One thing that’s become clear over the last few years is that in-store pick and pack varies a lot. No two retailers are alike. They all have quirks. It might be due to the products they sell. Their store layout. Employee turnover. Or the level of service they promise to customers.
Every retailer is different
Fashion retailers may need to get stock off the sales floor fast so it’s not sold to an in-store customer. Luxury brands may want to offer special services to VIP customers. Fragile items may require special handling, while the picking of high value items may need to factor in accessing a specific vault drawer. The list goes on.
Regardless of the reason, the fact is, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to store fulfillment. Consider the following in-store pick strategies:
- Pick by order to keep it simple
- Pick by item or category or location and stage items for packing later
- Pick a batch of orders at the same time
Speed versus Accuracy
Then there’s the pick process itself and the trade between speed and accuracy. Do you want to:
- Scan each item when picked, to ensure accuracy?
- Scan each item when packed, to ensure accuracy?
- Skip scanning and just flag short picks or exceptions while picking, so your staff can pick quickly – even if that sacrifices accuracy – just to get stock off the sales floor (you can figure out any short picks or exceptions during the pack process)?
You’ll also want to consider if it makes sense to capture a reason code for exceptions. Is that data valuable? Or is picking speed and reducing the time it takes to train new staff more important?
Add or skip steps
At the end of the day, you need the freedom to add or skip steps. To customize what data is shown on each screen, and perhaps support Value Added Services too. Think gift wrap, adding samples to an order, or personalization.
With the big increase in store fulfilled orders over the past year, for many retailers it’s time to up their game. They need to boost productivity, and reduce the cost to serve. That’s why we’re excited to introduce Fluent Store. The only in-store pick and pack application designed to be adapted to your business.
Configure and Extend
Powered by Fluent’s Order Management Experience set of low-code tools, Fluent Store can be configured and extended to fit your business. Want to change what’s shown on each screen? Or update the layout? No problem. Need to add a step or a user action to the pick/pack/ship or pickup process? What about showing staff data from other systems – like customer loyalty status from your CRM or optimized upsell ideas from your recommendation engine? You can do that too. What’s more, Fluent Store isn’t just for traditional retail stores.
Use it anywhere you store stock
You can use Fluent Store at any fulfillment location. Think dark stores and pop-up stores. It could even be used by your Drop Ship Vendors so you can provide better order status updates to your customers.
So if you’ve been frustrated with rigid systems that are difficult and expensive to customize, look no further.
To learn more about Fluent Store, schedule a demo today!
