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Driving Efficiency and Sales Growth: How Akuret Helped a Grocery Chain Improve Inventory Management

In today’s fast-paced retail environment, operational efficiency and inventory management are critical for maintaining customer satisfaction and maximizing profits. One grocery store chain was facing significant challenges in these areas—specifically, the time and effort spent managing product availability, tracking down stock issues, and ensuring a smooth shopping experience for its customers.

To overcome these obstacles, the grocery chain turned to Akuret, seeking a data-driven solution to streamline their operations. Here’s how Akuret helped this grocery chain transform its processes, save time, and increase revenue.

The Challenge: Time-Consuming Availability Management

Every week, store associates were dedicating countless hours walking through the aisles, scanning empty shelves, and trying to pinpoint the causes of stock shortages. Even though their POS system was aware that certain shelves were empty, there was no digital tracking mechanism to trace the root causes or speed up restocking. This process not only consumed valuable employee time but also led to missed opportunities for customer purchases

The grocery chain knew they needed a more efficient, data-driven approach to manage these operational issues. They wanted a system that could alert associates to problems in real-time and help track and resolve issues without the manual labor of constantly surveying store shelves.

The Solution: Leveraging Data with the Akuret App

To solve this issue, the grocery chain partnered with Akuret to implement a smarter, more automated approach to inventory management.

Here’s how it worked:
Daily Data Integration:

The grocery chain supplied Akuret with daily transaction data, enabling the system to identify product availability issues.

Store-Level Alerts:

Akuret’s app was installed on handheld devices used by store associates. Twice a week, the app would send alerts directly to these devices, flagging specific inventory issues, such as empty shelves or misplaced products.

Efficiency Gains:
By receiving and acting on these alerts, store associates spent just 60 minutes per week addressing issues, drastically reducing the time spent on manual shelf scanning.
The Results: Tangible Improvements in Efficiency and Sales

Thanks to the Akuret app, the grocery chain saw immediate benefits, including:

Increased Sales: :

By ensuring that shelves remained stocked and products were readily available, the chain experienced a 0.5% increase in total revenue.

Time Saved:

Store associates saved 4 hours per week on average, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks like customer service and restocking.

Efficiency Gains:
By receiving and acting on these alerts, store associates spent just 60 minutes per week addressing issues, drastically reducing the time spent on manual shelf scanning.
More Issues Resolved: The Akuret app flagged an average of 350 issues per store per month, ensuring that potential problems were identified and resolved before they could negatively impact sales or customer experience.

The Results: Tangible Improvements in Efficiency and Sales

One of the key strengths of the Akuret solution was its ability to provide real-time operational insights from the store floor. The app gathered data on a wide variety of issues, including:
Empty Shelves
Expired Products
Out-of-Stock Items
Phantom Inventory
Messy or Broken Packaging
Misplaced Products
This data helped the grocery chain better understand the strategic areas for improvement, leading to smarter, more proactive decision-making. As one Store Manager noted,

“Gathering this data has given me a much better understanding of how to strategically develop my store.”

Strategic Benefits: Beyond Just Time Savings

In addition to time and cost savings, the Akuret app provided strategic benefits that helped the grocery chain manage its inventory more effectively. Key improvements included:
Minimizing Waste & Markdowns: The chain was able to identify and remove out-of-season products more quickly, minimizing waste and reducing the need for markdowns.
Faster Identification of “Shelf Warmers”: The app helped stores spot slow-moving products sooner, allowing for quicker action to either promote or replace these items.
Less Time Spent Fixing Root Causes: With real-time insights into issues like phantom inventory or misplaced products, stores spent significantly less time solving recurring problems, freeing up resources for other operational tasks.

Strategic Benefits: Beyond Just Time Savings

The partnership with Akuret empowered this grocery store chain to not only enhance its inventory management but also improve its overall store operations. By adopting a data-driven approach, they were able to reduce manual labor, boost sales, and gain valuable insights that helped them run their stores more efficiently.

As the retail landscape continues to evolve, innovative solutions like Akuret will play a crucial role in helping stores stay competitive, minimize waste, and meet customer expectations.

Are you ready to transform your store operations with the power of data-driven insights? Contact Akuret today to learn how our solutions can help you save time, increase revenue, and streamline your inventory management.

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