Tag: Fashion

Knowing what’s in your store is essential to running a profitable retail business, whether it’s an independent boutique or a store in a chain of thousands. There are two things that keep stores ‘In the know’ when it comes to their inventory, stocktakes and their inventory management systems. A stocktake allows you to establish your view of inventory (at reasonable expense and effort) whereas the better your inventory management system is, the longer that view of stock stays accurate.

Even if your inventory management is top quality, without regular stocktakes accuracy will begin to slip. Factors like theft, admin errors and stock movement will mean that before too long the stock file and the physical inventory become increasingly out of sync.

This problem is multiplied the bigger a retailer’s footprint is. When looking at hundreds or even thousands of stores, stock inaccuracy can add up to unthinkable amounts of capital. Just look at British retailer Ted Baker who last year discovered a £58M hole in their business, entirely due to inventory mismanagement!

For many retailers then, stocktaking is considered a necessary evil. But doing a wall-to-wall count of every individual product in a store is no mean feat. Physical inventories come at great cost: time, money, and overall efficiency. As a result, many stores only perform an annual or bi-annual stocktake, but these leave a lot to be desired.

Let’s go through how and why annual stocktakes can be so expensive to perform and even ask, can retailers afford to go on like this?

It’s time to close the curtain on what’s been a challenging year for all. Retail has been under immense pressure this year, but through perseverance, partnership and innovation, we are beginning to come out of the other side.

While it might be tempting to move on from this year and not look back, we feel it’s important to look back and take stock of the biggest developments and stories of the year, good and bad.  

Let’s explore the major themes of the year for retail, and revisit some of the content and updates that have told the story of 2020. 

In the final instalment of our series exploring predicted retail trends for the coming year, we analyse why online order fulfilment will be a key metric for 2021. With COVID-19 causing an unprecedented acceleration in the shift towards eCommerce, retailers must quickly adapt and strengthen their fulfilment capabilities to ensure they can keep up with the higher demand. Read on to learn what the priorities are for retailers to achieve this, and what technologies are delivering the answers.

Online shopping or eCommerce has been steadily growing since its invention. This means that the number of online orders that a retailer needs to fulfil gradually goes up year-on-year. The gradual increases required to a retailer’s order capacity are normally easy enough to anticipate and plan for. Like so many other things, however, 2020 kicked this idea to the curb.

This year has seen a massive shift towards eCommerce as a result of COVID-19. Even after things go back to normal, experts predict that a large portion of this growth will remain. In fact, according to data from IBM’s U.S. Retail Index, the pandemic has accelerated the shift away from physical stores to digital shopping by roughly five years. Online or multichannel retailers are therefore faced with dealing with a seismic shift in the industry. Many brands will have to deal with the fact that the sudden shift may put the demand for online orders beyond their current capacity for fulfilment. Retailers then need to strengthen and invest in their fulfilment capabilities to avoid being caught out. But where to look first?

So, when we say fulfilment will be a key priority for retailers, what exactly does that mean? What are the limiting factors for online fulfilment, or, in other words, what areas will struggle without additional investment or technology?

Online capacity

The first step in any online purchase – a customer going online in the first place. For a webshop, or indeed any website, capacity simply means the number of visitors it can support. How much capacity is needed will vary, for example – this website does not need to have the same capacity as Amazon (at least for now). With regular demand, capacity is easy enough to get right. It’s sudden shifts or surges that can cause problems. We have all likely experienced this ourselves at one time, with a recent example being the PlayStation 5 UK launch crashing several major retailer’s sites! With eCommerce numbers predicted to stay high – web store capacity may need some attention.

Delivery speed

Delivery is one of the biggest challenges (and costs) of online retailing. Shipping products across an entire country at scale is already a challenge. What makes it worse is customers are starting to expect more and more from online retailers. Amazon has set the bar high for this, with next-day and free delivery now more and more sought after by customers. As eCommerce channels grow in popularity, retailers may find their delivery models only scale to a point.

