Digital stores are the stores of the future. This is because these days, with both fierce competition from e-commerce and customers with more options and expectations than ever before, nothing should be left to chance. Because a positive visit to a store becomes an experience that leaves a long-lasting impression.
Whilst store design and a customer-centric experience remain crucial, brands need to invest in technology to ensure stores can meet modern consumer’s expectations.
As more and more brands are competing for the shopping budget of fewer and fewer customers, the intention is to create customer loyalty towards the brand. To this end, the digitisation of stores creates a more seamless shopping experience and bridges the gap between online and offline shopping.
What is a Digital Store?
Maybe you’re thinking of high-tech stores loaded with interactive touchscreens, and while those stores do exist, the truth is more that stores are becoming increasingly digitalised on a back-end and operational level. This is a trend we see in business in general, improving efficiency by digesting processes or using intelligent software.
So, what does this look like for brick-and-mortar stores? A digital transformation of a store is largely centred around a stores core offering – it’s products. Technology is being used to digitise the way products are processed, with RFID stocktakes, and managed, with digital applications.
Stores not only digitise time-consuming manual processes such as stocktakes and replenishment, but they also digitise the view of stock itself. This means stores have reliable visibility on all store inventory, on an item-level. This allows for omnichannel services like click-and-collect and ensures the store experience is optimised to a point that it consistently delivers – no operational mistakes and no more disappointing customers with unavailable products.
What are the advantages of Digitising Stores?
The Digital transformation of stores delivers benefits all across the value chain.
For store staff on an operational level, they spend less time performing manual administrative tasks like inbound order processing or stock management – reducing labour costs and freeing up staff to attend to customers.
The store itself benefits from an accurate inventory meaning quicker reordering, fewer out-of-stocks, and ultimately higher sales.
If we zoom out a level to look at a network of multiple digitised stores the retailer can use this real-time view of stock to make better decisions run a smoother supply chain and build a first-class omnichannel offering.
The customer enjoys a friction-less experience with fewer out-of-stocks, staff who know exactly what is available both in their store and online, and convenient purchasing options like click-and-collect.
Benefits for the store
- Real-time control over inventory and more efficient replenishment
- Greater inventory accuracy
- Quicker reordering
- Reduction in reserve stock
- Increase in staff efficiency
- Increased sales
Benefits for the customer
- Reduces out-of-stocks, reduces disappointment
- Able to get accurate information on stock levels both online and in-store
- Convenient omnichannel features like click-and-collect
- Staff have more time and more information to assist customers with
The 10 Steps to Building the Digital Store
Here’s what you have to do as a retailer to strategically set up your stores for digitalisation:
1) Lay the foundation for real-time article accuracy with RFID-based labelling
2) Accelerate the process of goods-inbound: delivery notifications, preparation on the sales floor, check-in of merchandise even if the boxes are still unopened, bring merchandise faster to the sales floor
3) Make use of effortless permanent inventory monitoring for a complete item transparency
4) Transform your sales personnel into more competent shopping consultants equipped with tablets and unburden them from administrative tasks
5) Set the stage for your brand through pure and spacious merchandise presentation with only a few items on the sales floor
6) Automate and speed up the replenishment process
7) Set up an early notification system to prevent out-of-stock situations
8) Retain the customers in the store by ensuring that they have access to real-time availability information
9) Ensure that you have an efficient click & collect system in place
10) Optimise the flow of merchandise from the central warehouse as well as between individual stores
The Detego Platform: A quick start to the digital store
The Detego Platform brings all of this together in an out-of-the-box solution, providing an easy and cost-effective fast track to the digital store. It does so by utilising item-level RFID tagging combined with the Internet of Things (IoT), digitising store inventory via a mobile application.
By doing this the store knows exactly what merchandise they have, and more specifically what is in the backroom and on the sales floor. This increases inventory accuracy, on-floor availability and dramatically improves store efficiency. Additionally, as the Detego platform is built to fully integrate with existing tech like ERP systems, this real-time stock visibility can easily be made available to the customer including online stock enquiries, click and collect and click and reserve.
Cloud-hosted RFID software
Stock Accuracy, On-Floor Availability, and Omnichannel Applications in Stores.
