Focused Stock Count to Give Seasonal Inventory Visibility
A leading discount retailer in the UK that has over 500 stores and employs over 28,000 staff, required the support of RGIS. The discount retailer has over four million customers through the stores weekly throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Departments include home, garden, back to school, toys, food, health and beauty.
REQUIREMENT
The discount retailer needed to gain more visibility into the seasonal stocking position. The retailer realized that 29% of customers would go online, or to a competitor, when they experienced an out-of-stock, so required RGIS to provide the following:
- Validate specific products inventory against the on-hand file
- To be able to work across all the stores, nationwide
- To complete the project by a tight deadline, so the stores would be fully prepared for the holiday season
- To have the correct quantity and style of products available with accurate on-hand counts
- To provide teams with experience to execute inventories
- Technology to provide a seamless verification process
- The ability to target products based on sales indicators, especially on higher margin and high demand products
SOLUTION
The discount retailer partnered with RGIS to complete the seasonal inventory visibility project, and RGIS provided the following:
- A focused inventory count for the specific department was completed to confirm on-hand quantities against store expectations
- Ensured that all SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) were in stock for the upcoming peak selling season
- A strong collaboration with a unifying goal across all stores and teams
- Open communications and clear understanding of seasonal product data
RESULTS
The discount retailer found by outsourcing the seasonal inventory visibility project to RGIS, the following results were achieved:
- The customer was able to evaluate RGIS’ data and gain additional visibility into the seasonal products for each location
- The customer had ample time to update the supply chain and deliver the correct number of products to each store – this minimized the risk of lost sales due to
out-of-stock items - Located phantom merchandise and corrected each store’s on-hand inventory
- Improved customers satisfaction level through a positive shopping experience
- Increasing profitability during the seasonal sales period