Endless Aisle: How Can You Implement Real-Time Inventory Visibility In Your Retail Business

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Retaining loyal customers to sustain a profitable business becomes crucial with the changing marketing landscape. But sometimes, it gets difficult for retailers to manage their inventory, which affects their sales and brand reputation. 

If customers find that the product is out of stock in a retail store, the chances are that they might go further to a competitor's store, which is not a good sign. A report reveals that 7% of small businesses don't track their inventory. And that's why they are struggling to boost their sales. 

There might be many reasons why your physical inventory might not have the products your customers want, but asking them to wait for a few days is not viable.

Are you also facing the same problem? Don't worry.

There is a solution to this problem, i.e., Endless Aisle.

It helps businesses provide more flexibility and room to showcase products that are usually not in inventory or out of stock but can be arranged to be delivered. 

It allows retailers to provide their customers an opportunity to browse through your entire offline and online inventory and purchase the products they want virtually. 

Read on to know how Endless Aisle can help you increase your inventory without actually spending lots of bucks on their purchase and storage.

What is an endless aisle?

Endless aisle is a strategy that many offline retail stores often use to expand their inventory without physically maintaining it. It combines virtual as well as offline inventory present in the store. 

Once a customer walks inside a store, they can browse through the physical inventory and virtual inventory using a kiosk or tablet, or a mobile device and choose what they want and order the merchandise presented in the form of virtual products. 

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This way, instead of shopping bags in hand, customers would leave stores with delivery tracking details and receive the products from the stores! 

Endless aisle helps retailers enhance customer experience by delivering a hybrid of online and offline shopping experiences. It allows businesses to provide customers with the opportunity to purchase products that are currently not available in their stores. It offers an easy selection of products, and provides quick services to customers.

Firms can also plan and schedule deliveries aptly and keep track of shopping trends through an endless aisle strategy. Also, it allows organizations and retailers to reduce their physical inventory to save floor space.

Take an example of car showrooms: When you go to a car dealership to purchase a car, the customer assistant will show you a car through a virtual medium that is out of stock. And then they will ask you to book your car in advance. 

What are the advantages of the endless aisle?

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• Enhance customer experience and service

By incorporating Endless Aisle in your brick-and-mortar business, you can give your customers the freedom to choose from your entire product selection and catalog. This reduces the challenge of retaining customers and increases the possibility of purchase.  

If your customers find the product they are looking for in your store, they might always choose you for the same product line.

• With Endless Aisle, upselling and cross-selling get better. 

The Endless Aisle allows retailers to sell additional accessories to the primary intended purchase. You can give them an array of options virtually. 

Since the Endless Aisle strategy allows you to always have full shelves, you don't have to worry about in-store stock. This will make purchasing and selling tasks easier for you and your customers.

• Increase your inventory without increasing the floor space

Usually, if you want to have a large inventory, you need to rent additional floor and shelf space to accommodate the stock.

With Endless Aisle, you can expand your inventory by adding your products to digital platforms . That means no need for additional space and expenses. 

• Give your better customers insights.

One of the essential things that every retailer needs is customer data, which helps them know what their target audience likes and what new item is trending in the market. The data helps you understand your customer's requirements and gives you an edge over your competitors.

Endless Aisle helps you capture real-time customer data as they scroll through your virtual platform. You can determine what your customers want to buy to arrange your virtual inventory accordingly. Also, it helps you provide a more improved customer experience.

Implementing an Endless Aisle in your store

The most common way of implementing endless aisles is Kiosks. You can also choose smartphones and tablets based on your daily customer traffic and business requirements.  

Add the entire product range of your store to your digital platform to showcase your customers. The kiosks should be handled by store reps and distributed across your store. Ensure that kiosks have a search bar and accessible listing of your products to provide your customers with a hassle-free shopping experience.

With these kiosks, your customers are not overly dependent on in-store assistants to help them find what they are looking for. Since your customers can easily get all your products through kiosks, the possibility of purchase also increases.

Use a powerful POS (point-of-sale) software that enables customers to browse through your catalog. The POS software is cloud-based that helps you centralize your inventory. It allows you to showcase your entire product-range on a single platform. It also helps the cashier keep a tab on the stock at other locations and place an order accordingly.

Takeaway!

Endless Aisle is an efficient marketing and sales technique that enables retailers to provide their customers with the option of purchasing products that are out of stock and not commonly found. This helps retailers save huge bucks, which they might spend on renting large warehouses.

If you are also planning to incorporate an endless aisle strategy in your retail business, reach out to us. Our team will give you a glimpse of our services and help you combine offline and online inventory to maximize customer retention and revenue. Contact us now!