Losing $563 billions/ year as a retailer: How to avoid it

563 billion dollars is a staggering number. To put it into perspective, that is more than the total Governmental revenue for Spain (2020 estimate, IMF) at 482Bs usd - and that is the 10th biggest in the world (by country). It could buy you all the football teams in the NFL - 3 times, and still allow you a few bucks to spare. Or you could use this money to buy 8042 Ferrari 250 GTO, the most expensive Ferrari ever, auctioned at around $70 million (a once in a lifetime car, to be honest - and no, not even close to 8000 have been produced).

Now, I am quite sure you are asking - what is this humongous figure? Is it the price of putting a man on Mars in 2030? No, it is the amount of money retailers lose, per year, due to out of stock situations, according to Retail Wire.

So, let me recap, so this is really clear. You go out, in your car, to a grocery store, to buy milk and cookies. You get there, you buy the milk, but there are no cookies - so, you decide you can skip them for the time being. You pay, and you leave the store, happy with your milk, but no cookies. You multiply this situation a few million times (with some more products and people) and, by the end of the year, $563 billion dollars have evaporated from retailers P&L.

Availability is one of the most (the most?) important driver of purchase. A shopper can’t shop what isn’t there to be sold. This is a simple and most powerful retail and logistics (and marketing) truth. But perfect availability is difficult - and expensive. That’s where technology needs to step in.

At Reckon.ai we are very aware of this problem - and its solution. We believe that human-centric technology is the key to revolutionize retail - and that includes logistics. From the outset, our 24/7 autonomous microstores (1 to 30 sqm smartstores, that can be placed anywhere in the world, as long as there is a power socket) have been designed to tackle supply chain problems - after all, we are talking about small stores with a very high rotation of products, as they are perfectly placed in small places within high foot-traffic locations.

How are we doing it? Constant cloud connectivity is part of the answer. Stores that use our technology are collecting data every second and passing it on real time to our partners (retailers that own and operate) - that means that every time someone buys milk and cookies in our microstores, our partners know it. But it also means that (thanks to big data and predictive analytics and models) retailers are informed in real-time about stocks, sales volume and when they are supposed to replenish the microstore with specific products. That enables them to plan ahead the optimal replenishment strategy - and to ensure that there are enough cookies in stock, ready to be bought by someone that is looking for a pack of milk and something else.

We call our microstores the store of the future. Helping to tackle a $563 billion / year retail opportunity?is one of the reasons why.