Embracing Big Data In the Retail Space


Big data began taking the center stage for decision-making in a lot of retail companies over the years. But especially post the pandemic, companies are increasingly investing in more AI and ML technologies and this includes a huge percentage of retailers.
big data in retail

There’s no hiding that retailers have been using data from point of sales and other systems to optimize how products are merchandised, priced, and promoted but all we’re saying is that data grows with every minute. And all retail executives feel overwhelmed with the vast volumes of data their companies collect, which often accumulate into massive chunks. These chunks of data are also called ‘Big Data’ which is huge in volume, grows exponentially with time, and needs technologies like AI and big data analysis to efficiently process through the supply chain.

Must Read: How to Overcome Procurement Challenges in 2021

It’s true that a lot of retail systems have the ability to produce massive amounts of information but what retailers lack today is analytics which is more necessary to interpret. Talking about analytics, there’s not just one stage in the retail process that needs analysis, it’s every stage! Starting right from Demand Planning and Replenishment to Assortment and Allocation. Data is being created and stored at all stages and what retailers need is a solution that can help in managing their Big Data.

Here are a few common limitations to traditional demand planning and inventory management that highlights the urgency of automated solutions:

– Unreliable demand prediction
– Constantly-evolving fashion trends and technologies
– Depth and size complexity
– Delayed stock updates
– Frequent stock-outs and risk of dead inventory
– Lack of ad-hoc replenishment, stock request, and allocation
– Diverse and vast assortments

Insight: How Autonomous Supply Chain is Changing Vendor Collaboration and Management

According to recent research and studies, a lot of retailers were found to have voted for shifting their supply chain processes digitally. From these retailers, more than half said they wanted to start with automating their analysis, and here’s what we have just for them, Supplymint’s ARS. This gives retailers the power of planning demand, managing OTBs while replenishment of inventory, choosing the right assortment strategies, and planning day-to-day allocations in accordance with the changing trends in the environment.

The core function that ARS provides includes taking care of auto allocation of stock from one store to the other. This feature gives users the power to map items with respective warehouses and allows them to replenish them automatically based on the selected assortment strategy. This ultimately reduces your lead time, increases working capital utilization, automates your configuration, increases sales, and gives you user-level performance monitoring.

With ARS, companies like Sketchers, AGS Retail, and Mega Shop have been able to change their entire inventory management with automated solutions which now help them in eliminating all kinds of human errors, saving time, getting them real-time updates, syncing stocks under diverse sales channels, and most importantly understanding sales figures leading to increase in revenue, reduction in cost, and gaining productivity.

Conclusion: If a product is stored in your warehouse for long or if an order is missed, your cost is bound to increase. And if your team does not find a way to get you that information on time, it’s even worse. This is where ARS, the platform for automated inventory management, helps you. It maintains your records like which product is doing well, which one is sitting on the shelf, etc, all of which is crucial for you to grow your business.

Recommended Read: The Ultimate Guide to Leveraging the Use of Analytics in the Retail Industry

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