Detego Store is a cloud-hosted RFID solution which digitises stock management processes, making them more efficient and more accurate. Implemented within hours, our multi-user app can provide intelligent stock takes and a smart in-store replenishment process. Later, you can scale the solution to offer omnichannel services and effectively manage your entire store operations with real-time, item-level inventory visibility and analytics.
16. August 2023
13. October 2022
13. September 2022
Planograms are a key part of running a retail store. In simple terms, they dictate the what, where and, the how many of products on the shop floor.
This article explores planograms, the challenges they present and how retails ongoing digital revolution along with artificial intelligence is changing planograms as we know them.
What is a planogram?
A planogram defines the location and quantity of products to be placed on display. They essentially function as blueprints for all merchandise within a store.
Alongside the visual merchandising element, planograms aim to optimise article availability and thus specifically stimulate sales.
So, a store planogram has two aspects:
1 – The Merchandising: which articles are presented on the sales floor and how (visual merchandising)
2 – The detailed quantities for individual colour and sizes (availability optimisation)
For example, a planogram might state where a formal shirt is displayed on the shop floor. The planogram will also state what quantities should be displayed, specific to different sizes and colours. So the planogram may state 3 mediums, 2 smalls, 2 larges and 1 extra-large are available on the shop floor, and so on.
Ideally, merchandising and planograms go hand in hand: customers are inspired by the presentation and then, their desired product is available in the matching size. The reality, however, often paints a different picture.
Planogram – Merchandising
Planogram – Quantities and Priorities
Visually appealing and available in relevant sizes
What are the challenges of setting and maintaining a retail planogram?
Breaking this down, there are two questions that retailers face:
1) How do you define a planogram for my stores with a suitable size distribution?
The first question can be a challenge for retail depending on your definition of suitable. The reality is simply that manually creating and defining different size distributions for every single product is incredibly time-consuming and rarely worth the effort. This means generally stores will have a single set size distribution or ratio for every product in the store. This certainly could be worse, but it could (and can) be better….
2) How do you maintain the planogram on the shop floor? I.e. how to ensure that the products on the planogram are always on the shop floor
This, on the other hand, is a major challenge for retailers. What good is a planogram if it’s not adhered to? For example, if a planogram states that a size XL should be on the shop floor at all times but it is missing due to inaccurate or slow replenishment/refill, and a customer who needs that size can’t find it, more often than not that sale is lost.
There are two ways steps that go a long way to fixing this:
- Use a more specific and data-driven planogram in the first place (What we’re going to explore now)
- Having a better replenishment process in the store. (Like this one)
How does AI change the planogram?
Manual maintenance and adjustment of specific planograms is rarely a realistic option for retailers, especially when it comes to specific size distribution for individual products and stores.
By utilising artificial intelligence and machine learning procedures, it is possible to automate this process to define a precisely optimised size distribution for all articles across the store.
Not only does this save an enormous amount of planning time, but it also addresses the ongoing dynamics in individual stores. The self-learning system adapts to possibly changing conditions and continuously optimises the plan.
- Produces automated planograms based on sales data
- Produces optimised planograms for individual products
- Produces optimised planograms specific to the individual store
- Constantly adapts and optimised the planogram based on new data
AI planograms in action with the Detego platform
If this all sounds theoretical, its not.
During the operational process in the store, Detego InStore also supports the store personnel at several occasions: The software offers two parameters that provide information about article availability at any time and therefore represent important KPIs:
- On-floor availability: The percentage of all available articles that are currently displayed on the sales floor
- Planogram compliance: Provides information on how well the planogram with its individual size distribution is implemented on the sales floor
If one of the two parameters fall below certain threshold values, store staff needs to action: In addition to classic ERP systems, Detego InStore offers a finer level of granularity in the stores, by telling store staff that certain articles are available in the backroom but not on the salesfloor and therefore need to be refilled to comply with the predefined planogram.
Retailers benefit from a complete process for the planning and implementation. Another advantage: Refill advices in the app are sorted such that the search in the back room is made as efficient as possible by minimising walking routes.
With AI planograms, shelf space is used for top sellers and is not wasted on sizes that are rarely or never bought. With its self-learning components, the Detego platform for the store makes a suitable proposal for all sizes and facilitates implementation in daily processes – including relevant KPIs for measuring performance. And if a certain size is not available in one store, the platform offers an exact inventory view of surrounding stores – ready for click & collect.
