Four ways to level-up retail operations
In an environment where scan guns and old-school technology are often the norms, a critical question deserves consideration in the retail world: how much value is lost if innovations are not integrated into the management of damaged, returned, or unsold items?
With new technologies rapidly becoming mainstream, retail has an opportunity to re-imagine store management structures while finding massive value in the process. Transformative opportunities exist, and retailers must consider them to stay competitive.
Below are four solutions that will help you determine if you’ve “leveled up” your retail operations across its entirety, or if you have some work to do.
Solution 1: Put Big Data to Work
While “big data” is a buzzword, it has real-world applications. How can big data help your business? Let’s start with the obvious: sound decision-making depends on access to the right information. Big data collection can provide this insight.
Your organization may think it knows everything it should about handling damaged, returned or unsold items in the most cost-effective and sustainable ways possible. However, without a consolidation of this data, there is likely no mechanism to share this information with the people who need it most: hourly employees making frontline decisions.
Through big data, your employees can access tools to make cost- and waste-reducing decisions at every step. Data sets that document every piece of useful information—from resale value to waste categorization to sustainability options—can be built and reside in one location. You’ll also have the capacity to record and measure hundreds of characteristics about every product you sell. Armed with this documentation, you can build software that puts the information to work (while making you look pretty darn smart at the same time). Win, win.
Solution 2: Meet Employees on Their Turf (Screens)
Retail employees often use phones loaded with apps—software that is both aesthetically pleasing and intuitively designed. Technology companies put tremendous energy into creating these “perfect” apps.
What if retailers invested similar energy into the creation of in-store item management systems that are easy to use and widely accessible? One possible answer: businesses and their employees may become a lot more efficient.
If you struggle to train your employees and ensure efficient, accountable operations, there’s a decent chance you need to consider a more robust technology solution.
Solution 3: Making Better Decisions
Good news: your in-store technology generates content-rich data about your inventory. Nice work. So, you’re all done? Not entirely, because measuring inventory data is just part of the equation.
Another big piece of the picture? Your staff, of course. If employee decision-making processes are not measured, they cannot be optimized. Moreover, if these processes are not optimized, your business may be flying blind—and potentially losing money.
How do you know you’re getting the data you need to optimize decision making? Start by answering the following questions:
-Do I know how long it takes for employees to manage an item?
-Do I know what decisions were made about an item?
-Do I understand why particular choices were made?
-Do I know the cost of the decision?
-Do I know there wasn’t a better way?
If you answered “no” to any (or all) of these queries, don’t fret. However, do realize it’s time to start asking hard questions about how to improve your system—and your profits.
Solution 4: Start a ‘Snowball Effect’
Retailers that successfully optimize in-store operations can identify and address small inefficiencies, and these management corrections can unlock substantial savings in both time and money.
Even seemingly minor changes can create powerful momentum. For example, if a major retailer is aware that a particular item is regularly damaged or returned and then optimizes interactions with the item in one store, these changes may be adopted in thousands of other locations with hundreds of thousands of SKUs. Things can add up quickly—like a snowball.
So, How Did You Do?
If you got through this article and just yawned, then bravo! You must be maximizing the potential benefits of new data and software solutions. You also must have gotten a great night’s sleep. However, if reading this leaves you with more questions, it’s time to put on your big data hats and get to work. Remember: making small changes upfront can lead to bigger bottom lines later.
Related Posts
Smarter Sorting and Feeding America Launch Data-Sharing Technology to Help Retailers
Smarter Sorting and Feeding America Launch New Data-Sharing Technology to Help Retailers Reduce Food and Packaged Goods Waste
Smarter Sorting and Feeding America® provide retailers with a real-time data connection with food banks to reduce food and consumer goods going to waste when they could easily be donated
AUSTIN, Texas and BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Smarter Sorting, a consumer goods data and sustainability company, today announced an integration with Feeding America's MealConnect platform to help retailers reduce food waste and donate more to hunger-relief organizations. Smarter Sorting helps retailers handle products with data intelligence — from the shelf to the back of the store, and then distributed as donations to local food banks within the Feeding America network. Retailers can now send instantaneous, automated updates about donation packages. The data-led work ensures better accuracy, visibility, and product lifecycle planning for retail donors and food banks.
