How Heinen's achieved item-level inventory accuracy
Heinen's used to count period ending inventory by price, not by product, which left them without the item-level data they needed for accurate gross margins. With Afresh, store teams can quickly see and scan the items left to count, and corporate teams can finally see the details they need to make more better decisions.
Madison, Deli Sales Lead, Heinen's
Without Afresh, we would have these books which had every single thing that we could carry. And every week you'd have to go through and highlight all of your sale items.
Damon, Deli Assistant Manager, Heinen's
The way we used to do our inventory, we would have a list of sheets and a map area for each area of our department.
Madison
We would count everything by price. So it doesn't matter if I'm counting bologna or salsa. If it's $4.99, then I have 12 units at $4.99.
Maryann, Chief Financial Officer, Heinen's
Since Afresh, we were heroes. Oh! It's only taking us four hours to do this. And we're not here late at night.
Damon
It's been a much better experience than our previous system. I wasn't able to account for things as accurately, I think, was the hard part for me. Now that we're talking about it, it's kind of bringing back those memories.
Maryann, Chief Financial Officer, Heinen's
In a grocery store, you could have 45,000 SKUs. The margin on those products are so small. You need an accurate inventory to be able to calculate accurate gross margins. You'll be able to say, why am I carrying so much of that specific product? Or why was I out on that product?
Madison
The new inventory process with Afresh is a lot easier.
Damon
It has all the data right in one place.
Madison
It's just... it's faster. We have barcodes that we scan for all of our items in the back room. You just scan that, it pops up. You say, I have a case. You're visually looking at a case, so it's a lot easier.
Damon
As you're scanning, you can review and see what items in that category haven't been scanned yet, which is huge.
Madison
We don't have to worry about having pars for anything now, which is really nice.
Maryann
Afresh listened very well to what our issues were. They understood our current process. A successful relationship is when you're hearing good things from your Information Technology Department, when you're hearing good things from your Product Directors that were implementing, when you're hearing it from the merchandisers in those departments that Afresh is being supportive and helpful to them, and you're hearing the results from the finance side of the business that they're liking the results. It's a good partnership and a relationship.