Benefits for retailers:
- Individually optimised AI planogram per store
- Efficient use of shelf space according to bestsellers per store
- Guided processes: from planning to refilling
- KPIs to provide insights on operational excellence per store – in real-time
Benefits for consumers:
- High on-floor availability for the locally popular sizes
- Positive customer journey
- Overall increased article availability through exact inventory data on the entire store network – including reservation options
Did we spark your interest?
Retail software specialist, Detego, will showcase three of its software solutions at EuroCIS, taking place from 19 – 21st of February 2019 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Visitors to Europe’s leading trade fair for retail technology can experience Detego’s market-leading solutions for the fashion retail industry, including real-time inventory intelligence and pioneering IoT and artificial intelligence (AI) projects. The live demos being showcased will be part of an impressive booth setup (Hall 9, booth #C04) which showcases the future of physical retail stores.
For inventory management of the store, Detego offers the InStore Lean Edition which meets the demands of the fashion retail industry for a quick-start solution into the digital store. Offered as a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solution with cloud hosting, retailers benefit from high inventory accuracy and consistent article availability at low cost. This is possible through fast and accurate stocktakes and automated replenishment processes, bringing long-term benefits to fashion retailers and most importantly, delivering quick results. The app-based solution can be active within hours and has a clear path of scaling to ensure rapid deployment and an easy functional extension to the Detego InStore Full Edition. “More and more fashion retailers are living by the mantra of ‘keep it simple’ for their RFID implementation which is exactly why we successfully implemented across the world the Detego InStore Lean as an ‘out-of-the-box’ SaaS-based RFID solution.” Says Kim Berknov, Executive Chairman of Detego.
The fitting room is the most important place in the entire store when it comes to purchasing decisions being made. This means that it’s crucial to provide support and additional services for customers. Detego’s Smart Fitting Room provides product recommendations, such as matching items available on the sales floor that can be brought directly to the fitting room by sales staff via a “call-to-assist” button. The customer can gain access to the benefits of e-commerce by looking up other products, checking for availability, reserving articles or having them delivered directly from the store to their home. Links to videos or social media feeds can also help. These value-adding services are what continue to drive consumers to shop in-store.
Answering as many questions as possible for shoppers through AI, Detego’s chatbot supports the sales personnel and bridges waiting times for customers until there’s a salesperson available for individual service. The virtual store assistant accompanies customers throughout their entire shopping experience and provides additional support in the vital decision-making process, such as making product recommendations and earmarking other popular items, bestsellers, discounted articles or product variants. The AI capabilities are not just limited to the chatbot itself, but also work continually in the background by communicating with other systems in the store. The chatbot checks the actual availability of articles and compiles data about customer types and their preferred article combinations and choices. As a result, recommendations become more meaningful and personal and only articles immediately available in the store are recommended.
“We want to introduce fashion retailers to solutions that support them in their daily challenges,” says Dr. Michael Goller, CTO at Detego. “We can show how fashion retailers can positively influence buying decisions and how a digital fitting room or a chatbot help in the sales process, as well as witness how several global fashion brands have successfully adopted the Detego InStore Lean Edition.”
Detego, a provider of innovative software solutions for the retail industry, will be showcasing the latest digital in-store solutions on January 13-15 at NRF 2019. Returning as a co-exhibitor on the SAP booth (#3426), Detego will display their RFID-based inventory management software and latest AI applications for retailers.
Detego has been complementing the SAP offering in fashion retail by utilizing IoT technology and providing SAP systems with real time data on item level. Exhibiting at NRF will be the Detego InStore Lean Edition, a new mobile solution for retailers, offering faster and cheaper access to the benefits of digital connectivity via an RFID based system. This solution allows fashion retailers to quickly adopt a “smart” replenishment process and carry out “intelligent” stocktakes, by starting small and scaling across the entire store network. Offered as a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model with cloud hosting, retailers benefit from high inventory accuracy and consistent article availability at low cost. Detego’s software has already proven to be the most cost-effective and fastest to implement on the market with over 1500 stores running on Detego around the globe.
