JDA Software has announced the release date for JDA In-Store Picking, a solution designed to enable retailers to accurately and efficiently pick e-commerce orders in a store (in-store).
The solution is expected to be generally available on December 26, 2013. The announcement was made during JDA FocusConnect 2013, JDA’s annual conference, at the Sofitel London Heathrow Hotel in the United Kingdom.
Challenged with enormous e-commerce purchasing volumes, grocery, hardline and apparel/fashion retailers are looking at how they can effectively manage the picking of e-commerce orders to truly provide the buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere and return anywhere capabilities that their customers are asking for.
JDA In-Store Picking accepts orders from order management systems and then allocates and clusters them to make efficient use of both store space and time when picking and processing e-commerce orders.
For grocers, the picker may choose either voice activation or browser-based devices to pick products for packaging on carts and for those carts to be marshalled into staging areas before being loaded for home delivery, "click-and-collect" store areas, or for "drive-through" models as used in mainland Europe.
The pickers are sent to the shop floor to pick at an appropriate time ? to minimise the disruption for customers in the store – and be on time for the home delivery dispatch or the promised click-and-collect time. The solution also provides different substitution strategies depending on the retailer’s brand promise, and generates customer-ready paperwork before sending the picked items electronically to the point-of-sale system.
For hardline retailers, the system not only delivers an effective pick operation similar to grocers, but also processes customers’ e-commerce orders that may have been picked in another store or distribution centre (DC) and are to be picked-up in-store. This enables hardline retailers to consider a reduced stock holding across their entire store and DC footprint, rather than increasing safety stock in-store to allow for e-commerce allocation.
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For apparel/fashion retailers, products to be picked are not often where they should be. The in-store picking solution can direct the picker to the locations where the products are likely to be as well as support shipment direct from the store with value-added services and packing functionality.
Where grocers have dark stores, the picking solution maximises throughput and pick rates as there are no customers in the store. For those dark stores, this solution manages the receiving, shelf fill and refill operations and tracks every product movement, enabling stock counting, shelf replenishment and shelf-life management to ensure that it is offering the freshest products for home delivery. The dark-store solution also connects to automated systems, such as mini-loaders, to transport the filled packages around to the marshalling areas.
Razat Gaurav, senior VP, international, JDA Software, said: "We believe JDA’s unique, differentiated solution for in-store picking will drive real value for companies across Europe and the world.
"Our customers are struggling under the sheer volume of e-commerce orders and are looking at innovative ways of satisfying the increasing demand. JDA’s in-store picking capabilities offer retailers a way to efficiently and effectively pick e-commerce orders and add another important option in the way they fulfil customer orders as part of their all-channel experience."