DC efficiency

Supply chain bottlenecks can be a killer for fast online fulfilment. The most likely place for this to occur is where the majority* of online orders are shipped from – the distribution centre. If the way orders are being processed is time-consuming or inaccurate, the whole process can slow down. This supply chain efficiency is particularly important for new products (go-to-market) or restocking OOS (out-of-stock) products. If the process for a DC receiving and processing goods is not efficient enough, drastically increasing the number of products required for the DC to process could cause problems.

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Operational costs

The final big consideration for retailers attempting to scale up their fulfilment capabilities: the cost! All of the previous points are also examples of running costs associated with fulfilling online orders. Many retailers, particularly multichannel, often struggle ensuring their eCommerce arm stays profitable as the margins are much finer. If the balance between online and offline shifts too much, those fine margins could cause problems. Next year will see many of these retailers invest in their fulfilment processes to reduce long term costs and keep their increasingly crucial online channels sustainable.

Automation

As demand for online orders goes up, distribution centres have to evolve. More modern DC’s with high order capacities are highly automated. This includes conveyor systems, automated processing and exception handling (with RFID). High-tech DC’s such as these are more efficient in terms of throughput of items and are far less susceptible to bottlenecks. An example of such a DC is Detego customer Marc Cain, who’s highly automated DC can process 35,000 articles a single day, with 100% accuracy.

Big data and Artificial Intelligence

For larger retailers, online channels produce a lot of data. For retailers who have the technologies to keep track of them, their supply chains also produce huge amounts of data related to the movement and flow of merchandise. As we often say though, data is useless if it’s not being used to produce actionable or useful insights. With AI, retailers can utilise all of this data from their web stores, supply chains and stores to great effect. Operational KPIs like DC throughput and dwell times (how long an item sits at a certain stage of the supply chain) are incredibly valuable for optimising fulfilment. This data can also be used for more advanced algorithms like demand prediction, so retailers can adjust their inventory levels for different regions before there is a shortage of products.

RFID

Tagging products with Radio frequency identification makes a huge difference to supply chains and online fulfilment capacity. Not only does RFID produce real-time item visibility from the factory to the customer, meaning more efficient handovers, but for DC’s it is a game-changer. RFID tunnels within an automated conveyor system can automatically count and check the content of cartons without needing to open the box, in a matter of seconds. This means all products coming in and out of the DC are processed in seconds and with complete accuracy. After the initial investment, the solution also drastically lowers operational costs, not to mention the reduction in chargebacks of incorrect shipping penalties.

In the penultimate instalment of our series running through predicted key trends for the upcoming year, we explore the direct to consumer (DTC) model. Over the last few years, DTC channels have gone from strength-to-strength because of the better margins and closer ties to customers from selling directly to consumers. In the aftermath of 2020 DTC, a mostly online channel is well-positioned in the new normal and beyond, which begs the question – is direct to consumer the future?

A direct-to-consumer model is where a manufacturer promotes and sells its products directly to consumers without ‘middlemen’ like third-party retailers or stores. DTC largely refers to eCommerce channels but can include brick-and-mortar stores in the case of larger brands who own and operate the entire product line and supply chain from source to store.

The most common sectors for DTC are fashion, consumer goods and housewares. The model was pioneered by independent retailers and start-ups, who took advantage of the minimal upfront costs and a gap in the market. The first DTC brands were often hyper-specialised, web-only, marketed heavily on social media with a well-defined brand identity, think dollar shave club and Warby Parker. In recent years bigger brands are utilising DTC as a channel, with fashion brands like adidas Nike, and Levi’s are investing heavily in the model. But why?

You can benefit from better margins

When selling items through either their webshop or brand-owned stores, DTC retailers see more profit. The reasons for this are simple enough, as instead of third-party retailers selling their products for a profit, a brand can sell their products at a similar price at an improved profit margin by keeping the mark up for themselves.

