In-Stock and Priced 24/7 – Shelf Management with Mobile Computer Vision

| Retail

In-Stock and Priced 24/7 - Shelf Management with Mobile Computer Vision

Stores might be getting their customers back but they are also playing a major part in e-commerce fulfillment.

So efficient retail shelf management is more crucial than ever.

Optimizing retail spaces with effective product placement and merchandising on fully stocked shelves maximizes revenue from brick and mortar customers.

But it’s also essential for fast and accurate online order fulfillment.

One device to ensure shelves are full around the clock

One affordable and easily deployable solution is high-performance smartphone scanning. Moreover, it provides store employees with a robust data capture tool to improve and simplify inventory management.

Barcode canning technology capturing multiple barcodes of an entire shelf in a single scan.

Deploying retail technologies like Scandit MatrixScan with Augmented Reality brings additional benefits. It enables your employees to capture multiple barcodes of an entire shelf in a single scan and overlay product information on the device screen.

Here, we highlight some of the most common retailer pain points regarding shelf management. And show how upgrading workflows with Scandit’s mobile computer vision technology ensures fully stocked shelves and efficient order fulfillment.

Stockouts can lead to customer walkouts

Empty shelves and out-of-stock products are a significant pain point for the retail industry. They are also a source of immense irritation for shoppers.

As well as the immediate cost of a lost sale, stockouts reduce customer satisfaction, decrease loyalty levels, and – at worst – damage brand reputation.

Regularly finding items out-of-stock can result in your customers taking their custom elsewhere – permanently.

Stats about the impact on customer behaviour of out of stock items

Smartphones enabled with Scandit MatrixScan AR provide accurate, real-time inventory information. Sweeping store shelves with the phone’s camera can instantly identify shortages and other issues.

And when connected to your back-end inventory management system, stock can be ordered directly from the aisles.

Make sure the price is always right

Incorrect shelf pricing loses sales or revenue. In some countries, this is even a legal issue. Wrongly priced labels are often down to human error – both when they are printed and checked on the shelf.

Barcode scanning smartphones can instantly verify prices and update markdown prices with a simple scan of a barcode or alphanumeric code.

3 main shelf management pricing tasks enabled with smartphone scanning

Incorrect or out-of-date prices are identified while other inventory management tasks are being carried out.

Staff satisfaction and operational efficiency

Now that 85% of US adults own a smartphone, the vast majority of retail staff are confident operating one without needing training. Consumer devices are more popular with employees than bulky dedicated barcode scanners.

At up to three times lower TCO, retailers can afford to equip every associate with a device.

Intuitive, high-performance smartphone scanning empowers employees by making their job faster and easier. This leads to increased productivity and employee satisfaction.

Everyday shelf management tasks are simplified and completed more efficiently. So staff are free to move to other jobs or engage with customers to boost sales.

Smartphone scanning for simplicity and speed

A Scandit-enabled smartphone can help store associates with:

Order fulfillment: Pickers need to find the right product fast. Scandit MatrixScan AR on a smart device can identify the correct product in a single scan of an entire shelf. This leads to greater picking speed and accuracy.

Mobile Point of Sale (mPOS): Staff members can check out customers in aisle with quick and easy retail point-of-sale transactions on mobile devices. This cuts checkout lines, reduces checkout costs, frees up valuable floor space, and increases customer loyalty.

Clienteling: A Scandit-enabled mobile scanning app allows employees to access real-time stock information, ratings, recommendations, and discounts to answer product-related questions for an improved customer shopping experience.

A step closer towards inventory automation

Inventory automation is already transforming store operations. Many stores use shelf scanning robots and drones to scan, check, pick and track inventory on retail floors.

Scandit MatrixScan locates and decodes multiple barcodes in the device camera’s video stream. It combines with other technologies to check inventory, identify out-of-stock items, and ensure product placement is compliant with planograms.

Drones and robots with Scandit’s Barcode Scanner SDK roam stores at night and capture accurate data to keep shelves fully stocked and compliant.

Retail’s future is already here with mobile computer vision

Shelf management remains central to retail operations. Yet many stores are reliant on traditional, costly scanners, unreliable manual processes and disconnected workflows between the shop floor and back office.

Deploying mobile barcode scanning software onto mobile devices is a way to instantly automate inventory management processes.

It makes sense for employee satisfaction, productivity, and of course the bottom line.