Tag: Omnichannel

What Does a Radically Transparent Supply Chain Look Like?

Why Prioritise Transparency Now?

While many retailers readily look to improve their supply chain transparency, for many others, full-disclosure reporting is a practice being pressured upon them by both direct and indirect stakeholders. These different parties desire open and honest information for various reasons. Here we discuss the mindsets of these stakeholders and explore the reasons behind their demands for radical supply chain transparency:

1. Customers

The post-pandemic retail sector is filled with innovation that attracts the re-emerged consumer whose activism has been heightened by COVID-19. Multiple lockdowns had given the world time to re-evaluate its values, especially when last year, there was no good excuse to look away from societal issues that took the world stage, such as climate emergencies, poor factory conditions, and racial injustice. As a result, contemporary consumers are more scrutinising now than ever before and want the businesses they shop with to take accountability when problems within their internal operations are uncovered.

Sustainable and Ethical Practice:

It is arguably customers who drive retail’s interest for heightened clarity through their passion for advocating brands with sustainable products and ethical operations. In fact, 64% of shoppers look for ethical or sustainable features when making a purchase, and according to researchers at MIT Sloan School of Management, they may be willing to pay 2% to 10% more for products from companies that provide greater supply chain transparency.

In being able to see the impact of their purchases more clearly, customers are not only able to build trust with a retailer but become more assured that their own behaviours align with the values they hold.

Omnichannel:

Customer-centricity is key to post-pandemic supply chain success as demand for goods becomes increasingly uncertain and erratically patterned. The growth of omnichannel means that shoppers expect retailers to cater to them at the physical and digital touchpoints they more fluidly move between in the wake of the pandemic.

By improving the transparency of their supply chains, retailers could much more readily provide the services created by the omnichannel shopping experience, such as real-time inventory visibility and same-day delivery fuelled by digitisation.

2. Employees

Employees are core stakeholders that the shift towards transparency would most impact. Making their working environments unambiguous and their everyday tasks clear to external audiences allows employees, customers and investors to hold retailers accountable in a public domain.

Welfare: According to Anti-Slavery International, there are 16 million people trapped in forced labour within the supply chains of businesses that supply our goods and services. Supply chain transparency is a small step to providing workers more protection over workplace conditions, wages, and personal agency, helping mitigate the risk of external suppliers taking advantage of labour in the sector.

As a result, by enhancing supply chain transparency, businesses are able to track the social impact of their operations and shine a light on grey areas within their own chains that they may not have complete control over.

3. Investors

Last year, Boohoo lost more than 1.5 billion euros in market value after it was uncovered that workers manufacturing their products earned less than minimum wage in poor working conditions. So making it clear that now more than ever, customers aligning their purchases with their values will have a tangible impact on revenue.

Return on Investment: For investors, the intrinsic link between supply chain controversy and loss in market value is a concerning risk. For example, violations in ESG practices were estimated to have erased almost half a trillion dollars’ worth of value from public companies from 2015 to 2019. ESG stands for environment, social and governance. All three domains increasingly feed into an investors decision to back a company beyond financial projections.

So, with investors progressively looking to work with businesses that have a positive impact, transparency is a firm method of proving compliance with every step of the EGS chain that can easily be mapped to the supply chain.

Transparency and Visibility: One Cannot Exist Without the Other

Now that we have made a case for supply chain transparency, there is still the question of how these typically tangled and murky operations can become crystal clear when only 13% of retail executives currently describe having end-to-end visibility.

Although often and mistakenly interchanged for one another, transparency and visibility are two separate concepts when it comes to supply chains, but for retailers, one cannot exist without the other. Therefore, if retailers are to make their supply chains more transparent, they must first be made more visible.

Implementing RFID technology can help provide retailers with unparalleled inventory tracking. By tracing stock at item-level from the factory to warehouse to shop floor, RFID can help retailers improve sustainable and ethical practices within their operations in the following ways:

Post-Purchase Care: By recording raw materials, RFID can assist retailers in tracking the origins of their products and enables them to have a longer life by tracing their composition and helping owners care for their items better.

Carbon Footprint Tracking: RFID technology can follow inventory at item-level at every step of their journey, allowing businesses to calculate the environmental impact of every individual product and correctly offset it.

Workload Easing: RFID also helps retailers ease the strain of workload within factories and distribution centres by taking the place of manual tasks such as stocktake and locating lost items.

Excess Inventory: Limiting the risk of waste products, RFID can help retailers monitor stock and manage future orders with these insights by distributing inventory to locations with high demand or designing a new collection whilst avoiding the features of underperforming products.

