Maximizing the Impact of Grocery Innovation with Smart Data Capture

High-volume and low-margins mean grocery innovations don’t need to be groundbreaking. Scale amplifies impact so that marginal gains can represent significant time and cost savings when multiplied across thousands of items and hundreds of stores.

Finding a common denominator across many workflows also compounds the impact of innovation.

For grocery workflows, this commonality is data capture.

It’s a key component of inventory management, shelf execution, and order fulfillment – and it happens a lot.

Manual and outdated data capture can cost retailers millions yearly. On the other hand, smart data capture digitizes every in-store process and optimizes daily operations to unlock efficiencies, prevent waste, and recoup revenue.

Going a step further, Scandit’s Smart Data Capture Platform contains unique, adaptable capabilities that can cater to the diverse needs of grocers – regardless of setup, workflow, or existing technology deployed.

Below, discover the workflows being transformed with the latest Scandit grocery innovations.

Grocers can track inventory entering and leaving the store through POS systems, but often lack visibility at the shelf level, where it is most critical.

Without accurate, real-time visibility, replenishment is reactive rather than proactive. Associates spend time searching for stock that may not be available, and manual gap checks are slow and expensive to scale.

This disconnect leads to lower on-shelf availability (OSA), and ultimately, lost revenue.

AI-powered shelf intelligence

To address the disconnect, you need a reality check on what is actually on your shelves. Using computer vision and mobile devices, fixed-position cameras, and robots, ShelfView captures shelf data to create a precise digital twin.

It detects missing items and compliance issues with 99.7% accuracy, delivering prioritized insights that guide associates to the tasks driving the most immediate value.

Shelf intelligence benefits:

• Boost on-shelf availability to over 95%.
• Increase store revenue by 2%.
• Improve labor efficiency through automated shelf capture.

AR-guided replenishment

Getting alerted to what needs restocking is half the battle for associates.

Physically getting the correct items from the backroom quickly is the other. Inefficiencies here lead to empty shelves and increased waste.

Scandit brings clarity to this process with our multi-scanning and AR capabilities.

Workers hold their smart scanning devices up to the shelf, and intuitive, interactive AR overlays highlight tasks to complete.

Our Director of Retail Solutions, Jessica Grisolia, shows how it works here:

AR-assisted tasks benefits:

• Reduce waste of perishable items by highlighting FIFO items.
• Fast restocking ensures better product availability.
• Time saved allows workers to focus on other value-adding tasks.

Waste reduction often ranks at the top of grocers' priority lists. Especially in fresh produce, where products turn quickly, and expirations arrive fast.

But manual date checking is slow and error-prone. As a result, store coverage is low, resulting in expired products remaining on shelves and markdowns occurring too late to recoup revenue.

Simultaneous barcode and date capture

Automating the expiry date capture and markdown workflow can dramatically increase store coverage. Smart Label Capture grabs the date and the barcode at the same time. Reducing capture time by 60%.

Augmented reality overlays then highlight products approaching their expiry date directly on the device screen.

Guiding associates to items that need to be discounted or removed.

Faster markdowns benefits:

• Reduce food waste by up to 40%.
• Recoup $m in annual revenue.
• Protect your brand by removing expired products before customers find them.

E-commerce penetration in grocery is increasing. More pressure is being placed on in-store pickers to fulfill these orders. Their productivity is often measured by the number of items or orders they can complete per hour.

Against the clock, pickers rush to complete orders to remain on schedule.

Errors at this point can cause inefficiencies for the grocer or, worse, reach the customer as incorrect items or poor substitutions.

AR-guided search and find

MatrixScan Find removes the burden of searching for hard-to-find items when many on the shelf look similar. It uses multi-scanning and AR guidance to help workers locate items easily.

See how quickly it works in the following video:

Assisted finding benefits:

• Increase in units per hour picked.
• Reduce picking errors.
• Fulfill more orders with the same resources, driving revenue growth.

Automated weighted item picking

Processing weighted items is a challenge for pickers. It is usually done manually and can be tedious and error-prone when done multiple times per shift. Pickers must add the correct weight or quantity of items to a printed label.

Getting it wrong can lead to revenue loss if there is a mismatch between the values and even erode customer loyalty if they are charged more for their items.

Scandit automates the capture of non-barcode information like printed text with weight, easing the burden on grocery workers and ensuring accuracy.

See how it works here:

Full label capture benefits:

• Minimize customer dissatisfaction with incorrectly weighted items.
• Process weighted items 7x faster.
• Avoid revenue loss from underpriced items.

Point of sale, curbside pick-up, and home deliveries are just some retail workflows that require age verification when orders include age-restricted products. Not checking customer IDs can result in heavy fines and license restrictions for retailers.

But it can be daunting for grocery workers, and dwell time can frustrate customers, especially when there is suspicion of a fake ID.

Streamlined order pickup with automated ID validation

Using ID Validate from Scandit, workers pass the burden of checking IDs to technology. ID Validate reliably parses identity data to check the authenticity of IDs and validate ages in 1 second.

Here’s how it works:

Automated ID verification bonus benefits:

• Customers’ Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is secure because all data is processed directly on the device.
• Customers never have to wait thanks to 1-second result processing.
• A full audit trail guarantees compliance.

E-commerce ID check

Add an extra layer of security when selling age-restricted goods with Scandit’s pre-built web plugin, ID Bolt,  that retailers can integrate into any e-commerce workflow.

Customers scan their ID at the point of purchase to verify they are of legal age to purchase restricted items.

Walk through a demonstration here:

ID Bolt bonus benefits:

• Integrate seamlessly with any website or web application using minimal code
• Achieve faster processing of online order collection and delivery
• Avoid refusing order handovers or reshelving items

Above, we highlight several innovations that deliver tangible benefits across different workflows. The consistent elements are the speed and precision of automated data capture.

Whether an associate is restocking a shelf, picking an online order, or managing markdowns, the device in their hand is doing more than just verifying a product.

It is silently building a real-time map of your inventory status and workflow performance. This eradicates the blind spots that typically lead to out-of-stocks, missed markdowns, and inefficient labor allocation.

By embracing smart data capture, grocery stores can create a win-win situation. Multiple workflows can be enhanced simultaneously, creating efficient operations and a customer experience worth returning to.

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