Increasing Omnichannel Sales While Improving Customer Experience

VF Corporation is one of the world’s largest apparel, footwear and accessories companies connecting people to the lifestyles, activities and experiences they cherish. It has a leading portfolio of active-lifestyle brands, including Vans, The North Face, Timberland and Dickies.

It was established in 1899 in Pennsylvania and now operates globally across 1,265 retail stores and employs 35,000 associates.

As part of its company philosophy, VF Corporation seeks to constantly evolve to stay in step with consumers and the rapidly changing global marketplace.

These guiding principles prompted VF Corp to adopt smart devices powered by Scandit Smart Data Capture. Delivering the enhanced customer experiences and the operational agility required to meet tomorrow’s needs.

Challenge

Like several retailers, the pandemic proved to be a turning point for VF Corporation. A boost to online orders highlighted issues with its inventory management.

Inventory inaccuracies caused 15% of online orders to be canceled due to stock shortages. And wait times for customers could be up to 15 minutes when visiting a store to collect an order. Creating disruption and customer dissatisfaction.

Store associates used dedicated scanning devices to perform store operations tasks. They offered no real-time feedback and involved scanning items, then manually comparing the scanned data to system data. Errors forced the store associate to return to the stockroom and check what was scanned to correct discrepancies. These checks caused bottlenecks and slowed down processes.

Also, due to a slow and manual receiving goods process, the corporate policy limited store associates to only checking 10% of received items, affecting accuracy rates.

The retailer also wanted every store to be a mini-warehouse capable of fulfilling online orders.

VF needed a more mobile and real-time solution to capture and access data. Essential for efficient daily operational tasks.

Solution

VF Corp decided to replace the legacy scanners with smartphones and built a new application powered by Scandit to deliver critical data capture capabilities. It integrated the Scandit Barcode Scanning SDK and linked the application to SAP Fiori.

“The first meeting I had with the commercial and technical team was impressive. I knew at that point that Scandit wasn’t a typical vendor, but offered much more of a partnership.” – Andrea Comi – Global Director, Digital and Technology DTC, VF Corporation

VF Corp first addressed its omnichannel operations. Utilizing the Scandit-powered smart devices for three services: Ship from store, BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup In Store), and ROBIS (Reserve Online Buy In Store).

All three involved picking the correct items, assembling the order, and preparing it for collection or delivery. These processes required fast and reliable ergonomic scanning to help employees pick orders and meet agreed SLAs.

VF Corp took a phased approach to implementation. Starting with its stores in North America and piloting the technology there. Once successful, the pilot store managers were crucial in spreading the word and advocating for other stores to begin their adoption.

Results

Andrea highlighted three main benefits VF Corp sees from using Scandit Smart Data Capture.

“Firstly, with Scandit every process is now happening in real-time. Second, store associates are going beyond agreed SLAs for receiving goods as it is faster and easier – resulting in superior stock accuracy. And third, we can complete all the omnichannel processes closer to the customer.”

Reliable mobile scanning and access to real-time data have resulted in full inventory visibility. Store assistants know exactly where an item is in store, even if it hasn’t been fully processed and moved to the shop floor.

Andrea illustrates this with an experience he had in a store. “I was personally in the store when we sold a jacket that had just arrived and wasn’t being displayed yet. So from a supply chain point of view, this is the best.”

Andrea explains that store associates have also been benefiting from big time savings. “We compared the old scanning hardware vs. Scandit, and store associates save up to 60% of their time on tedious scan-heavy tasks due to its reliability and performance.”

The rapid scanning speed has meant a change in process. Previously, corporate policy dictated that store associates would only scan and check 10% of received items – leading to stock inaccuracies. Using Scandit, every item is scanned and checked quickly and reliably – providing 100% inventory accuracy and preventing orders from being canceled.

“The accurate inventory levels we get with Scandit Smart Data Capture have ultimately boosted our omnichannel revenue,” said Andrea.

Elevating Customer Omnichannel Experiences

For customers, the order collection experience has completely changed. It used to mean waiting up to 15 minutes alone for their order. Now, the customer and associate collect the item together and discuss other complimentary options during the process. These interactions have resulted in an increase in sales.

VF Corp has been benefiting in other areas beyond more streamlined store operations.

“With the old hardware scanning technology, we used to get a support request every day. Since the deployment of Scandit and SAP Fiori, stores have raised no support tickets. Freeing up our team to focus on other areas,” said Andrea.

Resource planning has also improved. Store associates used to be blind to forecasts. However, the new system gives greater visibility on future operational tasks. Andrea explained, “We know in seven days from now what items will be delivered and the number of SKUs that need to be scanned and received. It helps to plan the resources required in store.”

Andrea knows this is only the start of VF Corp’s journey with Scandit. “For me, this implementation is just the foundation. We have started with the key concept of Scandit, injecting scanning speed, accuracy and intelligence into our operations. But there are a lot more advanced capabilities we can use. So my idea is to start building more layers to improve our operations even further.”