Manufacturing Conditions and Compliance: Tracking products back to their production source allows stakeholders to hold retailers accountable if the working conditions and practices of their internal and external factories are below standards.

Implementing Radical Change 

Although organisational resistance to change is weakening, according to a recent survey by Accenture, 94% of experts said there is still no obvious effort to align the organisation’s culture with the goals of the change they intended to create. Yet the fact is, supply chains need to become radically more transparent, whether retail wants to embrace it or not.

The pandemic has exemplified change as an uncomfortable yet vital feature of business survival, and technology has been the great enabler for catalysing operational honesty and transparent reporting. But there is still much more to be done. End-to-end transparency is still a rarity, and retailers will need to push forward to experience the benefits of stakeholder satisfaction.

Book a consultation with Detego today to discover how RFID can help your organisation implement lasting and radical change through increased visibility.

It is no exaggeration to say that the past year has been destructive yet transformative for the retail sector. The pandemic caused a considerable dip in the performance of stores worldwide, and now in the wake of – what we hope were – the worst days of Covid-19, recovery is the keyword on everyone’s mind. In the three months since physical stores reopened in the UK, brick and mortar retailers have begun implementing the strategies they meticulously designed when all they could do was watch and wait as e-commerce cannibalised their market share.

Many of these retail strategies were built upon the review of supply chain management, with 70% of Europe’s 30 biggest retailers using Covid-19 as a reason to reevaluate how they’re operated. Yet even now, as sales start to return to pre-pandemic levels — with physical retailers reporting the strongest summer sales in four years — it is clear to see that these strategies are still grappling with how to manage uncertainty.

So, as a result of recent customer demand exceeding expectations, stock is at its lowest level in the entire 38 years of the CBI’s records. Caused by limited inventory visibility — a topic we covered in an article last month — it is a problem that is continuously overlooked in retail, even though its impact reverberates throughout entire business models, and its solution remains relatively simple.

RFID is an easy and practical method of monitoring inventory throughout the entire supply chain, helping retailers respond to market fluctuations navigate the chaos of today’s retail environment. So, could this technology be the answer to brick-and-mortar’s strategic recovery?

Why the Time is Right for Retail’s Digital Maturity

It has been a long time — around 20 years in fact — since RFID was first introduced as a change-making technology to supply chain management. From then on, widespread adoption has been slow yet robust amongst few innovative retailers who understood the need to invest in software providing stock visibility. But now that Covid-19 has accelerated retails digital adoption by at least three years, RFID has experienced a recent uptick in implementation RFID has experienced a recent uptick in implementation, as use cases become as clear as ever before.

A recent article exploring RFID’s renaissance by McKinsey & Company outlines the current stages these use cases are at with store operations and customer experience only beginning to be explored as solutions. This growing adoption of RFID we see by retailers is comparable to the increased implementation of QR codes, which are currently experiencing a resurgence as COVID-19 heightens demand for digital touchpoints in physical spaces.

The blending of online and offline is one of two fundamental changes to the retail landscape that have ripened RFID for success:

1. Omnichannel Fluidity: 

Consumers’ have newfound comfort in moving between digital and physical channels as social restrictions pushed them into online environments over the past year. And as these digitally savvy customers begin to use more omnichannel touchpoints, retailers will need to manage item-level data in real-time to consistently cater to customers as they shift from clicks to bricks.

The second key difference to the retail sector since stores first shut their doors in early 2020 is the ambiguous long, and short-term needs of customers as the context of their everyday lives unpredictably shift on both local and global scales:

2. Uncertain Market Demand

So as the future of the new normal remains blurry, retailers will need to become more responsive to changeable market demands and make sweeping supply chain adjustments to mitigate the risk of wasted inventory in addition to granular decisions to fulfil localised and personalised, item-level needs.

Inventory Visibility Helps Retailers to Anticipate Change and Respond to the Unexpected

The cycle of instantly catering to consumer demands across multiple channels while being powerless to predict them makes RFID all the more compelling as a solution. The technology is being used to increase retailer’s profitability by helping businesses to empower their store processes. RFID efficiently replaces arduous manual stock-takes and regularly updates inventory levels, so stores have a clear real-time view of product location and availability. This not only enhances brick-and-mortar stores as fulfilment centres but allows them to operate accurately across digital and physical channels.