The Smarter Sorting and Feeding America partnership is a testament to the ways technology and forward-thinking individuals have the power to affect real, positive change. Costco, a partner of Feeding America, helped pilot the new service. This integration for Costco not only provides actionable, real-time data to food banks, but it also closely aligns with their initiatives to be a supportive arm to the local communities where their employees and members live and work. Furthermore, this integration helps Costco's sustainability goals, specifically their work to divert 80% of their waste.
"Food and consumer goods that could be donated go to waste because there has been no real-time visibility into what is available and where it's located. Retailers and food banks need a better way to understand what donations are ready for pick up to ensure perfectly good products that can't be sold find their way to people who need them the most," says Jacqueline Claudia, CEO of Smarter Sorting. "Our real-time API connection with Feeding America breaks the mindset that it's hard to scale donations and reduce waste without disrupting normal operations."
Tony Pupillo, senior director at Feeding America, says, "Retail donations are Feeding America's largest donation source, recovering over 1.67 billion meals from retail locations in 2021. It might seem like a no-brainer that unused, edible food and essential household items from retailers could be recovered by food pantries, but unfortunately, numerous barriers can make the process inefficient and cumbersome. Offering a glimpse into what items are available prior to a donation pickup creates a more seamless donation pickup and operation overall. Now, with Smarter Sorting's API integration with Feeding America's MealConnect Platform, retailers enjoy a more seamless opportunity to give back and combat waste."
Food recovery has historically faced logistical challenges that have made communication and reporting between retailers and food pantries highly complicated. Smarter Sorting's work with 24 national big-box retailers, such as Costco, offers a solution for retailers to make significant contributions to a global food waste problem without slowing down existing operational procedures and rewarding community donations with new efficiencies.
The Food Sourcing Compliance Officer, Linda Golebiewski, of God's Pantry Food Bank in Lexington, Kentucky, says, "The ability to know four pallets of potatoes are going to be donated allows us to prepare the cook at the soup kitchen in advance of setting a menu. What Smarter Sorting and Feeding America have done has changed the way we do meal planning, engage with our community partners, and impact our communities overall."
About Feeding America
Feeding America® is the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States. Through a network of more than 200 food banks, 21 statewide food bank associations, and over 60,000 partner agencies, food pantries and meal programs, we helped provide 6.6 billion meals to tens of millions of people in need last year. Feeding America also supports programs that prevent food waste and improve food security among the people we serve; brings attention to the social and systemic barriers that contribute to food insecurity in our nation; and advocates for legislation that protects people from going hungry. Visit www.feedingamerica.org, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
About Smarter Sorting
Based in Boulder, Colo., Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, Smarter Sorting helps companies make, market and move consumer products better. Its customers include national discount club stores and supermarkets, as well as the brands they sell. The company's customers use its Product Intelligence Platform to gain product insights and identify how to best handle regulated consumer products across the supply chain to remain compliant, avoid fines and reduce their environmental impact. The company has been honored with awards for innovation, impact and employee experience including: Fast Company's World Changing Ideas and Most Innovative Companies, Built In's Best Place to Work, as well as a Real Leader Impact Award and the SEAL Sustainable Innovation Award. Smarter Sorting is an Unreasonable Impact company. www.smartersorting.com
About God's Pantry Food Bank
The mission of God's Pantry Food Bank is to reduce hunger by working together to feed Kentucky communities. Working through more than 450 food pantries and meal programs the Food Bank serves 50 counties across Central and Eastern Kentucky. God's Pantry Food Bank distributed nearly 41.8 million pounds of food to many of the more than 250,000 neighbors facing food insecurity, including nearly 13 million pounds of fresh produce in fiscal year 2021. For more information, visit us at www.godspantryfoodbank.org.
Media Contact:
The news team: press@smarterx.com
Smarter Sorting Wins Stevie Gold Award for Product Innovation
AUSTIN, Texas and BOULDER, Colo., April 28, 2022 -- Smarter Sorting, a consumer goods data and sustainability company, was today named the winner of a Gold Stevie® Award for Achievement in Product Innovation in The 20th Annual American Business Awards®.
The American Business Awards are the U.S.A.'s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small.
Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word meaning "crowned," the awards will be presented to winners at a gala ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on Monday, June 13.
More than 3,700 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories. Smarter Sorting was nominated in the Achievement in Product Innovation category.
