Real time inventory

Data Products

The first step towards omnichannelity

Industries:

Retail & FMCG

Solutions:

Data Products

Technologies:

Confluent - Kafka - Qlik - Debezium - Equalum

Quantyca Real time inventory use cases image

Overview

The physical sales channel has been joined in recent years by the digital channel (e.g. e-commerce, digital marketplace, …) and hybrid channels (e.g. click and collect, ship from store, ship to lockers, drop shipping, … ).
Being able to track stock in real time across the various sales channels and logistics processes is crucial, both to reduce operating costs and to increase customer loyalty to the brand.
However, inventory is still calculated by most retailers on a daily basis at store closing time. Within the day, sales are managed either with infinite stock logic or by applying guarantee buffers on the last known stock status.

Challenges

Overselling if inventory is managed with infinite stock.
Underselling if inventory is managed with guarantee buffers.
Difficulty in monitoring and optimizing logistics.
Inability to reactively manage replenishment policies.
Inability to analyze sales in real time to offer targeted and contextual promotions.

72% of retailers recognise real time inventory as an enabling strategy

for the effective management of sales channels, considering it a critical point for the achievement of financial targets

RisNews

49% of retailers report having 'few advanced systems and processes'

to achieve agile, accurate and cost-effective inventory management

RisNews

Solution

Stock changes are collected by the sales channels (store POS and e-commerce orders) and the real-time inventory management system within a stream processing platform.
The stream platform from the variation events continuously recalculates the stock and provides an updated inventory image to the different channels and applications.
The inventory can optionally be replicated by the streaming system within a high performance store for real time analysis.

The complete route

1. Tracking

All stock changes are intercepted and consolidated by the streaming platform to provide up-to-date inventory status

2. Optimisation

The updated inventory image is used to optimize sales and logistics processes

3. Innovation

The updated inventory image is used to provide innovative cross-channel services based on artificial intelligence (real time recommendation, fraud detection, proactive replenishment, etc.)

Benefits

Elimination of overselling and underselling phenomena

Greater visibility of logistics processes, possibility of intercepting criticalities and optimizing activities

Possibility to intervene on replenishment processes more reactively

Possibility of activating promotional campaigns based on intra-day sales performance; reduction of dead stock

Customer care more effective in helping the customer in case of problems

Possibility of acquiring other information of interest from touchpoints in real time (e.g. customer information)

Events

Video Talk

Real-time Inventory with Kafka and Kafka Stream at Rinascente 2021

Date and Time: 25/10/2021

Consumer purchasing habits have drastically changed in recent years. Going to a physical store is no longer the only option for retail shopping. Retailers have evolved to meet this new...

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