Yet crucially, to mitigate risk, we should not forget that inventory visibility is more than simply viewing stock levels. It also can contextualise inventory information with item-level data – such as size, colour, and price – helping buyers and merchandisers to improve their practices with insights.

The Retailers Already Using Inventory Visibility Software to Strengthen their Post-Pandemic Customer Experiences

While there are many examples of RFID’s application in industry, recent instances of retailers emboldening their use of the technology to strengthen their post-pandemic strategies are impressive. 46% of respondents to recent Accenture research indicating that they have focused on RFID in response to COVID-19. And although the term inventory software may seem like a dull back-end technology, there are already many new use cases emerging and harnessed by retailers in innovative ways to modernise their offerings.

In-Store Customer Experience

As physical retailers look to win back their market share, the role of stores has needed to evolve with customer demands. For example, research last year by RetailExpo uncovered that 31% of consumers want employees to help with out-of-stocks. And luckily for retailers, store staff are becoming more adept at switching between online and offline more frequently, allowing customer-facing employees to underpin their daily activities with inventory insights such as product availability, reservations and returns.

Mango: Fashion retailer Mango – whose parent company Inditex began to adopt RFID back in 2014 – recently launched a new physical store that combines RFID with deep learning. Generating data, store staff can glean insights using stock performance and availability to enhance their ability to deliver excellent customer service.

Farfetch: Heritage luxury brand Chanel’s collaborative store with Farfetch uses RFID to power consumer-facing services such as changing room mirrors to monitor engagement with inventory and up-sell similar and complementary products. By underpinning the physical shopping experience with data, customers are able to access a level of personalisation often reserved for online commerce.

Omnichannel Continuity 

The sudden surge in omnichannel implementation is a topic we discussed in detail in a previous article, and its importance in the current retail environment cannot be underestimated. For the many retailers operating multiple commerce channels throughout the pandemic revisiting their omnichannel capabilities will have been imperative as the purpose of their online and offline environments are no longer siloed.

Reiss: On the unpredictable UK high street, Reiss has managed to stay solid and stable. Achieving a 4% uplift in sales with Detego, the retailer implemented RFID into its stores before the pandemic hit. So now, when purchasing from Reiss’ online store, customers are provided with the option to collect purchases from their brick-and-mortar shops.

Extending Product Life Cycle

We are seeing the emergence of independent resale businesses, and many existing retailers are beginning to consider extending the life of their stock by rolling out buy-back and circularity schemes. Yet, lack of supply chain transparency has for a long time been a growing concern for consumers who demand more ethical and sustainable practices within the sector. So as the industry continues to contemplate the future of products beyond initial consumption, RFID presents itself as a valuable tool for shedding light on an item’s circular journey.

Vestiaire Collective: In collaboration with Alexander McQueen, the luxury resale marketplace Vestiaire Collective uses NFC tags to authenticate its products. This collaboration benefits sellers and buyers by helping owners find value in their wardrobes and reassures consumers of the validity of their products.

eBay: Similarly, the online marketplace eBay uses NFC technology to help users verify the authenticity of purchases of luxury handbags. This is a somewhat important milestone for businesses that want to emphasise their reliability when working with designer goods.

For many retailers, Covid-19 has awakened then to the risks of merely dabbling with technological innovation — rather than fully immersing themselves in it — and brought to light the blind spots within their supply chains that previously flew under the radar. But there is no one size fits all when it comes to technology, and these retailers have expertly harnessed inventory software to their individual requirements, carving out spaces for the technology to fulfil specific objectives within their operations.

Building RFID into Retail Supply Chain’s is as Easy as Ever Before

One of the common myths about RFID is the apparent steep costs of its integration. But in reality, using the technology is becoming increasingly cost-effective as retailers see an ROI of more than 10% whilst the price of RFID components such as readers and tags drop. And as technology matures, RFID is more precise than ever. As a result, most businesses see a boost to accuracy rates in stock, helping store staff make better use of their time carrying out customer fulfilment instead of stock-takes.

Additionally, where complete RFID integration into supply chains was a complex operation with many moving parts, its currently high global adoption within many continents will make coordinating far-reaching stock journeys easier and agile.

RFID and the Future of Brick-and-Mortar Innovation 

There are so few technologies that have the opportunity to impact the everyday experiences of so many store stakeholders — from customers and sales assistants to buyers and merchandisers, all the way through to manufacturers — and RFID is one of them.

As the post-pandemic consumer emerges expecting complete omnichannel continuity to attain their trust and loyalty, inventory visibility could be the key to future-proofing any retail business in both online and offline environments. And retailers now know the importance that understanding their operations in detailed real-time plays in managing the flow of goods with more control and agility.