To complement their core product offering, Detego have also developed AI applications which benefit both retailers and consumers alike. Detego’s new digital assistant/chatbot can be used at any time on a customer’s smartphone to help provide more pertinent product information or recommendations, based on real-time data on actual availability and customer preferences. The built-in machine-learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities adapt to the ever-changing dynamics of retail, which means that results get better and better over time.
Detego has also found opportunity within AI to help revolutionize the planogram. Since the manual maintenance of the planogram per store can be enormously time-consuming, Detego’s self-learning system adapts to possibly changing conditions and continuously optimises the individual planogram per store. “By optimising the sizing profile of individual items for each store and greatly simplifying the in-store refilling process, we provide retailers with tools that make it easier for them to plan and implement optimum product presentation and thereby help them to boost their sales.” Says Michael Goller, Detego CTO.
Detailed analysis by retail tech specialists at Detego has confirmed that the average retailer’s data is only about seventy-five percent accurate when it comes to knowing exactly what inventory is actually in stock at any particular time. The problem is often compounded by retailers continually managing stock across multiple channels and increasingly having to stay on top of consumer demands for up-to-the-minute, reliable information. Detego, which has been monitoring its own chatbot service that allows consumers to engage with retailers via their smartphones, found the most common enquiries to be about stock availability. It found data inaccuracies around inventory to be most of an issue in fashion retail where ever shorter product lifecycles, fast turnarounds of stock and multiple style, size and colour combinations can play havoc with the supply chain and in-store operations.
“Customers, above all, want instant and accurate information on product availability,” says Dr. Michael Goller, CTO at Detego. “If you’re shopping for clothes, you want to be sure of getting the exact size and style you’re looking for. But many retailers fall by the wayside here – their systems might tell them that a particular size is available; yet, there’s a one in four chance that this isn’t the case.”
According to Goller, continually relying on manual processes for something as vital to the retail business as stock – usually by shutting up shop once or twice a year for store or warehouse staff to do a stock-take – is madness. And especially given that smart technologies abound, including RFID and mobile devices which ensure continual monitoring and lead to near hundred percent accuracy and operational excellence in the stores.
Research by the University of Parma in Italy has shown consistent sales increases in RFID-managed apparel stores and deduced that “RFID item-level tagging is a powerful tool for improving inventory accuracy, which is a prerequisite for both omni-channel strategies and store floor replenishment from the backroom.”1
Thanks to technology that helps increase the availability of products on the shopfloor – such as using wearable devices that rely on alerts and images to guide staff and speed up the replacement of missing articles and gaps on the shelves – the industry is starting to see a gradual shift towards more connected technologies in retail. IDC Retail Insights predicts that eighty percent of retailers are due to spend on visibility platforms powered by RFID and IoT2 over the next few years.
1 http://bit.ly/2s2e2Gf
2 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43775418
99% Stock accuracy
98.5% product availability
750+ stores
2000+ sales employees trained
An extraordinary four-month project sprint for 500 adidas stores in Russia has been successfully completed. The goal: Boost store KPIs such as inventory accuracy, article availability and consumer service to the highest levels. The means to achieve that: Extremely fast, error-free stock taking of 45 million articles per year through real-time in-store processes that are more efficient and intuitively managed, using decision-relevant analytics. The end-to-end integration was accomplished in just four months. The interdisciplinary project team consisted of business, IT, logistics and retail experts coming from five different countries – all working together across ten different time zones. The result: 99% inventory accuracy and the highest on-floor availability that adidas wanted for its stores. The winner: The adidas end customer.
The future? Athletic.
Detego, market leader in real-time business intelligence for the fashion retail industry, showcases its innovative retail products at Whitebox – a digital experience space for various innovative in-store applications – in Future City Langenfeld. Retailers are introduced to new in-store technologies, test them and exchange their experiences with retail experts. With its innovative and beneficial in-store products, Detego perfectly fits into the concept of the Whitebox where the Detego InStore Lean Edition as well as the Chatbot Detega are showcased.
The Detego InStore Lean Edition meets the demand of the fashion retail industry for a quick-start solution into the digital store. With brick-and-mortar retail being under increasing pressure, innovative technologies play a significant role in regaining its former strength: Customer service that makes the difference – based on extremely high on-shelf availability and data accuracy in terms of inventory. This is possible through fast and accurate stocktakes and automated replenishment processes, bringing long-term benefits to fashion retailers and most importantly, delivers quick results. At Whitebox, fashion retailers have the opportunity to assess the Detego InStore Lean Edition, which is already successfully in use in over a thousand fashion stores.