You can increase customer loyalty

DTC offers more opportunity to connect with your customer, as all of the touchpoints are direct between them and the brand – with no one in-between. This means between your website; social media marketing and in-store experience customers get to know the brand behind the products. If this sounds trivial, it’s not – customers care more and more about a brand’s social values. With a DTC arm, it is easier to express a brands personality and foster a more connected loyal customer base.

You can make more data-driven decisions

 By selling directly to their end customers, a brand gains far better insight and data on exactly who their customers are. In modern retailing, this kind of data is key, and when selling through a third party this information is lost. By removing the barrier between them and their customers, brands gain the data to market to their customers more effectively and are more mobile when it comes to product and brand positioning.

adidas

The global sports brand announced this year that it now makes a third of its sales direct-to-consumer. A large part of this is online, with their eCommerce channel seeing increases of 93% during the peak of the pandemic. Beyond COVID this looks set to continue, as adidas’ massive store network will continue to serve customers and deliver a uniquely adidas experience beyond the pandemic.

Levi’s

Similarly, Levi’s is a big proponent of DTC, even before the pandemic. At the start of the year, Levi’s publicly said they were confident that they would weather the impact of COVID better than many other brands because of their strong DTC business. And they were right – in April DTC sales were up 10% and their Net revenue for the quarter was even up 5%. Levi’s is also focused heavily on the experiential elements of DTC, with unique in-store experiences building closer ties with their customers “We’ve been on an intentional path to strengthen that direct relationship,” said Marc Rosen, Levi’s executive vice president.

So, is Direct to consumer retailing the future, and if so, what does this mean for the industry at large? To again use the example of adidas, right at the start of the year the brand said they are aiming to generate 60% of their sales from direct retail by the end of 2020, showing that even before the pandemic brands are repositioning. The reasons why seem clear enough, with the mentioned benefits alongside increasing levels of eCommerce making increased reliance on DTC, especially for bigger brands, a no-brainer. But will retail of the future be entirely DTC? Exactly like when these questions come up for eCommerce, the answer is always more of a balance. Harmony between varied channels and offerings will always be optimal and foster greater resilience, but the balance can always shift – and DTC is looking like the king moving forward.

Product manufactures selling directly to customers is an end-to-end operation. So when trying to ensure accuracy and visibility, they need an end-to-end solution.  For retailers running a DTC operation, the Detego RFID platform ensures the experience for customers is smooth and reliable, with products always available and seamless integration between online and offline channels. The RFID technology means brands can truly streamline their DTC channel with item-level visibility right from the factory to the customer – no errors, no guesswork. Our two examples of fashion retailers who are leading the way on direct, Levi’s and adidas, both use the Detego platform in their stores around the world. If you want to find out how the Detego platform can help you deliver to your customers, get in touch today!

In the second instalment of our series exploring retail trends for next year, we’re exploring the latest development in fashion retail sustainability. The industry has been aiming to reduce its environmental impact in recent years – read our article on a general overview of sustainability in fashion retail. A growing trend is the concept of a circular economy, particularly recommerce and rental. By 2023 it is estimated the resale market will be worth 51 billion dollars and the newer rental market close to 2 billion. Read on to find out how and why these new services are here to stay.

A circular economy is one that reduces waste and pollution, keeps products and materials in use, and benefits the environment. In other words, a circular economy is a model that is sustainable to the core. For fashion retail, this means sustainable materials and re-using and recycling products and materials. This is a stark contrast to the fast fashion model that is pervasive in the industry, but consumer preferences are changing, and retailers are changing as a result. According to the McKinsey apparel CPO survey, there has been a 500% increase in the number of sustainable fashion products launched over the past two years.

But more sustainable products are just one part of the puzzle, achieving a circular fashion economy requires new models altogether. Since retailers still need to see a profit these initiatives need to be sustainable on three levels, they need to work for the customer, the environment, and the retailer’s bottom line.

So what initiatives are retailers exploring to build towards a more circular fashion economy?

