What does having a single stock view mean, why is it a necessity in modern retail and how do you achieve it?

A Single Point of Truth For Retail

01. November 2019 • Article • Joel

We say it all the time, but effectively running a large retail business is challenging, and it is getting more complex by the year.

Even ignoring COVID-19, the highly competitive nature of the industry means retailers must always be pushing forwards, constantly improving their offering, and ensuring margins are optimised to the nth degree.

Managing a full store network is hard enough, but now retailers must operate online channels and even blend operations to offer services like click-and-collect.

The need to manage increasingly complex operations in better and more innovative ways has led retail down the path of digital transformation.

The digitisation of stores and supply chains delivers one of the most crucial requirements of effective modern retailing – product visibility. For retailers who can achieve a single unified view of stock, meeting the high standards of customers and shareholders get a whole lot easier.

Let’s explore the new holy grail of retail – A Single Stock View

What is a single stock view?

A single point of truth in retail means having a single view of stock across the business. It means stores and distribution centres aren’t islands of merchandise that are clunkily attempting to share their version of stock information with one another as best as possible.

Instead, at the foundation of the business is a unified view of every single product. Because this view of stock covers the entire network, items can move between stores and DC’s and remain in line-of-sight the entire time. This has huge benefits for individual operations and the business as a whole.

Doing this requires the right digital technologies. RFID enables retailers to track their products with pinpoint accuracy, and cloud-based infrastructure and The Internet of Things allows you to build a digital view of products, and easily share this data across the organisation.

A single view of stock must be:

A single point of truth for retail inventory must be:

Highly Accurate

The inaccuracy of data is a major factor in why many retailers don’t operate with a single view of stock.

After all, sharing information is only valuable if it’s correct. Retail stores for example, typically run at about 60-70% inventory accuracy (on an item-level). This is not good enough, if your view of something is incorrect every one in three, it is not visibility at all, and sharing this information with the rest of the network causes more harm than good.

For a reliable view of stock, you need to be as close to 100% accuracy as possible, so 98% at a minimum.

Item-Level

For retailers to have accurate inventories, valuable data and to offer omnichannel services, their IT systems need to operate on an item-level.

This means being able to differentiate items of the same type (or SKUs, Stock Keeping Unit). Essentially item-level inventories can tell the difference between say 5 black t-shirts, it counts each one individually, whereas an SKU-based inventory they are multiples of the same thing.

Real-time

Since a single view of stock covers an entire network of constantly moving stores and supply chains, this data must be regularly updated or even real-time.

While this is tied up with accuracy it is perhaps worth making the distinction. If a store performs a stocktake once a week, even if it’s highly accurate, the information between these counts is likely unreliable.

Retailers need to ensure every item movement is tracked, from supply chain to point-of-sale.

Across ALL channels

Once you have accurate visibility over every individual product in a store or supply chain, the final piece of the puzzle is to share this visibility across all channels. The way to do this is to centralise the view of products onto a single cloud-hosted system.

Rather than sharing data back and forth between individual stores store or distribution centres feed information directly to the ‘single point of truth.’ This view of stock is then used by the entire business and is linked to existing IT stacks like ERP or OMS systems.
Single Stock View Diagram

What are the benefits of a single stock view?

Individual Stores

Having accurate visibility of products is hugely valuable even on a single store level. Inventory accuracy and product availability are key metrics for stores, so store performance is greatly improved before you even consider the benefits of omnichannel.

  • Increase stock accuracy
  • Increase product availability
  • Increase sales
  • Know exactly what they are receiving from inbound shipments (Advanced Shipping Notices)
  • Omnichannel offerings such as Click-and-Collect (BOPIS)

The E-Commerce Operation

For an omnichannel retailer, having a single view of stock is practically a necessity. With it, they can powerup their eCommerce operations by leveraging stores in two ways. Not only can they sell store stock to online customers (reducing lost sales) but they can also leverage stores as miniature distribution centres. The latter use case is becoming increasingly valuable, and during the COVID-19 pandemic was a real-life saver for some brands.

  • Visibility over the supply chain
  • Can offer return-to-store
  • Can utilise store stock via ship-from-store
  • Can utilise stores as mini distribution centres.

The Supply Chain

Supply chain visibility is a big deal in modern logistics, particularly in retail. Item-level visibility, provided by RFID tags, is particularly useful as it allows supply chain leaders to go one step deeper than the carton or shipment level. This allows you to not only trace individual product journeys but identify and eliminate item shrinkage which is often invisible when only tracking shipments and boxes.

  • Better cooperation with both up and downstream
  • More efficient ordering from stores = reduces returns to DC.
  • Reduces shrinkage
  • Reduces shipping mistakes

The Customer

Finally, the customer enjoys a more connected and frictionless experience. Stores that have products and sizes always available and ready to purchase, and a connected online experience where they can check product availability or take advantage of flexible offers like click-and-collect and return-to-store.

  • More likely to find their desired product in-store
  • Can check store stock online beforehand
  • Click-and-collect options
  • Return online orders to local stores
  • More products available to purchase due to omnichannel – can view and purchase items across channels

How do you achieve a single view of stock?

So, what does it take to gain this reliable and complete view of stock?

A single view of inventory starts with a single item. By giving each item an RFID tag, you are essentially giving it a unique digital identity. This means, using regular RFID reads and sensors, you can easily track the item as it moves along the supply chain.

Once it has arrived in a store, the stock becomes far easier to count, monitor and control. Because all this information is stored centrally in a single place, the individual item can be seen by the online store (and its customers) and even neighbouring stores and DC’s.

This transparency boosts efficiency and makes cooperation between different arms of the retail operation far easier to manage.
With RFID in place, you can verify and track your products on an item-level, giving you a complete digital view of every individual item and every single item-movement, in real-time.

But to get every step of the operation singing off the same sheet requires supporting software that is:

  • Cloud-Based
  • Utilises the Internet of Things
  • Is End-to-End, covering from the factory to the shop floor
Single Stock View Roadmap

The Detego platform is the single point of truth for retail inventory

The Detego platform puts all this together and delivers a single stock view that can be counted on. Using RFID, we effectively digitise every single product in the supply chain and the store network. The information can then be fed into existing systems, such as ERP and OMS. The Detego platform covers every step of the item journey, from the factory to the distribution centre to the store. This delivers all the benefits mentioned above, and our in-store application guides store staff to effectively capitalise on this complete view of store inventory.

Diagram of RFID tracking across a retail supply chain

‘Detego is our “Single point of truth” in terms of in-store inventory. As a result, we are able to improve our omnichannel services such as click & collect, returns from e-commerce in the store or directly deliver to consumers from the store in a very efficient way. These are exactly the services our consumers expect today.’

Tobias Steinhoff, Senior Director Business Solutions Sales Strategy and Excellence, adidas

Download Case Study

Want to see how RFID can transform your business?

CONTACT US
16. August 2023
News
News & Events
golden quarter retail
13. October 2022
Article
The ‘Golden Quarter of Retail’ is one of the most profitable periods of the year, but the cost of living crisis could mean retailers struggle in 2022. What can be done?
2023 Retail Operations Strategy: How to Improve Your Retail Operations Management
13. September 2022
Article
Are you already planning your 2023 retail operations strategy? This is how you could future-proof your operations with the help of RFID for retail.
Avatar
Joel

Tags: , , , , ,

Leave a Reply

avatar