How do you check on your received goods?
Verifying incoming shipments: a retailer’s headache or piece of cake?
By Steffie Broere
By Steffie Broere
In today’s retail environment, inventory accuracy is key. Being one hundred per cent sure your inventory is spot-on starts with knowing what enters the back door. Here’s a question: how often does your store staff actually check your incoming goods? And if they do, what is the amount of time spent making sure you receive what you expect?
An increasing number of retailers choose to expand the traditional role of stores. Bricks-and-mortar stores are now used as mini-DCs where Omni-orders from Click&Collect/BOPIS and ship-from-store are fulfilled. This stresses the need for adequate replenishment to make both your online and in-store shopper happy. No packed stock rooms, just enough to make sure the right item is always available. Having access to insights on incoming deliveries from the distribution centres and knowing they contain the goods you are expecting to receive ensures 100% accuracy of new store stock.
Envision the packing list that comes with each shipment. What do you do with it? You basically have 3 options:
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Many brands and retailers are starting to adopt or have already adopted RFID. The main purpose of the technology is optimizing store and supply chain processes, which includes verifying incoming shipments.
Using RFID technology, goods can be received in a lean yet effective way. With just a few clicks and a quick scan, newly received boxes can be added directly to the store’s inventory. Cartons can be received with or without unboxing, at any time, to any place within the store. This will help the store correct errors created earlier in the supply chain before the newly received goods are added to the store stock. This, in turn, allows you to reach the high inventory accuracy you want.
After receiving, goods are added to the EPCIS repository (e.g. Nedap iD Cloud). This platform provides a standardized single point of integration to business and consumer applications for complete supply chain and inventory visibility in real-time. It monitors the inventory transactions and movements from all related sources as they happen and can provide accurate stock information to relevant back-end systems, such as an order management system. This way, you always know what you have in store.