Getting to Know Datascan and the Retail Landscape

Everyone and welcome into keeping count a show from the expert in retail and inventory accuracy at DataScan. I'm Tyler Kern, and joining me today is Adrian Thomas, President and CEO at DataScan, Adrian. Thanks for joining me. Tyler, very you again this morning. How are you doing? I'm well. I'm well. Thank you so much for coming in. And and today's our introductory episode. And so we want to introduce people to Datascan to what the show is gonna be about, and some of the retail trends that you are seeing these days. And so first and foremost, introduce the audience to Datascan and tell us a little bit more about what you're doing. Okay. So great. Data scan has been around for over fifty years. In fact, we celebrated our fifty year anniversary last year and and we've been in the business of inventory counting in retail stores for the for the entire time. What's interesting and we'll get into that as to why we're launching keeping count is that inventory counting and importance of imagery counting is changing. So we now we have a lot of experience in the industry and we feel it's a good time that we can start to share some of that and explore the whole relevance of inventory counting as retail is transforming. And so one of the things we wanna do with the show really is dive into a lot of those retail trends that you're seeing, the shifting landscape of retail because there's a lot going on these days. What what are some topics that you're excited to explore more on the show as it moves forward? Yeah. I think things were changing before COVID, obviously, but I mean, COVID has had a dramatic impact on the way retailers behave and the retail where the way retailers organize their stores. So I think we'll be looking at things like the impact of BOPUS, buy online, pick up in store. We're going to look at the impact of of curbside pickup and what does that mean for staffing in stores. Mhmm. We're gonna look at general inventory trends. It's the way retail brick and mortar aligns with its online presence with the consumer. I think that's gonna drive a review of all, how do they deal with returns? Returns now is an enormous challenge for retailers that they probably didn't see prior to COVID. And I think we're going to bring in a number of other different specialists to talk about areas that maybe we are not the experts in in retail inventory counting that would be of interest to our retail That's fantastic. And I'm excited to dive into to all of those different topics because you're right. We have seen the landscape change a great deal, and like you mentioned, a lot of that was happening happening pre COVID, but now that coronavirus has has come around, it really has shifted consumer behavior in a large way and and really affect a lot of retail trends. It it has. And I think that part a lot of that is now down to the way retailers are changing and adapting to new technologies as well. So we may introduce a sort of technology theme to the podcast as well. Some of that is around how retailers interact with their consumer based on mobile, use of mobile applications. It might be how do they use clean telling within the store when people do come into the store, And then, obviously, there's a sort of the age old adoption of RFID -- Mhmm. -- which we were seeing, you know, a greater uptick in before COVID, and I think we see a significantly greater uptick post COVID. And that one is, you know, near and dear to our hearts in terms of how does that mean we need to change in terms of adapting, accounting this the inventory within the store? I suppose the the golden goose, if you will, is is getting inside the mind of consumers and understanding what they're thinking and what, you know, where their behavior is trending in the future. And as more people get vaccinated as things become available on a wider level I think there's there are questions about what does life look like post pandemic and how many of these trends that we've seen continue in a post pandemic world? Is BOPis still as big of a thing for a lot of people? Or will people go back to kind of shopping like they were before? How do you try to gauge some of those things so that you're in front of trends rather than reacting to them. I I think the conversations that we're having with retailers is that they've had a year now to really adapt to to new processes. Mhmm. And I think they're seeing that the bopis trend is going to be here is here to stay. Mhmm. I don't think that's going to change. However, I think we are going to see as a result of BOPis that people will want to still come back to the retail marketplace to buy. People still like to touch and feel merchandise. So it may be that we will see certain product categories are bought by a BOPUS and others people revert back to their visits to the store to buy them in person to try and feel and touch and and try them on before they actually purchase. I've read an interesting article on Bloomberg the other day that talked about financial advisors telling their clients, hey, we know that you've saved the money maybe over the pandemic, you know, don't immediately rush out and spend all of it. But from an inventory perspective, is is there maybe a preparation for a bit a rush, a bit of a return to normalcy, and so I need to go spend some of this money that I have sitting under or anything like that. Our preparations made like that? Yes, they are. And the challenge for retailers is to to gauge that with their seasonal merchandise. Mhmm. So a lot of, you know, a lot of retailers do have very well planned thought out delivery cycles for merchandise to hit the stores. And I think that will be time to meet this expected. I think generally you're right. There is an expected rush of demand that people want to get out, get into the stores again and buy product. So for them, it's a question of having the right product at the right, you know, the right level of product at the right time within their store footprint. No. You just stock up on swimsuits or something like that. So everyone is going to wanna be outside. School, you know -- Yeah. Yeah. -- in in sort of June July time frame when people will probably be ready to get out there and buy. I think that there's a lot of home improvement you know, we send a lot of home home furnishings activity with a lot of volume being bought -- Mhmm. -- I mean, through that particular vertical. Sporting goods coming through into the summer again is probably going to be in high demand. Mhmm. And I've, you know, if my wife is anything to judge by, you know, fashion demand is going to go crazy we get through and return back to buying it, you know, in person in the store. Yeah. I think I think you and I are in