Category: Smart Merchandising

As an established retailer, you require a wide range of styles in multiple sizes to meet customer demand. The need for instant gratification has become a dominant force in retail, hence the primary requirement of having the right stock available in the right place at the right time. 

Constraints on store space, minimum display requirements, and demand forecast based on limited data availability, initially determined how the inventory will be allocated across a chain of stores. All these constraints led to overstocking and understocking across stores a few weeks after the season launch.

In situations where excess stock is present in stores with low demand, or when the fresh inventory is leaner in terms of width and depth in stores with higher demand, inter-store transfers help in improving stock availability. It is a process of re-distributing the existing inventory and making corrections to the allocations done during the pre-planning period.

Since every decision involves the resources of cost and time, retailers need to analyze the requirements and benefits before making these shifts.

Inventory optimization through inter-store transfer has several benefits

• Improve inventory health – Boost sales of slow-moving articles by reallocating them to top-performing stores.
• Increase inventory turns – Increase sales of available stock by redistributing its basis true in-season regional demand.
• Improve stock cover and reduce stock-outs at the SKU level – Minimize loss of sales by identifying the true Rate of Sale (ROS) for every SKU at the store level. Ensure there is neither over-stocking nor understocking anywhere that directly impacts the top line and margins. 
• Increase full price sell-thru – Push stock from the stores with lower footfalls to those with higher footfalls and higher bill value. This directly increases the chances of selling at full price, thus impacting the top line and margins.  
• Reduce brokenness: Minimize broken stock (styles with only fringe sizes available) by consolidating broken stock from all the stores and transferring full-size sets to the ones where the likelihood of selling is maximum as per the latest trends.
• Improve Omni-Channel distribution: Identify the right stock to be pulled out of Offline stores and transfer them to the Click and Collect stores or other stores that can be used as hubs for online fulfillment.

Increff Merchandising solution helps optimize stock at the granular level. By calculating the ideal requirement for every Store + SKU, it utilizes excess inventory to improve stock health and has consistently helped bands achieve 20-30% improvement in stock health and ~30% improvement in sales. 

One of India’s leading formal wear brands implemented the solution across 150+ brand outlets and witnessed a 40% increase in sales at the receiving store. Inter-store transfer reduced brokenness by ~40% and prevented sales loss. One of the well-known International brands, expanding operations in India, reduced brokenness by 34% and uplifted sales by ~80% for the transferred stock. The overall store sales increased by 66%. 

Overstocking and understocking are some of the major challenges in retail. It not only limits proper exposure of inventory but also hugely impacts topline revenue and bottom-line margins. Increff Merchandising solution helps you make quick decisions on stock adjustments basis true demand patterns so the optimum potential of your brand can be realized, any time of the year. 

The rise of the internet and tech advancements have moulded the way consumers connect with a brand. This relationship is now more value-driven and personal. While shopping has been around since history itself, the way we shop evolved dramatically with the rise of e-commerce. Digital Darwinism played a critical role in pushing companies to take the online route as the role of brick-and-mortar stores gradually shifted to healthy support structures that assist brands in selling on multiple marketplaces. 

“Digitization is no longer an option, it is a necessity.”

 Recent technological shifts have only moved in the direction to make e-commerce stronger and robust by empowering the consumer base. Providing an equal opportunity for homegrown brands to scale up operations and leverage digital infrastructure to compete with global brands, e-commerce extends power to customers to determine the true value of a brand. Today we are catering to a population that is digitally native and globally connected. Sellers need to put the right technology in place that helps them serve customers better. 

“It’s much easier to lose customers today than attract new ones.”

To address major e-commerce challenges, Increff has designed specific solutions that help retailers address basic customer needs like:

1. Full visibility of a range of products across multiple marketplaces, simultaneously – Since your customer can be anywhere, expose 100% inventory across all marketplaces with no bucketing or dedicated stock. Help your customers locate you, wherever convenient for them. 
2. ~100% order accuracy – Use technologies like barcode scanning, bin mapping and photo identification to ensure the right product is picked and packed for your customer. With zero human errors or delays, guarantee precision and efficiency.
3. Don’t hinder conversions, make shopping convenient – Live Inventory- order sync feature, lets your customer know stock availability instantly. Reduce order cancellations and disappointments by giving your customers a chance, at the perfect time, to select an alternative option as soon as their product of choice is low in stock or over. 
4. Faster, accurate order fulfillment – Ecommerce is highly competitive and price-sensitive, hence distributed warehousing is the way forward. Effective, intelligent regional utilization helps reduce logistics costs by increasing surface shipments and delivering the perfect order from the closest local warehouse. This means faster deliveries at the lowest cost.

 The benefits extend to retailers in several ways, such as:

1. 100% remote onboarding – Our tech-solutions are built for right-first-time foolproof operations. Through self-learning tutorials and fully scan-based operations, no expert supervision is required in 100% remote onboarding. This ensures the deployment is fast and friction-less.
2. Easy Deployment – Advanced technology solutions integrate with, or replace the existing system seamlessly and rapidly to ensure no loss in sales. The transition is quick and effortless with a simple UI/UX designed interface that can be learned in no time and requires zero decision making. There is less dependency on skilled labour and more focus on delivering results.
3. Efficient resource management, ideal picking, and packing – Fully automated, scan-based systems and error-proof operations ensure efficient working of each resource. From tracking every piece in the inventory to mapping every human action in the warehouse, the tool ensures accurate and fast order picking. No piece gets stuck or lost in the warehouse. We have proven competency in achieving ~99.9% fulfillment within SLA. 
4. Faster return processing – About 20-30% of e-commerce orders are returned, not due to any defect but because customers habitually purchase more for in-hand comparison. Retailers incur heavy logistics costs on these returns and have a huge impact on the bottom-line and margins. Convert these returns into profits by expediting the return process. Simplify system complexities and make your inventory live and available for sale, almost instantly.

As e-commerce becomes more competitive, brands have a tough road to tread. The right tech support is necessary to not only develop one-upmanship but also predict the future in time to take appropriate action. Increff WMS removes complexity in inventory management and order processing and creates a user experience that is free of clutter, smooth, and fulfilling. Get Assured to know the difference!