How Randa Streamline Consignment Inventory using Orca Scan

Randa Apparel and Accessories (RAA) is one of the world’s leading fashion clothing and lifestyle accessories companies, specialising in men’s leather goods and apparel, operating since 1910 with a portfolio of over 30 brands. Since discovering Orca Scan, they’ve seen a 40% saving in time and labour costs and a 3-5% decrease in annual write-off… all while living up to its culture of innovation and improving data accuracy.

Here’s how they did it 👇

The Challenge: Maintain 20,000+ units of consignment inventory across 246 BJ’s Wholesale Stores

Randa accessories, (a division of RAA) products are sold in every channel of distribution, including e-commerce, department store and wholesalers, including the 234 BJ Wholesale Club retail stores in the United States.

Brittany, an operations analyst in the In-Store Services department of RAA, is responsible for managing the field operations and data collection during the physical inventory process in BJ’s Wholesale stores. Twice a year, the team was subject to a long and manual process of logging inventory using pen and paper 📝 fax machines 📠 and, later, Excel spreadsheets that required reorganising into the company reporting and inventory management systems.

It was time-consuming and prone to human errors. Randa Accessories needed a better solution to improve efficiency and data accuracy and optimise their internal processes 📈

A little bit of context: Meet Brittany, a senior operations analyst at Randa

As Operations Analyst, Brittany works hard behind the scenes alongside the Randa Accessories field team and sales teams, to ensure every store that stocks Randa Accessories has the right merchandise, sales graphics and merchandising support they need to succeed. With so many details to get right, she needed to find a solution that wasn’t time intensive or complicated and would work efficiently on any device the team worked from.

Especially important as innovation and optimisation is at the heart of RAA’s culture… The perfect match for Orca Scan 🤝

How Orca Scan provided a solution: Automating inventory checks and data entry

The Randa Accessories team now uses Orca Scan to track inventory at each BJ Wholesale store, giving more visibility and accurate data capture than ever before.

Brittany and her team use the Orca Scan Inventory Tracking Solution to create a dedicated sheet for each location. Each time there is a stock take, the team scans all the items in the store and capture all the critical information, including…

• The SKU
• Colour
• Size
• The number of items in that store

This data is then exported to Power BI using Orca Scan’s integration, where it can be manipulated and analysed. The data becomes the new guideline for estimated on-hand, helping Randa Accessories and BJ’s Wholesale Club determine what they are missing from inventory and what Randa Accessories needs to ship.

Has the solution been successful?

Since implementing Orca Scan, what used to take four to five hours of in-store time for the inventory checks now takes only two to three hours 🕰️ It’s also seen a massive reduction in the number of recounts needed. As each recount can take a further 3-hour visit, the time savings for the team have been priceless.

But that’s not the only benefit; there’s also been cost savings! Having optimised the time needed in-store, the team have also seen a 40% decrease in labour costs and seen a 3-5% decrease in annual write-offs due to increased data accuracy 🎉

Perhaps most importantly, Orca Scan has helped Randa Accessories live up to its culture of innovation. By enabling a direct data feed into Power BI, they’ve removed the middleman of emailing data back and forth. All while improving data accuracy and eliminating errors that previously existed.

Thank you 🙏

Thank you to the Randa Accessories team, especially Brittany, for sharing their story of implementing Orca Scan to simplify and optimise their processes. We have loved working with you over the last couple of years to find a solution that works, and your feedback has been invaluable. We are very grateful.

Do you have a story to tell? Get in touch!