Footwear Inventory Management

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If you don’t have an effective footwear inventory management process set in place, then your footwear business isn’t operating as optimally as it could be. Sticking with outdated inventory control methods can raise your overheads, reduce sales, and slow the growth of your business.

For footwear businesses using omnichannel fulfillment processes, an efficient inventory management system can mean the difference between consistently successful order fulfillment, and routinely canceled customer orders.

Common Footwear Inventory Challenges

It’s rare to find a footwear company without at least a few footwear inventory management issues gumming up the works. Maybe inventory takes so long that you only do it once a year. Or perhaps your stock counts never seem to match up with what’s on the shelves.

Whatever the cause, inefficient inventory management trickles down to all other aspects of your business, ultimately leading to a poor customer experience and lower sales. Below are some of the most common footwear inventory challenges you’ll need to overcome in order to increase customer satisfaction.

In today’s digital world, omnichannel fulfillment is a must if you want to compete with all the other footwear companies out there. But it’s no secret that omnichannel fulfillment can easily become overwhelming without the right systems in place from the beginning.

A poor inventory management process can make the fulfillment process a nightmare if you don’t have a clear idea of how much stock you have and where it’s located. Sloppy inventory processes can lead to mistakes and delays that cost you money and leave your customers with a poor experience.

RFID technology can help you make the most of omnichannel fulfillment, allowing you to seamlessly manage inventory from your brick and mortar stores to your eCommerce store.

You can also take advantage of your store locations for fulfilling your eCommerce orders, shipping from the location closest to the customer’s address rather than a warehouse halfway across the country.

When done right, fulfillment using multiple channels can be faster and cheaper for you and your clients.

Increasing inventory visibility is crucial for a smooth and successful order fulfillment system.

It’s vital that your customers are able to see what items are in stock when ordering. If a customer has to deal with unexpected delays in shipment because an item was out of stock, they’re more likely to:

Cancel the order
Return the item
Leave a poor review
Refuse to do business with you in the future

Likewise, you must be able to stay on top of your stock levels at all times, knowing in real-time when your levels are low or you’ve run out of an item. Stockout management is especially crucial for small businesses that don’t keep large amounts of backstock; a sudden boost in sales can deplete your stockroom practically overnight.

Getting started with an RFID solution can be expensive, especially if you’re not confident in the ROI you’ll get out of it.

Some of the costliest components of implementing RFID in your footwear business are RFID tunnels, which cost upwards of $50,000. These bulky tunnels take up valuable floor space, reducing the amount of room you have for inventory storage.

kshield can help reduce the cost of shielding incoming inventory. Our kbeacons reduce the cost of shielding items on your sales floor from your back stock room by virtually separating the two areas so you can analyze what’s missing from either section.

Not sure RFID is worth the cost? Use our ROI calculator to see the savings we can provide as opposed to other solutions.

Your customers can’t buy shoes they don’t know you sell. Yet, too many footwear businesses fail to put out display shoes for every model, or something happens to the display shoe without them realizing it.

We also make sure there is a registered display tag for those you use as a display, so there’s no confusion about where the item is. With our tags, if a display shoe sells, you’ll also know right away that you need to replace it.

With RFID technology, you never have to allow an SKU to go without a sample again.

If a company doesn’t have item-level visibility into their inventory, it’s very easy for stock to “walk off,” never to be seen again. Between misplaced items and theft, inventory shrinkage can cost a footwear business thousands of dollars annually.

Most businesses take precautions against theft on the sales floor by installing cameras or security personnel. But the unfortunate truth is that internal theft is often more of a problem than theft from the outside.

kcode technology provides item-level visibility and tracking, making it a strong deterrent against employee theft.

The sooner you’re able to minimize inventory shrinkage, the sooner you’ll be able to make the most of your inventory investment and boost your bottom line.

An ineffective footwear inventory system is a sure way to lower employee morale and increase payroll costs. If employees spend a large percentage of their shift looking for items that are supposed to be in stock but aren’t, their time is unproductive and the customer experience is poor.