Smarter Sorting's winning award entry highlighted how its unique data lake and proprietary software map the ingredients and chemistry of products, and using computational mathematics, it matches this data to federal and state regulations plus retailers' policies. The Back of Store System (BOSS) taps into this cloud-based decision engine to accurately determine the best way retailers can dispose of unsold or damaged products, or whether they could be donated to charity. And if the retailer partners with US Ecology, the company's Back of Store System (BOSS) syncs with US Ecology trucks so its technicians know exactly when to schedule pick-ups, what waste to pick up and how much to expect.
One of the award judges commented: "This is an excellent solution with a great mission of sustainability, safety and environment. Plus a humanitarian purpose to increase donation capabilities for retailers."
"I'm extremely proud of our team," said Jacqueline Claudia, CEO of Smarter Sorting. "We have shown making better decisions for the environment is just good business. The unique way we use data, science and technology delivers a cost-effective and scalable solution for retailers and brands."
More than 230 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year's Stevie Award winners.
"We are so pleased that we will be able to stage our first ABA awards banquet since 2019 and to celebrate, in person, the achievements of such a diverse group of organizations and individuals," said Maggie Miller, president of the Stevie Awards.
Details about The American Business Awards and the list of 2022 Stevie winners are available at www.StevieAwards.com/ABA.
About the Stevie Awards:
Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide.
The Product Intelligence Platform™: The single source of truth for accurate product classification
At SmarterX, we put sustainability into action, especially when it comes to classifying consumer products.
Inaccurate, slow and error-prone classification methods leave:
- Retailers with uncertainty about store level product compliance
- Stakeholders vulnerable to regulatory fines and supply chain delays
- Shipping companies and regulated waste haulers with logistical dilemmas
A platform for peace of mind
The Product Intelligence Platform™️ is a secure, cloud-based database linking our retail partners and brands to fast and accurate regulatory product classifications.
The Product Intelligence Platform™️ is the place where products are classified. It's a platform for retailers and brand manufacturers to collaborate. Retailers can manage all their hazardous and regulated products. Brands have an easy, frictionless way to share their product data. The result: retailers and brands can make decisions using accurate product data.
We recently completed registration for all regulated products for a major retailer with 2,200+ stores. Products registered shot up over 30% in the past 3 months to meet the retailer's registration deadline.
"The registration process was very easy. I didn’t expect our products to be reviewed and approved so quickly - and yet they were. I am very happy with the Product Intelligence Platform!” - Edward Ro, Pureboost
Our Product Intelligence Platform™️ is at the heart of delivering impressive results in three key areas:
1) Accurate product classifications
Brands register their products by entering a few details to get the most accurate product classifications, without revealing confidential information.
2) Instant regulatory and compliance decisions
With the Back of Store System (BOSS), retailers get waste codes, transportation regulations and disposal classifications for every product on their shelves.
3) Detailed EHS reports and insights
Through Tableau dashboards and tracking of EHS/ESG metrics, retailers and brands can access a comprehensive suite of reporting and insights.
With our platform, registering products is simple. Brands can register products one-by-one, or in bulk. Check out our step-by-step product registration guide.
Data from the source
We collect a vast amount of data on everyday consumer products. Currently, we are in the process of registering the entire catalog (3,600+ products) of the world’s largest consumer goods company.
- We only collect product information from trusted sources to make sure we have the most accurate data.
- We only ask for information we need. Full product formulation and proprietary data is likely not required for accurate classification.
- We fill in the gaps with additional product data from trusted sources like SmartLabel, 1WorldSync or Salsify.
Mind your Rs and Cs: Classifications translated into Regulation and Compliance
We are the first to take a computational approach to product classifications. We use machine learning, computational chemistry and regulatory AI to marry our millions of product data points with over 7,000 rules and regulations, some of which are listed below:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
International Air Transport Association (IATA)
Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)
Department of Transportation (DOT)
California Air Resources Board (CARB)
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code (IMDG)
A Real Leaders Eco Innovation Award Winner
The Product Intelligence Platform™️ has been recognized by Real Leaders as a Top 50 winner in the 2022 Real Leaders® Eco Innovation Awards, a distinction that celebrates innovative environmental solutions for the greater good.
The Product Intelligence Platform™ is being used by over 1,600 brand manufacturers who supply some of the biggest US supermarket chains and one of the world’s largest warehouse clubs.
Placing product intelligence in the hands of retailers and brands, our Product Intelligence Platform™ is the platform you can trust.
Ready to join the Product Intelligence™ revolution?
See for yourself how SmarterX can help you with retail compliance, product insights, and building better supply chains.
