Mobile Data Capture Enables Retailers to Provide Customers with Seamless Inventory Access

| Retail

scanning barcodes with smartphone

Once a customer is in the store, retailers must have shelves full of the inventory that shoppers want to buy. But in addition, brick-and-mortar customers need instant inventory access that goes beyond the walls of the store.

By providing seamless inventory access, retailers can offer digital options to buy products that may not be in stock at a particular store. Popular examples include home delivery from the warehouse or scheduled pickup at a nearby sister location. If retailers cannot offer in-store customers omnichannel product access beyond the shelf or back room, they will lose sales and hurt their brand reputation.

Some formerly omnichannel retailers, such as Bebe, have ended their physical store presence completely and are trying to succeed as online-only enterprises. However, moving a retail business 100% online does not ensure profitability. Many of the operational issues with which both online and brick-and-mortar retailers contend, such as cost pressure, supply chain and inventory management challenges, and inefficient warehouse and distribution center processes, don’t just go away when the brick-and-mortar store closes.

All other things being equal, customers will look for their preferred size and color wherever it is available cheaper, faster and easier – be it from a physical store or an online retailer.

To stay competitive in this consumer-driven, seamless retail environment, all of a retailer’s operations must work at peak efficiency.  Using smart devices like mobile phones, tablets and wearables to scan barcodes and instantly push captured data into easy-to-use workflows helps retailers more effectively manage key processes such as inventory management, shipping and receiving and proof of delivery.

Mobile data capture also allows customers to use their own devices to perform mobile shopping activities such as finding and placing items in shopping carts or looking up product information, and even to accomplish self-checkout.

Find out where your retail enterprise could use operational help. Click here to contact a Scandit solutions consultant to learn how you can use barcode scanning with mobile devices to boost operational efficiency and drive improved customer satisfaction. Click here to learn more about Scandit’s mobile data capture solutions for retail. To read our new white paper on how mobile data capture enables seamless retail, click here.