Preventing return fraud 

For rental services, and retailers ‘buying’ back pre-owned items, fraud is a big concern. Much like with regular retail returns, scammers can abuse the system by returning the wrong item (a similar or counterfeit item of clothing for example) and keeping the more expensive original. So how can you prevent this type of fraud-theft? When dealing with unique, high-cost products the best option is digitally labelling items with individual non-forgeable ID’s. These allow you to scan the code, like an RFID tag, and the identity of the product. So, through supporting software like the Detego platform, you can confirm each item received is original and ship with confidence to your customers.

Item-level inventories

Retailers offering pre-owned products or rentals will need to re-think the way they look at their inventory. Since second-hand and rental collections consist largely of unique individual products rather than large quantities of the same stock, working with stock-keeping units (SKUs) will not be sufficient in managing inventories and keeping track of stock online and in-store.

Managing these types of inventories will require a different level of accuracy. We regularly advocate the benefits of raising item-level stock accuracy from 70-80% to 99% but for these operations, missing 20% will be crucial. This is because unlike fast fashion, this would mean a fifth of all items are under or overstocked, as you are not carrying multiples of the same SKU so the potential for missed sales or opportunities is massive. Only with complete accuracy can you eliminate disappointing customers and offer them stock information on rentals or second-hand products online, so they can find the perfect product.

Reverse logistics

The final big challenge for both recommerce and rental services is handling the two-way flow of merchandise between the retailer and end-customer. An end customer may order a rental online, have it shipped from store, and then return It at a different location, where it will then need to be sent back to the DC for the next customer. Without even mentioning cleaning or repairs, this is a big logistical challenge. With the unique nature of rentals, in particular, retailers will need to ensure returning items are processed and ready-to-rent again as fast as possible. Achieving this requires a single real-time view of stock across all channels. This means that every item coming in, out or moving between channels need to be tracked, with the real-time view of items shared between all channels and customers.

As fashion retailers build towards a more circular economy by exploring and expanding their use of new sustainable business models like recommerce and rentals, they will need to invest in the right technologies to offer these services at scale. Radiofrequency identification is already well-positioned in the apparel industry, with more and more retailers utilising the technology to gain accurate stock visibility and offer omnichannel services. For rental and recommerce models, particularly on a large scale, RFID may prove to be non-negotiable. The unique item-level ID’s will be invaluable for both rental returns and recommerce goods and will allow customers and retailer to ensure the legitimacy of all items. On an operational level, RFID delivers 99% accuracy across channels and is an ideal tool for reverse logistics as it delivers a real-time view of stock movement.

Hear from Detego’s implementation experts and BESTSELLERS’s RFID project leader on how retailers should approach digital transformation with RFID.

Radiofrequency identification (RFID) has become a vital technology in retail, particularly for larger brands. Leading retailers use the technology to achieve high stock accuracy, supply chain visibility and to gain the real-time data required for strong digital offerings such as omnichannel.

These are no longer optional for retailers and undergoing digital transformation with RFID is on the agenda for more and more brands.

Join Detego’s delivery specialists with years of experience implementing RFID in retail stores, and supply chains as they go take you through a best-practise approach to implementation.

Hear about the journey from a retailer’s perspective as BESTSELLER talk through their RFID journey which included an initial rollout to just under 200 stores in 3 months!

• Determine the key things to consider when implementing RFID
• Gain insight on the priorities to focus on, things to look out for, and lessons learnt
• Learn about each stage of the journey with specific insight and advice for both stores and distribution centres
• Hear a retailer’s experience of a large rollout covering hundreds of stores.

2020 has been an incredibly difficult year for people, countries, and businesses. We have covered the effects of COVID-19 on retail in great detail, so let’s begin to look ahead at 2021 and what the key trends are likely to be in the increasingly-familiar ‘new normal’ and beyond. Starting with a key priority for retailers both for now and next year: Reducing labour costs in stores.

With the financial impact of this year, as well as the reduced sales in brick-and-mortar stores as more customers opt to shop online, retailers need to cut costs in innovative ways to stay profitable. Cutting costs negatively, by getting rid of staff or stores or putting pressure on employees over scheduling, time theft etc all harm staff, customers, and sales. However, there is a more positive or proactive way to achieve this – improving store processes by implementing technology in stores. In this article, we’ll cover where these improvements can be made and where RFID, in particular, can allow retailers to drastically lower labour costs.

