New technologies such as big data, Internet of Things, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence are driving the rapid evolution of the retail industry. The development of new retail has accelerated the integration of online and offline stores. The e-commerce companies initiate offline stores. The traditional retail stores are transformed.
PARKnSHOP, affiliated to the Watsons Group, is the largest chain supermarket in Hong Kong. At present, PARKnSHOP owns 300+ stores in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao and 50+ stores in Guangdong. PARKnSHOP is committed to serve the target customers with specific store brands. Under the new retail environment, PARKnSHOP seeks to make a positive transformation, uses Hanshow ESLs and smart store solutions, and combines the technology and data application to reconstruct the relationship among “people, commodities and supermarkets”, improve the retail efficiency, transform traditional stores to smart stores and digitize the physical store.
Like many traditional retail companies, PARKnSHOP is impacted by the new retail and faces the challenge of building smart stores: 1) operating costs increase significantly, while operational efficiency needs to be improved; 2) the weak link exists in the integration of online and offline stores, the omni-channel operation, and the ability in processing orders from several platforms; 3) customers have poor consumption experience due to low cashier efficiency and long queueing times.
The weak links of offline retail enterprises are IT management and operational capabilities. The same is true for PARKnSHOP. The traditional structure “ERP ⇄ headquarter ⇄ store ⇄ POS” is too simple to realize the omni-channel high-speed operation of new retail. Hanshow helps PARKnSHOP reconstruct the IT architecture, integrates several smart store solutions such as ESLs, smart payment, smart marketing, smart picking, smart display, etc. and realizes multi-dimension digital management of PARKnSHOP stores, enhancing the overall work and operational efficiency of the store and transforming traditional stores to new retail smart stores.
ESLs
At present, PARKnSHOP multi-format stores have successfully applied Hanshow ESLs which realize intelligent price management and save a lot of labor cost. Hanshow ESLs have interactive attributes and can be used as a marketing contact to interact with consumers to provide convenient shopping experiences and also interact with the clerk to improve the store’s management efficiently.
- Price management: the ESL application realizes one-click change of the price in the store quickly and accurately without manual operation, ensuring real-time simultaneous update of online and offline commodity and price information;
- Marketing contact: Achieve real-time simultaneous update of both store and online promotion, and easily carry out “Sec-killing” or “Limited Time Promotion” activities in the store. The ESLs switch the template, light up to remind customers on time, have access to the consumers in all dimensions and enrich the operation methods of the store according to the marketing activities of the store;
- Inventory management: Synchronize inventory information in the background, automatically switch out-of-stock templates, and assist the store employees to quickly formulate replenishment and ordering strategies;
- Scanning code purchase: ESLs are used as the entry of scanning QR code purchase and support display of single commodity SKU QR code. The commodity can be added to the shopping cart and quickly purchased by scanning the QR code. Hanshow collects and analyzes the user data generated in this process to help PARKnSHOP to create a personalized marketing plan.
Smart cashier
Hanshow provides PARKnSHOP with a smart store cashier solution that integrates the scanning code purchase and the self-service purchase and simultaneously recognize the member information with smart screen equipment, self-checkout and order verification. Customers can choose diverse consumption methods and have an improved shopping experience. The store greatly saves the cost of cashier reconstruction and reduces the phenomenon of queuing at the checkout.
After PARKnSHOP applied Hanshow’s smart cashier solution, the proportion of self-service purchase has reached 30%, and the hardware investment has been reduced by more than 50%. Moreover, the marketing information is displayed simultaneously in the self-service smart screen so the store has diverse marketing methods, and the interaction between smart cashier and ESLs will realize the integration of coupon distribution and shopping.
Smart picking
PARKnSHOP applies Hanshow’s picking system to collect and process the orders from different sources, push orders to the picking PDA with the distribution mechanism, automatically generate the best picking route, and simultaneously switch the ESL of the commodity to be picked to the picking template, automatically remind the employee through light up. Employees directly use the PDA to complete the picking, reviewing, and delivery, connect the online transactions and offline logistics, and comprehensively enhance the store efficiency and accelerate inventory turnover.
According to the statistics, at present, PARKnSHOP stores applying Hanshow’s smart picking solution have the fulfillment efficiency of over 30%, and each store has exceeded an average of 1000 orders; the single employee has the picking speed of 5 minutes/order on average. The picking accuracy rate increases by 20%.
Smart display
Hanshow integrates ESLs with big data to obtain store display data and digitalize commodity display, monitoring of commodity location and user identification. The paperless operation and automatic push of the modular avoid the display difference caused by human factors. Each ESL corresponds to the specific commodity, which fixes the display position of the commodity in the store, and thus the headquarter can monitor the store display information in real time.
Summary
In summary, Hanshow ESLs helps PARKnSHOP stores to connect online and offline businesses, generate data in physical stores and collect multiple behavioral data, providing a basis for creating digital application. The smart cashier solutions significantly upgrade the customers’ experience in PARKnSHOP and make them enjoy omni-channel shopping. The smart picking makes traditional retail enterprises like PARKnSHOP integrate the online business. The smart display realizes the rapid display in the store and fixes the commodity display information.
PARKnSHOP and Hanshow also cooperate in the information management of dual-end members, diversified consumption experience, smart space management and omni-channel precise marketing, which aims at creating a digital and highly efficient new retail smart store focusing on customers’ experience.