Background:
This retailer business scope is food, household items, cultural and sports goods and home appliances. Germany's largest, second in Europe, third in the world retail and wholesale supermarket group. It has more than over 700 chain stores all over the world. Customers enjoy more than 200,000 items of high quality under one roof, from food to home appliances. With the expanding of business, they’re looking for mobile technologies to better manage its chain stores and their customers.
Challenges:
1. Each store has thousands of items in different types and quantities. Manually counting inventory is time-consuming, error-prone and labor-intensive.
2. Without real-time visibility, retailers face challenges ensuring that the right order is pulled from the right location at the warehouse, and that a specific item is available when a customer walks into the store.
3. Each store does not have access to stock levels of other physical stores, retailers cannot respond to customers’ demands no matter at which store they shop, nor can they replenish products in time to prevent shrink.
Solution:
Shenzhen JOAN Technology Co., Ltd. (JOAN) provides C50 handheld computers with barcode, Wi-Fi, 4G and other IoT functions to this retailer. This terminal improves efficiency and productivity of retail processes from warehousing to in-store operations.
Application:
Warehouse Management
By scanning products’ barcodes, JOAN mobile computer automatically identifies products and updates captured data to the backend server under Wi-Fi connectivity in receiving, inventory tracking, picking and putting-away.
In-store Traceability
Store associates scan items’ barcodes with JOAN handheld computers to realize quick and accurate inventory tracking. It allows the retailer to execute a physical inventory and order fulfillment.
Data Share & Analysis
At each chain store, staff use JOAN mobile terminals to record stock levels at a regular basis and transfer these data to the backend server for retailers to view sales and inventory data of stores at multiple physical locations.
Effects:
1. JOAN handheld computer makes warehouse more intelligent and more efficient.
2. Accurate inventory tracking enables retailers to get real-time notification of out-of-stock items and replenish products in time.
3. Based on real-time stock levels, retailers can make timely market metrics for true demand-driven merchandising.
4. Store-to-store inventory transparency can optimize sales and enhance customer loyalty.