Before we get into what technology can do to cut labour costs across the board, let’s first establish why other forms of cost-cutting should only ever be a last resort for retailers, and even then are unlikely to produce positive results. To do that its helpful to establish the difference between optimising costs and cutting costs.

Optimising – not spending on excess staff or stores that are not needed (very rare)

Cutting – getting rid of staff or entire stores that are required as a cost-saving measure.

When it comes to large or global retailers with hundreds of stores, cutting labour costs at scale by reducing staff falls almost always into the latter category.

But this can have huge repercussions on a stores performance and their ability to serve customers. According to RetailDive a study of one apparel chain found that they were only achieving 85-95% of their potential sales due to its staffing levels. According to a separate report from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 6% of all possible retail sales are lost because of lack of service, as customers are unable to locate help.

In short, cutting labour costs by reducing staff in stores simply doesn’t pay. So, what are the more positive and proactive ways retailers can cut labour costs in stores without harming staff, customers, or profits?

When looking at the most staff-intensive areas of a store, you have to start with the checkout. While it does vary depending on the category, with grocery being particularly prevalent, cashiers and point-of-sale are a huge drain of staff and therefore a large source of labour cost. But removing staff from this area without offering any alternatives is not effective as long ques scare away customers and hurt sales. So, the options to reduce costs associated with the checkout are:

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Offer self-service checkouts

It may seem like a no-brainer, and for some retailers it is. Since there is no need for a cashier at every register, one employee can easily monitor 6-10 self-service registers which free up staff to be available elsewhere in the store. However, outside of the food industry, self-service hasn’t really taken off mostly due to the higher price points of items making checkout theft a much bigger concern, in these cases, there is often also a need for staff to remove things like security tags (more on this later).

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Implement technology at PoS that makes the checkout process faster

The other option that is available instead of or in tandem with self-checkouts is improving PoS technology to make it faster and more efficient, reducing the number of cashiers needed. Popular European food retailers, Aldi, who was described by CNN as a ‘brutally efficient grocery chain’ have barcodes all over their products, making their cashiers infamously fast. But for many retailers and sectors, this isn’t feasible, so what is the other option? An RFID tag can achieve the same purpose as the radio frequency it emits can be read at any angle. Even better, every item can be scanned/read at the same time! Having RFID-enabled checkouts can not only massively cut queue times but also reduce labour costs by having fewer staffed checkouts per store.

Loss prevention is a key principle for most stores. When you are trying to maximise revenue, losing stock and sales eats into profits and makes thin margins even thinner. Naturally, the majority of retailers have systems and technology implemented to combat shoplifting in stores, with the most common being ‘hard’ security tags that need to be removed by staff before passing through the store’s EAS gates. But these tags come with a hidden cost: it’s estimated that a single security tag costs around $0.30 in labour costs to add and remove from each item. Added to the cost of tags themselves this can add up fast, particularly in sectors like apparel where this is done for every item. But since not having loss prevention in place is just as costly, what are the alternatives? RFID tags can be used with EAS gates, and provide a more cost-effective option. They are the ‘soft’ version of such security measures meaning they do not need to be removed before leaving the stores but are slightly less durable. If we are keeping score here, using RFID instead of hard tags have the following advantages:

• The tags themselves are cheaper
• They are tagged at source, meaning store staff don’t need to do it
• They do not need to be removed by staff, as once confirmed as purchased by the PoS, they simply do not set off the EAS gate
• They are multi-functional, meaning that tags can be used for stock management, PoS and loss prevention

Finally, let’s move away from daily processes and labour costs and look at something that (most) retailers only do a handful of times a year but at great cost: The full store stocktake or cycle count. The cycle count is a necessary evil to know exactly what is in retailers stores to maintain stock accuracy and optimise working capital. However, without supporting technology these stocktakes are big undertakings – which is why they are done so rarely. Larger retailers often use third-parties to perform these stocktakes, which cost around $2000 per store (depending on size). When you do this for an entire store network – the costs add up fast.