a similar boat in that in that regard. But so one of the things that that strikes me as interesting about this conversation is that as we talk about inventory accuracy, it's become a larger and larger topic of conversation amongst retailers going from maybe a conversation that would occur on the the manager level all the way up to the c suite now. And so it's it's becoming a larger and larger topic of conversation discussed by higher level people within retailers. Right? And so so this is something that's that's being talked about on a on a very high level. It is. And I think, you know, we've seen trickle down from distribution down into the stores. Mhmm. If you look look back pre COVID, you know, people were very comfortable with having perpetual inventory accuracy at the distribution level in their distribution centers. Because the behavior has changed and now retailers are actually either distributing directly from store or they're doing the Bocus channel strategy, the accurate see if the the store in the sorry, the accuracy of the inventory in the store absolutely needs to top of mind. And that's why part of the discussion topics that we'll have within keeping count is to look at how do retailers maintain that inventory accuracy permanently within the store. There's a guy that that I work with, a colleague who went online tried to buy a shirt from two different or two different shirts from a retailer and both of them even though he could purchase them on their website ended up being out of stock. Right? And that's that's the situation that people are trying to avoid now. Right? Whether it's going to be shipped from the store or if it's a Vocus model and and they're gonna go into the store to pick it up. You're trying to avoid that negative customer experience. You're you're trying to avoid several things. Yes. Absolutely. The negative customer experience, the lost sale. But on the other hand, you don't want to be overstocking in the store. Right? It's true. So the overstock issue is is there. And then the of the comment I made earlier on about returns, you need to be able to manage those returns back into inventory so that if if you do sell something and then it's it needs to be available for the next customer. So the inventory accuracy question is absolutely more important now than it was pre COVID. We know that inventory accuracy degrades over time from the last time you counted. So a lot of retailers now are looking at Maybe not a full store count that's necessary every period, but partial counts of important inventory items, that could be whether that's high value, high volume, high risk from a loss prevention standpoint. So I think we're going to see more people looking at those types of questions to solve in this next inventory count cycle. And with with inventory counting, Do you see that maybe different departments are treated differently if we're talking about, like, maybe a big box store or a a department store like a Target or something like that? Are are different departments treated differently within that store? Yes. They are. Yeah. And that and it comes back down to which which are the high moving items -- Mhmm. -- and which are the high value items. So they will they will absolutely be be segmenting the store. Walmart are absolutely, you know, doing this now -- Sure. -- segmenting the store into different product categories. And focusing their imagery accuracy activity around the different categories differently than they were pre COVID. I don't think the COVID was the driver of it, but it's been accelerates a little bit? No. That that's a fascinating point. Just the extent to which COVID has really accelerated the adoption of a lot of these -- Mhmm. -- either new technologies or ways of thinking And that really being a driving force for moving the retail industry forward in a lot of places. And I think it's interesting that in in some stores now, you've got a fairly large number of pickers. So if you're doing curbside pickup or you're doing delivery to home, you've got pickers in the stores now. So for them, their time is money, and they don't want to be searching for an item. So it's important that if the inventory record shows an item that is in a particular location a particular store. It has to be there. Otherwise, they're wasting time. And that that labor cost is going to become an increasing focus for retailers that adopt that strategy. And, you know, beginning of the pandemic, my wife and I were doing, you know, curbside pickup for grocery. Right? And if there wasn't the inventory available for an item that she had selected online, they would substitute it with something else. But oftentimes, it wasn't quite to her specifications. Right? Which which again goes back to that customer satisfaction, customer experience sort of thing. Right? Where people expect one thing. And if you don't have the inventory of it, even though it was available online -- Right. -- and you get something different, a lot of times that can lead to an unsatisfied custom You know? And then there are statistics tied up that show that if you do start to cause customer dissatisfaction, consumers are gonna switch. Mhmm. So there's one stat out there that says if a customer has a bad buy online pick up in store experience, thirty one percent of them will switch if that on the first time they have that experience. So that's a large number. So I think to keep for retailers to keep their consumers happy and maintain that brand loyalty and the sort of the repeat buy, they need to make sure that the experience the customer has in terms of their buying process needs to be a good one, which means the store needs to have the inventory available for them to buy. Whether that's in person whether it's online, ship to home, or whether it's a BOPis experience. So it's all tying back together to this need for inventory accuracy in the store being more perpetual? Well, I think I think we've we've really highlighted the fact today that inventory accuracy is more important than it's ever been before it's gonna be an exciting topic to explore moving forward here on keeping count. Yeah. We're looking forward to getting this launched. We're looking forward to get, you know, broadening the view of it. It's not just gonna be data scan in our our little world of imagery counting. It's got we want to make it sure it has a broad appeal. So we'll be exploring some other issues retailers to face going forward in twenty twenty one. Well, we're excited to launch this with you and everyone, thank you for tuning in to this inaugural episode of Keeping Count. Adrianrian Thomas, I'm Tyler Kern. We'll be back soon with more content from DataScan, exploring the world of retail, but until then, we'll see you soon.