So although we can all agree that the technology is nothing new, RFID should not be ignored as the answer to unique challenges retailers face today and the essential tool for building dynamic in-store solutions for the future

The retail industry is changing fast. Customer preferences are changing, the balance of power between online and offline shopping is shifting, and as a result, operations and business models are becoming more complex than ever before. While these changes have been ongoing for some years, the pandemic has accelerated the shift and left retailers with no margin for error.

In a rapidly changing landscape, many retailers have done well to pivot effectively. However, with the pandemic and digital disruption ramping up most are unprepared in terms of supporting technology to ensure these new strategies are profitable long-term.

Chief among these is the lack of reliable product visibility that many retailers struggle with. For brands introducing new operating models, reopening stores after lockdowns, and selling to customers in more ways than before (like Omnichannel) not having a reliable view of products can severely hamper the profitability and effectiveness of such services.

What is inventory visibility?

Visibility in retail refers to a brand’s ability to see and track its merchandise across stores and supply chains. Simple enough in theory, but actually achieving and maintaining this is far more complicated.

Accurately tracking products is the first hurdle where many retailers stumble. For stores, it comes down to being able to perform regular stocktakes, several times a week rather than several times a year. With ‘standard’ technology like barcode scanners, this is simply impossible, even with a world-class ERP system tracking what’s officially coming in and out. Without physically validating what is in a store, the accuracy levels will quickly drop to around 70% due to factors like operational errors, stock counting inaccuracies and theft.

In the supply chain, on the other hand, it’s not a case of an inaccurate view of stock, but often no real visibility at all. Retail supply chains often only track ‘cartons’ (or boxes) throughout the item journey, since counting the contents of each item again is either impossible or entirely too time-consuming. This means most supply chains run on what should be present in each carton and shipment, but mispacks and theft are all too common.

The other reason many retailers don’t have real visibility over their products is that their IT and inventory management systems only work on an SKU level and not an item-level. For a full breakdown on what this means, read this article.

So, what is this lack of visibility costing retailers?

Everyday, stores lose sales due to poor product visibility

 The industry is much more focused on achieving product visibility now due to the Omnichannel surge but there is a more immediate issue that costs the industry £369 billion a year globally: poor product availability. Most people will be very familiar with the experience of products being unavailable in the size/colour they’re looking for, or out-of-stock entirely. In fact, more than most – a survey done in 2019 found that 90% of shoppers had recently at the time (the last 6 months) chosen to leave a store and not make a purchase due to an item being out-of-stock! This problem is caused by low inventory accuracy and subsequently subpar stock replenishment.

If staff don’t have an accurate view of what’s on their shop floors through their IT system, they have no way of consistently ensuring that products are ready to purchase in-store. Many retailers have implemented RFID technology to improve this on floor availability in recent years – driving sales through more accurate inventories and regular replenishment from the backroom.

Product visibility in non-negotiable for retailers embracing omnichannel

We’ve covered it in detail in another article, but after years of flirting with the concept, the pandemic has forced the retail industry to really commit and invest in the omnichannel experience. Services like click-and-collect and ship-from-store have become invaluable in recent times, offering flexibility that works for both customers and retailers alike.

As these services have become more common in the wider industry and more consumers than ever were using services like click-and-collect/curbside last year due to the pandemic, the demand for an omnichannel experience will only increase. Retailers are recognising this and scrambling to adjust, in a recent survey from the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) the number one imperative for the industry was to ‘become omnipotent on omnichannel.’

To make Omnichannel really profitable requires investment. Brands that try and offer services like click-and-collect without the required visibility will find themselves constrained. Either they offer a limited service (relying on safety stock and only selling items they have in surplus) or they offer an unreliable one – routinely cancelling omnichannel orders when they discover items reserved for pickup or delivery are not actually in stock.

Retailers that offer effective and profitable omnichannel services have a real-time digital view of their stock across all channels. To make this work those inventories run on item-level data so that their IT systems can handle items being reserved, shipped-from-store or returned-to-store throughout the day, whilst maintaining a 360’ view of merchandise.

Brands are still working towards gaining visibility over their supply chains

Supply chain visibility is a growing concern for retailers. As supply chains have scaled and become global, issues like inaccuracy, shrinkage and bloated inventories across DCs and stores compound and can become million-dollar issues. For example, UK retailers alone are experiencing annual losses totalling £11 billion due to shrinkage.

