Triquestra celebrates Diwali, the Festival of Lights

Celebrating Diwali has become a yearly event in New Zealand. Across the country, crowds gather to play music, dance, eat and, of course, let off fireworks to mark the Festival of Lights that symbolises the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance.

Here at Triquestra, Diwali is part of our annual calendar, too. For the past few years, we’ve celebrated the festival with a morning tea, and some of us even get dressed up for the occasion!

This year was no exception, despite farewelling our Diwali queen Vidula Kulkarni in July. Our social committee elves treated us to a feast of samosas, dal kachori and pakora from local restaurant Mithaiwala, as well as an assortment of delicious kaju sweets.

It was also a good time to reflect on the similarities between Diwali and Matariki that we celebrated back in June. Both festivals rely on the lunar calendar, and both involve spending time with family and friends contemplating the past and looking to the future.

As New Zealand changes and evolves, festivals like these are gaining in importance and popularity. Triquestra’s proud to play our part in celebrating them and the diversity of not just our country but of our great TQ team as well.

Happy Diwali!

New in Infinity — October 2025

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.

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INVENTORY 

Schedule pre-defined POS stock takes at back office and head office

Infinity’s stock take schedule function is a great way to run pre-defined, repeatable stock takes at the point of sale. Managing site-specific schedules is even easier now that stores can create and maintain their own scheduled stock takes without the risk that they will be overwritten by the head office.

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CUSTOMER AND LOYALTY

Enhance your gift card offering

Enticing your customers with regular loyalty offers and redemptions is a key to unlocking repeat business. You have even more ways to keep them coming back now that you can use gift cards with PIN numbers, offering shoppers a wider range of options for collecting and redeeming dollar amounts at your stores.

Note that this enhancement relates to any digital gift cards using the epay New Zealand solution on Windcave devices.

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REPORTS AND ANALYTICS

Easily see the theoretical GP items should sell at, today

Setting items’ sell price can be a make-or-break decision for a retail business. You need to base that decision on the best information available, and you need to know that you won’t be selling at a loss.

Infinity’s new Theoretical GP Report gives you all this and more. It supports both your promotional and buying activity by calculating the theoretical gross profit an item should sell at right now. You can use it to get a single view of retail prices, promotional prices and the value of stock on hand based on current item and rules-based pricing master data, not sales data.

And because it doesn’t rely on sales to have taken place, you can set promotional pricing without the risk of selling items at a loss, giving you confidence that you’re making informed decisions that support your business’s profitability.  

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POINT OF SALE

Quickly identify premium delivery orders

When customers ask for items to be delivered they expect fast, reliable service. And if you offer a paid premium delivery service, such as those supported by Uber Eats and Delivereasy, expectations go to the next level.

Using Infinity, you can now easily identify priority orders at the point of sale both on screen and by way of a sound notification. