Podcasts

To markdown or not to markdown? On the day [of expiry date] or some days before? Merchandised in the aisle OR a dedicated markdown location? Labels and / or ESL's? To use dynamic pricing or a simpler fixed discount table?

This week Colin Peacock is joined by Richard Thaleman to tackle the challenges of markdown strategies.

They discuss when to apply markdowns, where to display discounted items, and how different pricing approaches and technologies like ESLs impact sales, profitability, and food waste reduction.

This week Colin Peacock is joined by Professor Adrian Peacock to explore innovations in retail security and security guards,

They discuss how retailers are rethinking the role of security guards, weighing the benefits of extra store associate hours versus security personnel, and examining ideas like community guards.

Retailers spend millions, and some hundreds of millions on security guards. In our mini benchmark study, 81% of the thirty six retailers who responded shared that their budget for guards will increase and at least, stay the same over the next 12-18 months.

Yet retailers remain agitated about the role security guards play, and troubled by the difficulty in being able to accurately determine their return on investment.

Each year, we get a chance as a working group to hear from the retailers in the group and over 120 registered for this year's meeting to swap notes and hear new ideas from their peers.

This week's podcast summarises those discussions: New thinking when it comes to security guards.

Retailers are constantly looking for new ways to improve shelf-replenishment routines and reduce out of stocks. At the same time they also want to shorten lead times, remove "waste" and reduce cost.

In this episode, Colin Peacock is joined by Paul Chapman from Oxford University to discuss best practice in reducing out of stocks.

And in particular, they explore what retailers could learn from experts in process-improvement, Toyota.

Returns are a significant cost of doing business online, especially in sectors such as apparel and shoes where returns rates can be 30% plus.

Our 2018 report highlighted the need for retailers to calculate the TRUE and full cost of returns, proposing a true cost of returns model that retailers could adopt to their business.

In this episode Colin Peacock and Professor Adrian Beck consider how retailers are trying to find the right balance between making it as easy as possible for customers to return items in-store, at the least cost while balancing the increased risk of fraud from some customers who might abuse a self returns system.

Following rapid adoption in fashion and sports retailers, there is strong interest from supermarket retailers as to how RFID could help improve productivity, compliance and reduce food waste, especially in the fresh meat categories. 

In this episode, Colin Peacock and Professor Adrian Beck explore the learnings from retailers on the learnings and results from their RFID trials in fresh meat.  

Fresh meat is considered one of the most advantaged categories for RFID, in part because the technology can then be used to automatically alert staff to upcoming expiry dates.

One grocery retailer recently reduced losses on sandwiches by 25%, through the deployment of an anti-theft internal communications campaign.

On this podcast prof Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock and highlights a number of different ways that retailers are seeking to reduce theft by their own employees through the use of communications and advertising.

The discussion includes debates around how to blend ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ messaging, and how to make communications campaigns part of the regular toolkit to increase staff honesty and reduce internal theft.

Pity the organic avocado, damaged and bruised on its way to the shelf, "roughed up" on the shelf by shoppers, picked by mistake by the in-store pickers and then misrepresented at the self checkout.

Pity too all the other loose products in fresh, especially those with the shortest shelf life, most easily damaged and with other similar alternatives.

In this podcast, Colin Peacock is joined by Richard Thalemann to discuss how retailers are trying to reduce food waste by adopting new and different approaches to reduce the volume of "throws" from the loose category, including technologies to extend the shelf life, to reduce damages and to improve pick and scan accuracy.

Meat losses, especially on lines such as Fillet Steaks, can be in excess of 20% of sales but what is driving these losses? Theft for Resale? Internal Theft & Collusion? Variable Weight Pricing? Theft in Transit? Non Scanning at the SCO? etc....and more importantly, how do you prevent these losses without hurting sales and customer satisfaction?

On this episode, Colin Peacock is joined by Professor Adrian Beck to discuss how retailers and supermarkets are trying to address this issue - from more frequent re-stocks, through to tagging or store design.

In this podcast Colin Peacock and Professor Adrian Beck consider how the use of video analytics is broadening across the retail estate, especially in grocery at the self checkouts.

They discuss some of the feedback and insights from 70 retailers from across the globe and consider how the new technology and analytics are increasingly being used for loss-prevention, security-management and even measuring queue length.

With the growth of AI and other new technologies, they discuss how well-planned video analytics systems can really support retailers, as long as their objectives are well-defined at the start.

Items not scanning at self-checkout create frustration, temptation and add friction to the shopper journey.

In this podcast Colin Peacock and Professor Adrian Beck look at the scale and nature of this problem, and the key drivers of non-scanning (hello multiple QR codes on packaging!)

They consider the interventions that retailers are adopting to address these problems, to reduce the number of interventions and the losses associated with it. As well as how to improve the customer experience.

There are broadly two operating models for petrol / gas forecourts. Either the shopper fills up and then goes inside the store to pay for their fuel and then (hopefully) other purchases, or they are asked to pre-pay by either going into the store or paying at the pump before fuelling.

The benefit of the pre-payment model is the risk of loss, through drive offs, or the customers not having a means of payment, is near zero. However, this model adds friction to the shopper journey and does not optimise the up-selling opportunity inside the shop.

In this podcast, Professor Adrian Beck and Colin Peacock consider how some retailers are lowering the risk of drive offs through computer vision using ANPR / LPR technology, digital incident reporting. While also recognising the importance of collaboration, especially with law enforcement to further reduce and prevent the risk of drive offs.

Join Colin Peacock and Professor Adrian Beck as they discuss how retailers are using facial recognition technology within the legal constraints to reduce theft, especially from persistent offenders.

The ECR working group has been tracking the use of facial recognition in retail for the last five years.

We have seen some strong results reported back to the group from retailers such as Rite Aid in USA, and then more recently updates from USA, UK and Australian retailers.

With the pressure on governments around the world to support requests from retailers for help with the growing levels of violence, abuse and theft from retail locations, there is some evidence that governments are listening more to requests from retailers to help progress facial recognition technology (click here).

Colin Peacock and Professor Adrian Beck discuss some of the latest thinking from retailers who are seeing significant benefits from the data associated with RFID. With use cases that include interactive fitting rooms, the use of RFID to improve inventory accuracy from the DC to the store, through to the use of RFID for high theft item security, product returns and more.

At the peak of its inflated expectations, RFID was going to solve for all retailers ills while delighting the shopper.

However, as our ECR report highlighted (click here), the business case "sweet spot" for RFID turned out to be the counting of soft fashion lines more accurately at less cost.

This episode of the podcast focuses on how retailers are now looking to "sweat" their RFID investment harder.

On this episode, Colin Peacock is joined by Professor Adrian Beck to discuss where next for Scan and Go? How can retailers reduce errors, improve accuracy and ultimately reduce loss when shoppers use their own devices to scan and pay for their groceries.

Some shoppers love the ability to use their own device to scan and then pay for their groceries, as it can be a huge time saver. However, this customer friendly proposition can be hugely risky for retailers.

In fact, one retailer, Wegmans, withdrew the proposition much to the annoyance of their shoppers because of loss.

Other retailers have shared that when they audit the baskets of those using their own device, over 15% of those baskets contained an error. With the discrepancy representing a 6% loss.

For more information on ECR Retail Loss' work on Scan and Go, check out our 2018 report - Self Checkout in Retail: Measuring the Impact on Loss. Or read the summary of our previous Scan and Go meeting