Knowing exactly what is passing through each stage of the supply chain is a challenge. With traditional logistic methods working on a carton level and SKU level, retailers struggle to pinpoint where mistakes or shrinkage are occurring. For store networks, this results in stores carrying more products than they need, in the form of both safety stock and ‘phantom stock’ (products that the retailer does not even know about).

This has been something retailers have been aiming towards for some time, in a report by Zebra Technologies in 2017, 72% of retailers said they were working on digitising their supply chains in order to achieve real-time visibility. Fast-forward to 2021 and while progress has been made, there is still work to be done. Brands need to invest in technologies like RFID to be able to track individual products throughout every step of the supply chain.

Not only do these digitised operations reduce the number of shipping mistakes, but the granular data that they work with allows brands to optimise their supply chains to levels simply not possible before such digital transformation.

As new retail models develop – the need for visibility is only going to increase

Retail is going through a period of unprecedented change. We have referenced supply chains and operations growing increasingly complex for retailers in recent years and that is only going to continue in the future. Not only will omnichannel experiences continue to grow and develop, but new models are beginning to emerge that will test brands’ agility and require an item-level view of products.

The key driver for the majority of these new models is sustainability. The push for greener fashion retail experiences, in particular, is still in the early stages but picking up traction rapidly.

Burgeoning new sustainable models like rental, recommerce and the circular economy promise a far eco-friendlier experience than fast fashion. These models will have their challenges however, rather than the one-way traffic of typical retail models, these methods will require a lot of reverse logistics. It’s vital not only that brands can handle this 360’ flow of merchandise, but with rental and second-hand items, in particular, item-level data is vital as products will all be unique.

As visibility becomes a priority, it’s no coincidence RIFD uptake is booming

So, if product visibility is an issue across the retail industry, what are brands doing about it?

Since visibility has become a key issue in the last few years, more and more retailers have begun implementing RFID technology to track and manage products across their businesses, on an item-level, at 99% accuracy and even in real-time.

RFID ticks several boxes that are key to achieving such visibility. First and foremost, it digitises products and processes in DCs and stores, creating a digital record of all items. It also works on an item-level, so is able to distinguish between two products of the same SKU. Finally, RFID processes are efficient enough to be done throughout the supply chain, on a daily basis including inbound and outbound checks as well as daily stocktakes for stores. This means retailers leveraging RFID have a 360’ view of item movement from source-to-store, with granular item-level data that works on a global scale.

RFID and the Technology Curve

While RFID was invented in the 1940s, it wasn’t until this century it began being used as a business tool. In retail, it has existed for almost 20 years, but its initial cost, technical limitations and fewer established use cases all meant most companies (wisely) didn’t see the value in it initially.

This is common for new technology and over time RFID has matured with more research & development as well as more deployments in live retail environments. This has meant the performance of the technology improved and the return on investment for retailers increased. This is known as a technology S curve (seen below). Over the last ten years, RFID use in retail has experienced this curve with the adoption levels and value for retailers increasing year on year.

Fast-forward to the present day and RFID is at a maturity stage, and we predict that over the next five years will become a ‘base technology’, in apparel and sports retail at the very least. This increase is a result of both the technology maturing over time and the industry evolving as a whole – things like digital disruption, the growth of Omnichannel and the pandemic accelerating certain shifts within the industry have meant the need for RFID has increased greatly.

How has RFID evolved? 

For a technology to take off in business (i.e., for it to have a business case) several factors need to be met. The technology needs to be cost-effective, reliable/easy enough to implement and use and most importantly it needs to have enough valuable applications to make it worth doing in the first place.

Early-stage technologies may have one or two of these down, but to really take off and become saturated within an industry it needs to be in this sweet spot of covering all three. So, how do these requirements stack up for RFID?

Cost

Like any technology, Radio Frequency Identification was expensive when it first came out. Over time as more R&D was done and more providers entered the space, the price has steadily gone down.

The biggest factor in this was the drop in the cost of RFID tags themselves. At the start of the century, a single RFID tag could cost as much as $0.75/£0.50 but in the current market, they can be sourced for as low as $0.04/£0.06. This not only makes for much better margins for any retailer looking at the technology, but it opened up whole new industries or sectors whose lower product prices points originally made RFID unfeasible.

Tech

The technology behind RFID has also developed beyond just price point. RFID hardware has improved in terms of reliability and read distance. Tags on the other hand have become smaller and more advanced so that metal and liquid products no longer interfere with the signal – both of these improvements means a far broader range of merchandise can be tagged. This is particularly relevant for categories like food or cosmetics. Finally, the software has also evolved, with more advanced functionalities like tag localisation, Smart Shielding, and global track-and-trace.