The best alternative to this? Implement RFID in stores, meaning staff can regularly perform RFID stocktakes on a weekly or even daily basis. This removes the cost of the annual stocktakes, but are you just replacing it with the cost of RFID itself? The reason this works financially is the long list of benefits you gain from using RFID, most notably an increase in sales and a reduction in running costs (both from reduced labour and less running capital). This is not just us saying so as the list of retailers who use of RFID has grown hugely and more and more retailers are choosing to adopt the technology.

As we look to round off what has been an incredibly disrupting year with the all-important holiday season, how is the retail industry likely to fair? Will the usually busy holiday season provide some much-needed relief to retailers feeling the pinch of a tough year, or will sales and profits continue to struggle? We analyse the figures and identify the key trends that will rule this year’s holiday season.

In terms of general outlook, the majority of experts are predicting the coming season to be positive in general, but with less growth compared to previous years. ICSC and CBRE both predict less than 2% growth in sales for the period, compared to the average of 4.1% we typically see in the holiday season. Considering the economic and social disruption of the past year this lower than normal increase is to be expected, but ultimately will cap off what has been several months of steady growth in both the UK and the US. If we look at consumer polls, the outlook is similar, with a survey from Maybe* finding that its ‘Christmas as usual’ for 71% meaning they plan on spending the same as in ‘normal’ years.  But the way customers, and indeed retailers, go about this holiday season looks to be very different from previous years.

Let’s take a look at some of the key trends for the upcoming holiday season:

Black Friday is the event that kicks off the holiday season, typically meaning high discounts, crammed shop floors and long ques outside of stores. Due to the realities of the pandemic many retailers have extended their Black Friday offerings to cover several days or even weeks, in an attempt to prevent overcrowding in stores. COVID may have moved the starting line of the season altogether however with prime day, typically taking place in July, pushed back to earlier in October. If ever there was a retailer big enough to move the needle by themselves, it was Amazon – and several retailers in the US including Target and Walmart launched their own deals at the same time to compete with the online giant. Customers will be keen to take advantage of these deals this year more than ever, and according to AlixPartners, 49% of consumers plan to start their holiday shopping by Halloween or earlier in the US, and in the UK Maybe*’s survey found that 65% of respondents have already started their Christmas shopping this year.

‘The season will ultimately cap off what has been several months of steady growth in both the UK and the US.’

‘COVID may have moved the starting line of the season altogether however…’

‘eCommerce sales (are predicted to) grow between 25-35% year-on-year, compared to 14.7% in 2019.’

‘Retailers hoping to make the most of the period will need to focus on ensuring safety and customer confidence in their stores’

‘it seems many retailers are planning on discounting deeper and earlier this year’

‘online channels have been, at least temporarily, promoted from supporting operations to the heart of the business.’

‘80% of shoppers expect to increase their use of these services over the next six months’

Discover how retail RFID is changing the industry for good. This eBook will guide you through the top 10 needs identified by retailers to ensure sustainable success in the modern environment. Explore the common challenges preventing retailers from achieving their goals and learn how applying smart RFID-based solutions delivers consistently good results.

What is in the eBook?

The retail industry is currently ruled by change. The digital age has seen a huge growth in competition from e-commerce and a rapid shift in consumer preferences. This shift has altered the industry greatly with modern ‘omnichannel’ customers demanding to shop where they want, how they want and when they want. Delivering such an experience is a challenge, one that requires brick-and-mortar retailers to change.

In this eBook, we analyse the top 10 needs identified by retailers to ensure sustainable success in the modern environment. Within each of these needs, we identify the challenges often preventing retailers from achieving them, and how applying smart RFID-based solutions can deliver consistently good results.

Improving key metrics in stores

Delivering to customers with retail RFID

Optimising supply chains from source to store with automated processes

Protecting brands and products from theft, counterfeits and the grey market.