Have you ever made the long slog to your closest shopping centre on the hunt for a specific product only to find out, contrary to the retailer’s website promise, that the product you’re looking for is out of stock? It’s got to be one of the most frustrating scenarios for a shopper.
One of my most irritating retail experiences happened at a furniture store. I was shopping for a new sofa and found one that I liked, but I didn’t happen to be in the closest store to my flat. Because the company didn’t have a shoppable website, I asked at the till if they could order one from my local store to be delivered to my address. Unfortunately, this was not possible. How about putting one on hold? “We don’t know other stores’ phone numbers, let alone know if they have one in stock”, was the reply. This was shocking to me, and not ideal customer service to say the least. How can a global retailer not offer this simple service? In the end, I googled the phone number myself and asked them to reserve it for me so I could collect it the next day.
Surprisingly, this sort of situation happens a lot more often than you’d think. At Retail247, we often talk about how retailers need to ‘go back to basics’ and this is an instance where that statement rings true. In order for retailers to meet their customers’ needs (simple ones – like accurately showing what is or isn’t in stock), they need a robust stock management system in place backed up by coherent and understood processes.
What is a stock management system?
Simply put, a stock management system keeps track of a retailer’s stock. A good one should show real-time data to users, ensuring stock information is always correct and up to date, not just at the beginning or end of each trading day. It should consume all stock transactions and show the journey of any piece of stock, meaning that users can trace actions that led to the current stock position. Stock should also be broken down into all stock states (available, reserved, in transit, etc.).
Archean – Retail247’s stock management system
Archean is Retail247’s stock management system. Designed in-house as a completely flexible and configurable cloud engine, Archean can consume vast amounts of stock affecting actions. Archean can cope with the transaction demands of even the largest retailers – it’s benchmarked, but not constrained to 1000 transactions per second.
Archean consists of a suite of solutions that can address multiple business use cases.
Archean Core is the heart of the Archean platform. Built on a modern, dynamically scalable, serverless environment, Archean Core is designed to deal with high volumes of stock data and rapidly consume stock affecting actions.
Archean Move is our solution for stock movement transaction creation. Designed to be deployed in stores, Archean Move is the store’s single portal for stock activity.
Archean RFID is our solution for store-based RFID counting. Handheld counting, ticket printing & encoding and guided discrepancy investigation are key features of Archean RFID.
Soon to be released features include Archean Demand which will bring replenishment determination to Archean and finally, Archean Count will deliver a solution for traditional, barcode-based stock takes.
To learn more about Archean and stock management systems, please reach out to info@retail247.com.