation that Detego provides likewise makes it possible for brand name manufacturers to offer the customer a unique shopping experience that moves in the direction of future stores via pop-up stores or a more purist style of merchandise presentation in a showroom, as well as trying articles on virtually using a “magic mirror”.
“The digital future of your stores is huge for retail. The large fashion distributors are looking to fascinating technologies like the magic mirror for their customers. At the same time, decisions are increasingly being made on the basis of in-store analytic data. At the trade show we will show retailers how they can optimally prepare their stores for the digital future in order to be successful over the long-term,” declares Uwe Henning, CEO of Enso Detego GmbH.