Use case

One of the greatest strengths of RFID has always been its wide range of uses and applications. This can at times be a double-edged sword, as companies may not know where to start, may deploy use cases in a sub-optimal order or may chase all use cases at once.

Thankfully, most RFID providers and experts know that a phased approach prioritising KPIs like stock accuracy is vital to both achieving ROI and laying the foundation for more advanced use cases like enabling omnichannel. Provided the project is scaled in the right way, the uses of the technology are broad and include supply chain visibility and traceability, real-time data applications like automated planograms as well as consumer-facing use cases like smart-fitting rooms.

How Retail is Evolving: Why is RFID Becoming Key?

Most of these major changes in RFID retail technology itself occurred several years – the business case has been solid for the last five years at least. This is why many major retailers like adidas, Levi’s, Nike and Target to name a few already have high levels of RFID integration. But in the industry as a whole this is ramping up but why?

Naturally change often happens on a curve, with more cautious brands hesitant to change until they see positive results from other companies who take the ‘risk’. On top of this, however, the market and consumer is changing fast and the digitised accuracy and visibility that RFID provides are becoming non-negotiables for most retailers.

The need to optimise profits/costs

Any business wants to optimise their costs and maximise their profits – it’s not rocket science. But the best ways to do that can often be unclear, and sometimes if it requires some upfront investment or new technology brands may decide that now is not the time. For retailers, the store model and brick-and-mortar economics have been gradually changing over time. As the balance between online and offline channels continues to shift, some stores may become unprofitable if nothing is done.

That is where so many retailers get upfront value from RFID. Implementing the technology in stores increases sales (from reducing out-of-stocks) and reduces running costs (from smaller inventories & increased operational efficiency). Lean stores optimised to such levels may be a necessity in the future with stores playing a less crucial role than five years ago.

Increasing Omnichannel and digital integration

Omnichannel has been a growing force in retail for the last five years. Many retailers bet on omnichannel early, investing in the technology to digitally integrate their stores and supply chains with their online channels, and have profited as a result.

To succeed in omnichannel investment is required, as services like click-and-collect or store-fulfilment need a real-time digital view of store stock if they are going to work effectively. RFID is the perfect solution to these omnichannel challenges, and it’s no coincidence that as Omnichannel has become more common amongst retailers, RFID has as well.

This will be the single biggest factor for RFIDs growth in the next few years. While Omnichannel was once more of an optional strategy since the pandemic and ever-increasing digital shopping channels – it is becoming non-negotiable. This isn’t just us saying so, retailers themselves have recognised this, in a recent survey from the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) the number one imperative for the industry was to ‘become omnipotent on omnichannel.’

Pandemic accelerating the need for digital transformation

While the need for digital transformation to optimise costs, integrate channels and improve operational visibility has been increasing in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this. We’ve covered the effects of the Pandemic in detail over the last year, and many of the mid to long-term effects will push more retailers to RFID adoption.

The changes we have just covered, optimising profits and offering an omnichannel experience, were (or should have been) priorities before, but in the aftermath of the pandemic, they will be the difference makers.

Stores, on the whole, are not going anywhere but they will have to adapt to post-pandemic retail – meaning potentially lower in-store sales and a higher proportion of digital and omnichannel activities. The challenge for retailers is trying to adapt to a changing environment while also financially recovering from the peak of pandemic and lockdowns.

For brands that haven’t started their RFID journey the timing is awkward and yet they may not be able to afford to wait too much longer. While Omnichannel services will be the long-term play, smart retailers will look to use RFID to optimise their profits as soon as possible, securing a return of investment and setting themselves up to profit long-term.

The Omnichannel Surge 

The pandemic was a big accelerator for the already ongoing digital transformation of retail. The temporary circumstances of the pandemic meant more shoppers were forced online. A report from Nosto claims at the height of lockdowns online channels spiked 66%.

This online spike also affected omnichannel services. Click-and-Collect/BOPIS increased 70 percent by volume and 58 percent by value in 2020, according to ACI Worldwide data. Meanwhile, retailers fulfilling online orders from stores grew by 80% in the US, according to global data.

While spikes like this are temporary, online channels will not return down to pre-pandemic levels. This is not only because of ongoing safety concerns, but because many consumers have been introduced to online channels or omnichannel options like BOPIS & curbside for the first time. Many of these new digital consumers will not give those options up, why would they?