In addition, visitors can find out more about the Chatbot Detega, the consumer engagement tool that helps increase sales. On request, Detega starts a dialogue on the customers’ smartphone immediately after entering the store, thus elegantly bridging possible waiting times. Consumers are already used to these services thanks to online shopping. The virtual sales assistant gives product recommendations, triggers cross-selling potential and increases retention time in the store. These are all features retailers will need in the future to make sure to keep their customers.
Frank Rehme, initiator of the Whitebox, Future City Langenfeld, wants to present visitors with a selection of innovative in-store systems and to give, in particular smaller retailers, the chance to digitalise their stores easily: “We are delighted to have Detego as a partner as their solutions bring much needed value to retailers quickly without much implementation time. Next to a clear vision for the future of retail, practical as well as result-oriented application of digital technologies are very important to us.”
More information: http://futurecitylangenfeld.de/whitebox/
Why should fashion retailers deal with IoT? What problems could be solved in the stores? What results can be expected? As a retail decision maker you need to deal with IoT if increased article availability, exact inventories, interaction with customers and operational excellence in your stores are set as objectives. This practice-oriented guide sheds light on the triangle of “customer”, “processes in the store” and “deployment of new technologies” and shows how the use of IoT benefits retailers and ultimately the customer. The whitepaper reveals the formula for the perfect customer relationship, based on the right technologies and processes and shows how retailers can apply them to their business.
Detego, a market leader in real-time business intelligence for the fashion retail industry, is releasing its latest whitepaper, providing valuable information on the use of Internet of Things (IoT) in fashion stores. Titled as “The perfect customer relationship – How fashion stores leverage Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to put the customer in focus of all activities “, fashion retailers get a practice-oriented guide that highlights the most important aspects such as: Why should fashion retailers deal with IoT?, What problems could be solved in the stores?, What results can be expected? Retail decision makers need to deal with IoT if increased article availability, exact inventories, interaction with customers and operational excellence in the stores are set as objectives. The 35-page guide sheds light on the triangle of “customer”, “processes in the store” and “deployment of new technologies” and shows how the use of IoT benefits retailers and ultimately the customer. The whitepaper is available for download on the Detego website.
Detego discusses the various IoT technologies as a way for retailers to realize the perfect customer relationship. Based on customer’s needs, the practical tips are divided into 1. Self-service in the store: The customer as the main actor, 2. Brand Ambassador: The customer as influencer, 3. Co-Value Creation: The customer as partner and 4. Predictive Analytics: The Customer as creator of the future. All four subchapters describe what retailers can do to connect with the customer and enable an interaction in the store.
In addition, infrastructural prerequisites such as the optimal process support through IoT technology and in particular support for the sales personnel are discussed. With the help of IoT, retailers and their store personnel gain valuable data that is translated into recommendations for concrete action to take. In addition to the operational excellence in the store, it is primarily about the new shopping experience for the customer. The whitepaper reveals the formula for the perfect customer relationship, based on the right technologies and processes and shows how retailers can apply them to their business.
The EuroCIS took place from February 27th to March 1st, 2018 at the exhibition grounds in Düsseldorf, Germany.
With more than 400 exhibitors and 12.000 visitors coming from all around the world, the EuroCIS is an ideal information as well as communication platform for all retail decision-makers. In addition, the latest trends and innovations in the retail sector were presented and could be experienced first-hand.
Detego was exhibiting in hall 9, booth #C03 and provided visitors with information on how to gain analytical insights into store businesses, optimise inventory visibility across all channels in real-time and put omni-channel services on a solid foundation.
Visitors to the Detego booth could interact with the Detego Smart Fitting Room as well as the Chatbot Detega and check out the Detego InStore Lean Edition as live-demos. It was showed how fashion retailers can leverage cross-selling potential as well as how several global fashion brands have successfully adopted the Detego InStore Lean Edition, a quick start solution into the digital store, that is productive within hours and not weeks or months.
For more information, please contact us: events@detego.com