Aftetix, a Russian startup, offers a solution to reduce product stocks using innovative technology that identifies “problematic” shoe models in the first month of sales and guaranteed to reduce stock at the end of the season by 30-40%.
“As you know, any disease is better treated if it is captured at an early stage, arguing by analogy, we can conclude that it is better to deal with the remaining goods at the start of its formation, at the very beginning of the sales season. Using the technology developed by us, you can easily calculate shoe models that run the risk of creating this product balance and take the necessary measures in time, ”says Vladimir Marakov, one of the founders of Aftetix startup. It took about 6 years to develop and test the technology, which is based on the method of marking shoes with special electronic sensors, today it has been tested, tested and ready for use.
Shoes Report found out how the new retail solution works.
Vladimir Marakov - Our technology is based on the simple idea that it is possible to understand what product will be stale in the store by the end of the season by the way the customer responds to it - does he show interest in this product, take it off the shelf, put it right in place or trying on, aleatherg the price ... If the store has more than 1000 of different models of shoes, it is impossible to draw conclusions on the behavior of the buyer by eye, but electronics help to handle the processing of a large amount of information.
We have developed a technology that allows you to record the time during which the buyer holds the goods in his hands, and based on these data to draw conclusions about how much the product is interesting to the consumer. To do this, special electronic sensors are applied to the shoes, which read this information, and based on the data obtained, a statistical report is created in which the studied shoes are divided into groups.
We conducted a practical experiment in several multi-brand stores, and found that the classic product balance is formed from two groups of products - the first group is a product that does not interest the buyer at all (they never picked it up in the first month of sales), the second group - the product which shop visitors intensively measure, but don’t buy.
This knowledge prompted us to the idea that the discounts that the seller puts on a particular product during the sale period, if our statistics are available, may be more justified.
Note that often during the sale period the store establishes a discount on all products (manual method), or a discount on the product is established by eye, without a clear justification.
We assumed that if we know that some goods from the unsold were still more often taken into hands, tried on, it means that it aroused interest, and we can set a lower discount on such goods than on the goods to which the buyer did not show interest at all. And for the goods that were not taken at all, the discount may be more. Thus, we rank discounts based on the statistics obtained, thereby we save on the general discount and speed up the turnover. This theory is fully justified in practice.
But this was not the end of our experiments, then we asked ourselves whether it was possible to solve the problem with the remaining balance in a non-monetary way on the basis of our statistical data and our electronic technology, and we found such a solution.
Electronic sensors that we install on shoes help us not only to obtain the necessary statistics, but also to create new opportunities for communication with visitors to the store. For example, having established candidates for the remaining goods, the store owner organizes a separate shelf in the retail space, which in different ways draws the attention of the visitor to his unpopular models.
In this case, you can use different formats. For example, you can install a monitor on which each time a shoe is lifted by a buyer, information about the valuable properties of a given pair, its wear resistance, moisture protection, flexible outsole and other characteristics will be broadcast, thereby stimulating a store visitor to buy.
We conducted experiments in several multi-brand retail stores that confirmed the effectiveness of our technology. It allows you to guaranteedly reduce the balance of goods by 30-40%. Today we offer services for the forecasting of commodity balance and its substantial reduction.
Our solution is suitable for both retail chains and stand-alone stores. The presence of such a system in network retail stores, among other things, allows the network manager to see in which region or city a particular demand is forming and respond quickly to customer requests by transferring goods from one retail outlet to another, for example, from a Moscow store - to the store in Novosibirsk.
The system may turn out to be an inexpensive solution for optimizing the balance of goods for the owner of one shoe store, as it allows you to act selectively - apply sensors not to all shoes in the store, but only to those models that are in doubt, for example, new items.
The price for installation and maintenance of the system is formed on the basis of the cost of the sensor - from 100 rubles per pair. This amount includes all equipment, software, maintenance. A couple increases the cost of 100-300 rubles, but in the end, the retail owner receives a tool to reduce the balance of goods. The amount of costs discouraged per season. Depending on what the store owner needs, we provide statistics or give a sales forecast. For an additional fee, we undertake the development of a program to stimulate sales of models that are candidates for inventory.
We carry out marking of shoes with sensors on our own in one day. The store owner can only turn on the computer. The store manager provides us with a database of shoes, we identify shoes with a sensor, and bring the two systems into one. The information we display is encoded, we do not have any commercial information.
Analytics can be provided to the store owner in different ways. For example, in the form of a graph of the dynamics of cost. The graph can show how the cost of goods increases in price over time while it is on the shelf. Thus, the owner will be able to track how much this product will cost him in three months. Already in the first month he can identify the "problem" models and take action.
If the owner of the store has a desire not only to receive a statistical forecast for the product balance, but also our recommendations on sales promotion, this additional service will cost about 30 thousand rubles per month. This amount will include recommendations for ranking discounts, a non-monetary incentive program and the organization of incentive stocks in the retail space.
Good sales are achieved by the retailer who can easily manipulate various types of shoes. Owners of online stores now have such an opportunity - they immediately see which models arouse consumers' interest by fixing clicks, and can hold the consumer's attention, reminding him of interest in a particular model with the help of targeted advertising. Until now, traditional retail has been losing at this online store, now it has a chance to get the same benefits.
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