So, while stores are coming back and will remain a key part of retail, the environment that they exist in will have changed, with stores operating as part of online channels rather than in tandem or competition with them.

This isn’t new however – the industry has been talking about the gradual move to omnichannel for a long time. What’s significant is how this sudden spike has forced brands to react and adapt far faster than they would have planned. In fact, the pandemic has accelerated this shift by up to 5 years according to data from IBM.

So, are retailers well-positioned for this sudden spike in omnichannel activity?

Growing Operational Challenges for Omnichannel Stores

For the main two omnichannel activities – BOPIS & Ship-from-store, store staff effectively have to do extra work that the customer or the DC would normally do, respectively. These services have natural advantages for retailers and customers, but without the right support store staff can struggle to fulfil these orders and keep on top of their normal tasks.

When stores are quiet like during the pandemic, this is not an issue and allows you to leverage stores and staff that would otherwise be unproductive. Moving forwards, however, as stores begin to return closer to normal foot-fall levels, staff may be overwhelmed without extra help like more dedicated in-store fulfilment staff or supportive technology.

IT  & Inventory Management Improvements Required

Even with the staff and operational manpower to fulfil and deliver these omnichannel services, if a store’s IT system is not up to scratch they will struggle to fulfil orders correctly and deliver on the promises made to customers.

For this to work, brands need a single view of stock across their stores and online shop. For brands to offer reliable and profitable omnichannel services, their inventory management system needs to fulfil three key criteria.

The first is simply accuracy. If stores are running at a standard 70% inventory accuracy, the likelihood of them offering stock to customers that simply isn’t there is too high.

The second – stock needs to be as close to real-time as possible to maintain this accuracy throughout the day. If stock is not updated throughout the day, then it becomes impossible to offer reliable services like BOPIS.

Finally, to do these services effectively it is much more manageable if stock is operating on an item-level rather than an SKU level. This allows stores to easily distinguish between identical items, so ship-from-store or BOPIS can work down to the final remaining SKUs.

Without this infrastructure in place, it’s common for BOPIS or ship-from-store to offer customers stock that isn’t actually there.  The result is orders being cancelled shortly after they are made, and customers being disappointed.

Handling Returns 

Returns are the Achilles heel of online shopping in general, and omnichannel services are no exception. Not only do returns eat up margins, but they also again require some operational manpower to process and re-distribute, be it at the DC or the store.

This problem is particularly prevalent in apparel and sports retail due to sizes and fit. While apparel stores have a far lower rate of returns than online, when adding BOPIS and ship-from-store and return-to-store into the mix, the rate of returns can increase drastically.

Balancing The Cost of Omnichannel

Managing and making the most of fine profit margins has always been key for successful retailers. When selling across channels in different ways – keeping an eye on the variable profit margins is essential.

Shipping from DC, also known as direct-to-consumer, is often the most profitable for retailers. This is why we have seen many brands begin to shift to more DTC models. This model has many advantages like bypassing third parties and servicing a larger area than stores, however, factors like returns can quickly have a negative effect on these margins.

Only somewhat less profitable is in-store sales. While rents and staff costs can be considerable, the operational tasks are effectively shared with the customer. While staff operate checkouts and maintain inventory the customer picks and packs their own orders. It may seem strange to think about in-store shopping in those terms, but some customers are beginning to wise up and appreciate the convenience of retailers doing this for them.

As we get to the omnichannel purchase methods, BOPIS (click-and-collect) and curbside, the operating margin is somewhat worse due to the fact that store staff have to pick and fulfil orders from the shopfloor or backroom. For curbside, there is also the added strain of carrying orders out of the shop to give to customers.

Finally, the most severe operating margin belongs to ship-from-store. This is because you have store running costs on top of in-store fulfilment as well as delivery costs. Despite this, we are seeing many major retailers lean into ship-from-store as a way to boost store sales and leverage store inventories. For example, Target fulfilled 75% of their digital sales using ship-from-store in Q2 last year.

Essentially, these models are all worth doing as they bring in additional customers and sales. Customer expectations are growing, and shoppers want to purchase and revive their products in whatever way suits them best, if you don’t meet those expectations, your competitor will.

However, for more operationally intensive models like ship-from-store and curbside pickup, it’s important to make sure these services are run as efficiently as possible, particularly when done at scale.

So, how can brands meet these challenges and ensure their omnichannel operating margins are as healthy as possible?

