STORES Convention Daily - 2018 Big Show Day 1 - 16

2018 SUNDAY

How Giant Eagle's Technology Experiments
Reduce Losses From Out-Of-Stocks

n 2017, the Harvard Business Review
released a Microsoft-sponsored study
on the current state of data collection
and analysis technology, and its expected
short-term effects on business. The study,
based on a survey of global business leaders, found that 80 percent of them think
their industry will be disrupted by digital
transformation within the next three years.
Fewer than half, however, said they
actually had a digital strategy in place.
In one respect, that's not too surprising. Although there's a great deal of talk
about the age of big data - we are, according to the World Economic Forum,
now living through the Fourth Industrial
Revolution - there's less talk about what
this actually means in terms of running a
business.
On the other hand, the absence of a
corporate grand strategy tends to obscure
the fact that there's a lot of very interesting
work going on out there. Retailers - and the
technology and systems companies they're
partnering with - may not have a map of the
Fourth Industrial Revolution, but they have a
firm grasp on a key central point about data:
What you don't know can hurt you.

out-of-stock condition," says Brian Brand,
Giant Eagle's senior manager of retail supply chain.
"And not only identify it, but connect it
to actions within the store that would allow
our team members to address the problem."
This is the crux of the issue - and perhaps the justification for referring to today's
advances in data technology as a new industrial revolution. There's never been a shortage
of data in retail; from merchandise orders,
bills of lading and warehouse inventory to

store inventory, sales records and returns, the
industry generates a vast trove of information
about its day-to-day activities.
What's missing is useful information
before it's too late. Knowing a popular
item ran out yesterday, or last week, is
not particularly helpful. Even knowing
it might run out today - if that knowledge exists only as a blip on a dashboard
somewhere at headquarters - is not all
that helpful.
Knowing an out-of-stock is imminent

and getting somebody to the shelf in time
to prevent it, however, is gold.
"Since we started the pilot," Brand
says, "they've been doing a lot of work
on the dashboarding aspects of it. And
we're in partnership with them to look for
the best ways to leverage this technology
to provide guidance to store personnel.
Because at the end of the day, if the shelf's
empty, somebody's got to go to the back
See "Out-of-Stocks" on page 17

The Case for Modern Learning in R
From new online competitors to an employee engagement crisis, many challenges are forcing

engagement b

retailers to rethink their business models and their approach to staff learning and development.

they need to ad

By shifting to a more modern workplace learning experience retailers can improve employee

service experie

Total retail sales in the US hit $4.846

36% of consumers

trillion in 20161

provide their main

Ecommerce sales in the US grew more than

only 1% of well-est

15% in 2016, reaching more than $341 billion 2

agree that they en

Reducing out-of-stocks

Take unrecognized out-of-stock
merchandise. For the average retailer, outof-stocks are responsible for lost revenue
amounting to 4.1 percent of total sales,
according to a 2015 study from IHL Group
- a total of $129.5 billion in North America.
The study places the blame on five
areas: bad processes, people problems, data
issues, supplier issues and theft.
All these problem areas (except theft)
could theoretically be improved by access to
timelier and more accurate information -
better data. That is the assumption driving
western Pennsylvania-based grocery chain
Giant Eagle to experiment with a relatively
new technology called Powershelf.
Powershelf co-CEO John White heads
Compass Marketing, a communications and
strategy consulting firm that also does some
investing.
Powershelf was "looking for a little help
in the area of marketing," White says, "and
we were so fascinated with the technology
that we ended up buying a majority of the
company. Basically, it's helping retailers
digitize their store shelves. They can manage
their inventory electronically on the shelf,
they can see it live and they can manage
their pricing electronically, so that associates don't have to go to the shelf and do a
price change."

to experiment with

68%

of consumers say it's
absolutely critical or very
important to interact with
a salesperson who
understands their
preferences or needs7

78%

of consumers rate "sales
associates with a deep
knowledge of the product
range" as the most important
factor for the in-store
shopping experience8

35%

60%

The retail industry
suffers from a turnover
rate of 35%11

of Millennials perceive
work in retail as
engaging12

Customer experience
leaders have 60% more
engaged employees. 13

80%

Organizations t
over 50% em
engagement
over 80% o
custome

Connecting knowledge
to action

Giant Eagle, with 400 stores in four
states, has tested the technology in some of
its Columbus, Ohio, stores across a handful
of commodity items. "We got into the pilot
because the technology showed the possibility to help us identify when we were in an

1. https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2017/02/17/us-e-commerce-sales-grow-156-2016/
2. Ibid.
3. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/assets/total-retail-2017.pdf
4. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/us-retail-talent-disrupted-pov.pdf
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

7. https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/05/14-retail-customer-experience-stats.html
8. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/assets/total-retail-2017.pdf
9. https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/05/14-retail-customer-experience-stats.html
10. http://www.workforcesoftware.com/infographic/keys-to-successful-retail-workforce-m
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.

The D2L family of companies includes D2L Corporation, D2L Ltd, D2L Australia Pty Ltd, D2L Europe Ltd, D2L Asia Pte Ltd, and D2L Brasil Soluçõe

895932_D2L.indd 1

https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2017/02/17/us-e-commerce-sales-grow-156-2016/ https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/05/14-retail-customer-experience-stats.html https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/assets/total-retail-2017.pdf https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/assets/total-retail-2017.pdf https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/05/14-retail-customer-experience-stats.html https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/us-retail-talent-disrupted-pov.pdf http://www.workforcesoftware.com/infographic/keys-to-successful-retail-workforce-management

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of STORES Convention Daily - 2018 Big Show Day 1