Abhishek Budholiya — August 11, 2017 As retail or departmental stores continue to expand their in-house stock and the length of display shelf aisles, it becomes more challenging to maintain consistency of on-shelf availability of each and every product. Despite such hurdles, retailers try to cover most of the categories of consumer goods in their stores, which invariably necessitates the installation of more display aisles. This makes timely transportation of goods from inventories to shelf quite difficult at times. It is necessary to maintain an on-shelf visibility of a product, sometimes a retailer might incur huge losses due to the disparity in product’s availability in inventory and its display shelf visibility.
The so-called modern multi storied super market and hyper markets are massive and usually spread across a wide area with multiple on-shelf display locations for a single product. Of late, several new retail formats have also emerged such convenience, variety and big box stores. Not to mention, the boom of E-commerce is further augmenting the definition of a shelf. Adoption of a digital shelf is considered as an important step toward implementing enhanced business to consumer (B2C) strategies. It offers a platform for brands to increase their online sales as well as enables to learn how to optimize eCommerce strategies. Factors as such are prompting retailers to implement on-shelf availability solutions for systematically availing customers with desired products. Such solution can comprehensively eliminate “out of stock” situations. Moreover, Retailers are rapidly deploying on-shelf availability solutions to keep a record of product stock, product details and to ensure on-shelf product visibility. A new study conducted by Future Market Insights (FMI) reveals that the global market for on-shelf availability solution will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 9.5% between 2017 and 2027.
Undoubtedly, retailers across the globe are stepping-up the use of technology and are investing heavily in segments such as on-shelf availability solutions. For example, Procter & Gamble has upgraded its on-shelf availability solution capabilities by infusing a store-level data generation technology. Growing investments in deploying advance on-shelf availability solutions across shopping centers are reflecting favorably on the global market for on-shelf availability solution. Also, such solution can greatly reduce the incidences of shoplifting from warehouses and retail stores. Of late, the number of cases relating to theft in shopping centers has increased alarmingly in Western European countries such as Germany and France. Deployment of such solutions in shopping centers can significantly reduce incidences of product displacements. At the same time, product manufacturers and suppliers can benefit from on-shelf availability solutions, as such solutions add more visibility in the process of storage and transportation. In large sized business centers and retail stores, on-shelf availability of products data and the inventory data are analyzed as well as compared using these solutions. Many at times, on-shelf availability solutions can help retailers effectively handle demand and supply management issues. Displaced products or goods that are lying in warehouse beyond the permitted period can be easily identified using on-shelf availability solutions. In the near future, the aforementioned factors are likely to further fuel the demand for on-shelf availability solutions and encourage developers to improve their functionality beyond imagination.
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