How RFID Delivers the Perfect Foundations for Omnichannel Services

Like we said earlier, the concept of Omnichannel retailing has been around for a while. Even before the pandemic, many forward-thinking retailers were beginning to invest in and build out their omnichannel capabilities.

To meet the operational challenge this meant setting up the new processes that go alongside BOPIS or ship-from-store and ideally adding more staff to support these processes. The IT challenges, particularly in terms of inventory and order management, require some more investment and technology integration.

When it comes to delivering the IT requirements for this, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is the single solution. While the deliverables of stock accuracy and product availability can provide a ROI for stores by themselves, laying the foundation for strong omnichannel services is often touted as the main reason for retailers choosing to implement the technology.

In a 2018 study, 83% of RFID adopters offered three or more omnichannel fulfilment options compared to only 24% of non-adopters. This is because RFID delivers a highly accurate and even-real time view of inventory at scale and across channels.

This single view of stock means retailers (and their customers) know exactly what is in stock at all times, making it easy to sell store stock online. Because RFID inventories work on an item level, these services can be completely granular, reserving individual items without even disappointing customers by offering them products that aren’t really there.

Overview

An extended season

ECommerce will continue to run the show

It’s a statement everyone in the industry is very familiar with this year, but the defining feature of this holiday season will be a major preference for online shopping and eCommerce. While this trend has been steadily increasing over the years, the coronavirus pandemic has caused a huge spike in eCommerce as many consumers avoid stores and practise social distancing. As a result, Deloitte’s Annual Holiday Retail Forecast predicts eCommerce sales will grow between 25-35% year-on-year, compared to 14.7% in 2019. Similarly, the Maybe* consumer survey found a whopping 58% of customers plan to do their Christmas shopping online this year. This will be a test for many retailers, both pure-play and multichannel models, as the increased demand will test the capacity and strength of both their online channels and their fulfilment capabilities.

How will Brick and Mortar stores fare?

But what of the brick-and-mortar store? It’s no secret that physical retail has taken the brunt of the impact on sales and revenue this year, but will the holiday season offer some respite? Retailers hoping to make the most of the period will need to focus on ensuring safety and customer confidence in their stores, with 55% of consumers saying that COVID-19 safety tops their list of holiday shopping concerns according to a survey by PwC. Even with these measures in place, in-store holiday traffic is expected to drop by up to 25% this year in the US. For the UK, it may be even worse, with only 30% of shoppers heading to their local high street for Christmas, according to Maybe*. Black Friday specifically is where store traffic is likely to fall more than ever, with more than a third of US shoppers planning to avoid stores for Black Friday in the US, and a massive 91% said the same for the UK.

Bigger discounts for Black Friday?

So how are retailers planning to approach this year’s Black Friday to account for this? Alongside the extension of the event and the repositioning online, it seems many retailers are planning on discounting deeper and earlier this year. According to data analytics experts Edited, the most common advertised discount this year is 40-50% for apparel products compared to an average of 20-30% the previous year. For fashion retailers, in particular, this makes sense as the goal is to not only try and drive sales but is, perhaps, more importantly, an opportunity to sell older and slow-moving seasonal stock collected throughout this challenging year.

Store fulfilment will be vital for many

With the continued dominance of eCommerce, non-pure-play retailers are being challenged to keep up with the pace as their online channels have been, at least temporarily, promoted from supporting operations to the heart of the business. Two of the biggest retailers in the US have invested heavily in their ship-from-store capabilities this year,  with Walmart expanded theirs to 2,500 locations, whilst target reported fulfilling 90% of their online orders from store cutting the cost of fulfilment by 30%. Adopting such a strategy not only allows for such operational benefits but it makes the existing eCommerce arm much more durable – which is exactly what they’ll need to be this season.

Click-and-collect / Curbside continue to be popular purchase options 

Similarly, click-and-collect and Curbside services will be more important than ever for many retailers this season. Macy’s CEO called the use of Curbside a ‘big secret weapon’ for the upcoming holiday season. Just how secret it is may be up for some debate, according to customer surveys, 80% of shoppers expect to increase their use of these services over the next six months, and 85% have already significantly increased their use of curbside since the year began. The reason for this is clear as such services tick all the boxes of being convenient, safe and online-first.

What exactly is Omnichannel retailing?

2020 and the Omnichannel revival

The demand for click-and-collect & curbside is higher than ever

Ship-from-store is proving decisive in the online-centric New Normal

A temporary blip, or a permanent shift?

What do retailers need in order to offer a strong omnichannel experience?