In this period of increasing competition and declining profitability, the retail industry needs more business intelligence technologies to increase efficiency. Business intelligence solutions enable stores to have the right product at the right time in the right place and support their transformation into efficient businesses.

In the retail sector, where fierce competition is experienced, it is of great importance to adapt quickly to economic conditions and innovations and to make them more sustainable. Today, business intelligence technologies offer the industry a great opportunity to manage processes and keep abreast of developments on the consumer side.

These technologies sometimes detect customer behavior, sometimes changing prices, sometimes products that leave the store without paying, and sometimes products that are missing from the aisle. It converts the obtained parameters into numerical data and converts them into meaningful reports to improve store safety, profitability and efficiency. At the beginning of these technologies are RFID, Video Analytics, Electronic Shelf Tag and Traffic Analytics solutions.

It points the way to smart and successful competition

Emphasizing that efficient and effective merchandising is essential for a successfully functioning retail business, Sensormatic Marketing Director Pelin Yelkencioglu“Retail companies have to manage a huge amount of information, from supplier data to customer buying behavior, from employee information to inventory data. Business intelligence solutions that come into play at this point provide an opportunity to make retail more efficient and successful. Using these solutions, retailers can stay on top of customer trends, easily resolve supply chain complexities, or easily analyze why a store is not performing well or customers are not purchasing products from a particular store. In a sense, business intelligence solutions guide retailers to compete smartly and successfully in the market. Operational efficiency brings speed and customer satisfaction together.” said.

Real-time inventory tracking with RFID

RFID (Radio Frequency Recognition) is one of the most important technologies of recent times, which we can call a revolution, providing the speed and accuracy that retail companies need to achieve. Retailers using this technology can perform inventory counts that used to take days, in just a few hours. With RFID, inventory accuracy is over 99 percent. For example; Where it says 100 on a package purchased from a supplier, it says 95 in it. Although it takes a long time to open dozens of boxes and count the products one by one, if there are products in the box that are tagged with RFID, it becomes possible to count them in a few seconds. In this way the products are processed flawlessly into stocks as they enter the warehouse. RFID technology allows companies to manage the entire inventory as a whole. In this way unnecessary stocks are avoided. More sales can be achieved with fewer products.

Another advantage of RFID technology is that it maximizes customer satisfaction. In stores where an RFID solution is used, it takes a few minutes to reach a product that customers are looking for. In stores that do not use RFID solutions, although the product is in the warehouse as viewed from the cash register or computer, it is not in the warehouse. This causes the customer to have a bad experience. In contrast, in stores that use RFID technology, it is possible to see if the product is in stock within seconds and it can be transported from the warehouse to the customer very quickly. Moreover, since the counting in the departments can be done very quickly, the completion of the department can be done easily and quickly. In this way, because customers can easily find a different size or color of the product they are trying on, both the speed of their return to sale increases and customer satisfaction reaches the highest level.

Cameras generate data, store performance increases

The video analytics feature, which until a few years ago was only available in special segment cameras, can now be seen in almost every camera level. AI-enabled intelligent analytic cameras, which can be used in different areas in any industry, provide a broad solution in stores thanks to video analytics query and data output. It contributes to the improvement of store performance with the output it produces by analyzing situations such as checkout line, shelf situation, space density, condition of tables, store cleaning, clothing of employees in stores. For example; It makes it possible to interactively track how many people are waiting at the till in a store, so that action can be taken quickly to provide solutions to congestion. Or it gives a warning to clean the cups and plates on the tables in a cafe.

Labels now change from a single center

With the Electronic Price Tag, one of the technological solutions that has become more and more popular in recent times, the process of changing the label, which involves loss of time and additional costs, is now completed from a single center and in seconds. Thanks to this solution, the price differences between shelf-safe and online store will also be eliminated. Operational efficiency is achieved by sending the personnel assigned to change labels to different areas. For example; Today, in a large store, at least 25-30 thousand paper labels are exchanged every month. Given the intense campaign periods, this number rises to 50 thousand. Having the staff in the store change these labels requires a very intensive effort of labour. This situation causes a serious loss of time and costs and also leads to dissatisfaction among the employees.

Electronic price tag can be used for shelf management, order picking and promotional campaigns, as well as price updates. As it allows for rapid price changes, it provides serious profitability and competitive advantages in retailers such as discount markets or cosmetics stores that perform regular campaign management. Thanks to central management, human errors are also minimized. In addition, with the decrease in the time spent on the operation, the productivity and satisfaction of the staff increases significantly. The electronic price tag also makes displaying products stylish. Increases compliance with label regulations. In addition, the operating costs such as printer, toner and shelf layout of the paper are also gone.

Convert in-store traffic back into sales!

Traffic analytics solutions provide data-based management convenience for stores and malls, making it easier for them to make decisions in areas such as sales, operations and leasing. The People Counting Solution, which measures store entry and exit traffic along with date and time information, uses its 3D sensors to detect customer traffic in stores with high accuracy and convert these traffic values ​​into meaningful reports. The system, which allows to view the effect of the campaigns on the number of visitors and sales figures, makes it easier for sales and marketing departments to monitor active sales. In this way, it provides important clues when organizing new campaigns and making strategic decisions.

In addition, it is necessary to make window arrangements that attract more attention, to arrange the working days and hours of the stores according to the customer density on special days, weekdays and weekends, to arrange their weekly / annual leaves, to make decisions about strategic things like increasing performance, opening or closing a shop, determining the rent, it helps.

Source: (BHA) – Beyaz News Agency