Enable Seamless Retail Logistics with Mobile Data Capture

| Retail

woman scanning products

Retail logistics management has become a much more complex task in recent years. Retail organizations are now engaged in an extended supply chain where products move seamlessly from initial source to centralized warehouses to regional distribution facilities. From there, they may pass through a brick-and-mortar store or online purchase pickup location, or be directly delivered to the end customer.

Further complicating matters is the fact that retail business is now conducted at Internet speed. Modern consumers use mobile devices for on-demand communication, navigation and information. This has produced an expectation of convenience and immediacy in every area of shoppers’ lives that would have been unimaginable less than 10 years ago.

The ongoing, mobile-driven shift in consumer lifestyle has prompted retail to evolve from a push into a pull model. As a result, retailers need total supply chain transparency that allows them to track and trace all products at all times.

The supporting supply chain must therefore also operate at Internet speed. Slow, inefficient or inaccurate supply chains will result in dissatisfied customers and lost opportunities. Even an occasional late or wrong delivery is no longer an accepted part of doing business.

Learn more about this seamless retail logistics model in our new white paper.

Mobile data capture allows retailers to streamline workflows in every area of their logistics enterprise. Across a wide variety of use cases, retail enterprises can know exactly where inventory is located, where it has been and where it is going.

For example, by leveraging real-time inventory awareness supported by mobile data capture, retailers can give customers who find an item out of stock in a store other options. These could include reserving the product at another nearby store or having it shipped to their home from a regional distribution center. Online purchases can be fulfilled from stores, shortening delivery times and reducing strain on fulfillment centers.

Barcode scanning at key intervals in the supply chain can also provide deeper insight into potential instances of theft, damage or other loss prevention events. Furthermore, mobile data capture enhances the effectiveness of warehouse management activities. Employee workflows and inventory throughput can be improved with the real-time insight into operations provided by barcode scans.

In the coming weeks, Scandit will offer a series of blog posts explaining exactly how and why mobile data capture is the perfect tool for modern seamless retail logistics management. It will also illustrate why mobile data capture solutions from Scandit are generally a more cost-effective and efficient means of seamlessly managing retail logistics workflows than traditional scanners or mobile computers.

Want to learn more about how mobile data capture enables seamless retail logistics processes? Check out how RailCare, the transportation subsidiary of leading Swiss retailer Coop Group Cooperative, reconfigured its logistics workflows with mobile barcode scanning apps built on the Scandit Flow development platform.