Low employee morale isn’t just hard on your staff. It can lead to lackluster performance and poor customer service that gives your brand a bad name. Unhappy employees are also more likely to steal from the business, causing you to lose money from both sides.

Help your employees help you by setting them up for success with efficient, streamlined systems that work.

How kcode Helps Footwear Companies

With everything that can go wrong with footwear inventory management, how can businesses ensure stock accuracy? Using RFID tags on shoes is an excellent way to start. RFID technology utilizes radio waves rather than barcodes when scanning items, leading to:

Faster scanning speeds
Greater accuracy
More detailed tracking ability

kcode works with the RFID tags on shoes to simplify your inventory process, leading to an improved customer experience that will increase sales and boost profits.

Improve Stock Accuracy

kcode allows your employees to take inventory with over 99% accuracy in a fraction of the time associated with traditional methods. Because RFID scanning is so fast, it means that inventory no longer has to happen once a year, but can be done monthly, weekly, or even daily.

You can also use kcode’s app, ktrac, to review reports, track showroom versus stockroom inventory, and even tag and track display products.

Increase Employee Efficiency

With kcode, your employees can receive shipments and take inventory very quickly so they have more time to devote to things like showroom presentation and customer service. Plus, since kcode provides item-level visibility, they’ll never have to hunt for items again – they’ll automatically know the location of every pair of shoes through the lifecycle of your supply chain.

Enhance Electronic Article Surveillance

kcode can help reduce theft and cut down your inventory shrinkage rate thanks to electronic article surveillance that prevents not cleared items from leaving the store.

Current System Integration

We know how frustrating it is when systems can’t communicate with each other. That’s why kcode engineers and developers work with you to ensure our products integrate seamlessly with your existing system.

kcode can integrate with any ERP system as well as most POS systems, giving you a streamlined inventory management experience.

Higher Revenue

Margins are tight in the footwear industry, and we understand what it’s like trying to grow your business in the industry. Using our improved inventory management systems can lead to a more efficient, profitable business, so you can invest your time and money in innovations and new shoe lines.

Not to mention, accurate stock numbers result in better customer service and quicker order fulfillment, meaning you’ll see a rapid increase in sales numbers.

ktrac Icon

ktrac: The Footwear Inventory Management Solution

ktrac is our flagship inventory management solution. This software reads hundreds of RFID tags on shoes in seconds at 99% accuracy, drastically reducing the time you spend receiving orders or taking inventory.

ktrac can also help you:

Efficiently replenish stock
Find misplaced inventory thanks to item-level visibility
Prevent theft using electronic article surveillance
Transfer inventory
Tag and track display products
Create reports

The user-friendly app is easy to navigate, making it ideal for businesses with multiple employees in charge of stock.

ktrac will help you streamline your inventory management processes, boost employee productivity, and increase customer satisfaction for your footwear brand.

kshield kbeacons kfind kfit

kshield

Because RFID solutions utilize radio waves, they can easily scan all RFID tags nearby. This is terrific when you’re trying to speed through taking inventory, but less helpful when you only want to scan specific items, such as when receiving a new shipment that you need to scan in.

kshield solves this problem by using a ring of beacons to create a barrier inside which you can scan incoming inventory. The beacons encircle a swivel base that makes scanning fast and easy. Better yet, kshield folds away for easy storage when not in use.

kbeacons

kbeacons allow you to separate your footwear showroom into departments or your stockroom into sections. Simply place the beacons at the edge of each department and take inventory. These small beacons are designed to blend in with your store’s decor so you can increase stock accuracy and your customers will be none the wiser.

kfind

kfind is our proprietary algorithm that allows you to search for misplaced items or quickly find the backstocked item that a client is looking for. Significantly reduce your inventory search time and take advantage of RFID-enabled stock with kfind.

kfit

kfit can help gain control over one of the primary shrinkage hotspots in any retail store. This theft-reducing feature allows you to control the flow of garments to and from the fitting rooms, ensuring items don’t disappear. kfit allows your clerks to spend less time monitoring for theft and more time helping customers.

Inventory Management for the Footwear Industry

Common Footwear Inventory Challenges