3 Strategies to Maximize On-Shelf Availability
For today’s grocery shoppers, out-of-stocks can be the source of major frustration. But they happen, and the culprit is an outdated method of inventory management: manual stock checks and audits. These checks miss five of six out-of-stock items.
The most profitable stores today have turned to technology to gain real-time visibility into what’s happening across their store interiors – tracking products that are running low, current shelf stock, misplaced items, and backroom inventory.
Having this data at their fingertips can improve the way store teams operate and restock shelves. It ensures products are always available for customers to purchase—whether it’s those crushed tomatoes, that allergy-safe nut butter, or another reason for a trip to the store.
Enhance Operational Efficiency
Manual inventory audits eat up time. In many cases, this is time store teams don’t have to spare. Associates are typically busy packing online orders, assisting customers, and supervising checkout. With these different tasks constantly interrupting inventory, it’s almost impossible to audit hundreds of products at once. Completing a daily manual audit of a store requires a team of three people (one manager and two associates) a total of 12 hours, amounting to 36 labor hours required every single day, when in reality most store teams would be lucky to get just 12 hours for auditing each week.
$448B
What lack of inventory visibility is costing retailers every year.
5 out of 6
Out-of-stock items that store teams miss with manual audits.
2,000
The average number of out-of-stock items that Tally finds in a grocery store per day.
36 hours
The number of labor hours it takes to complete a manual audit every day.
Surface OOS items to associates in a simple, easily actionable, daily report.
Simbe’s Store Intelligence™ converts shelf data captured by Tally into priority tasks for store teams. The targeted list includes where the product is located, how many stock (BOH) units are left, as well as any affiliated promotions.
60%
of out-on-shelf items are actually onsite and sellable
No matter how carefully they’re executed, these audits are still prone to human error.
Flawed audits lead to incorrect inventory decisions, and are exacerbated by a persistent lack of insight into store stock. Today, 60% of out-on-shelf items are actually on site and sellable, but because associates may not know the full extent of backroom availability and want to avoid over-purchasing, shelves continue to run empty.
To do their jobs effectively—and bring additional revenue back to stores—managers and associates need to know what’s running low on shelves, and where to source that stock.
The first step to achieving visibility in stores is to replace manual auditing processes with a solution that has less room for error: data-driven, automated inventory management.
The most operationally efficient retailers leverage advanced AI and robotics solutions like Simbe’s Store Intelligence™ platform to automate data collection and equip associates with exact, actionable insights including precise product location, stock levels, and pricing information.
1 in 2
The number of U.S. consumers who say they’ve switched to a competitor due to product unavailability.
1 in 10
The number of U.S. consumers who say they’re content with their in-store shopping experience.
Win Customers with Consistent Product Availability
Out-of-stocks may seem like a minor inconvenience, but cumulatively, these missing items have a profound impact on customer satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value. When half of all U.S. shoppers report switching stores due to unavailable products, it’s a wake-up call for retailers.
Profitable stores with satisfied, loyal customers rely on real-time inventory management systems to track product locations and restock needs accurately. These systems continuously update a centralized database as sales are made, products are restocked, or inventory is moved, ensuring correct and actionable information for store teams. Retailers can then use this data to adjust reordering schedules and optimize inventory flows, ensuring that even the most popular items are always available on the shelf.
Advanced AI and robotics solutions like Simbe’s Tally, the world’s first autonomous item-scanning robot, provide out-of-stock alerts to associates during their shifts by surfacing critical data from across the aisles and backroom. This can be a game-changer for retailers aiming to enhance both employee and customer experiences. Store teams no longer need to spend hours searching for out-of-stock items and worrying about missing items during audits. Instead, they can focus on assisting customers and driving sales.
Tally drives customer loyalty.
As a mother of four young children, Anna chooses to frequent her local D&W Fresh Market, despite the proximity of other grocery stores. Why? Anna appreciates how Tally keeps shelves stocked. Her daughter struggles with food allergies, and with Tally, Anna is confident that her “safe foods” are always available.
Establish a single source of truth.
Data collected from Tally’s traversals helps teams accurately track their stock. Simbe’s Store Intelligence™ can…
80%
Boost on-shelf availability by 80%.
60%
Reduce controllable out-of-stock by 60%.
10x
Detect 10x more out-of-stock items than manual audits.
Reducing Shrink Through Integrated Data
Lack of inventory insight leads to more than just empty shelves. Items can easily slip through the cracks, disappearing from aisles, backrooms, or even while being transported, with no way for store teams to accurately account for these discrepancies. While shoplifting and organized crime are on the rise, the lack of integrated inventory data across the value chain significantly contributes to the industry’s growing shrink problem.
In the span of one year, the cost of inventory loss for U.S. retailers jumped by $30 billion.
Store intelligence solutions enable retailers to collect data from multiple sources within a store, including point-of-sale (POS) systems, security cameras, RFID tags, and inventory management systems. This provides a comprehensive view of store operations, facilitating detailed analyses of inventory movement and identification of anomalies that may indicate potential sources of shrink.
By surfacing data-driven trends in inventory shrink — from theft, to spoilage, to administrative errors — store intelligence empowers retailers to proactively prevent future losses. This could involve bulking up security measures in vulnerable shopping areas, improving employee training around store policies, or adjusting store layout.
Storewide Impact
Missing out on both revenue and customer satisfaction because items are in the back rather than on the shelf is avoidable. By implementing advanced AI and robotic solutions, retailers can unlock missed opportunities for revenue and cost savings by giving managers and associates complete visibility across store interiors. This allows store teams to stock shelves more efficiently with accurate data and deliver confident, reliable customer service—driving customer LTV in the process.
Learn how Simbe’s Store Intelligence™ platform can turn your out-of-stocks into revenue.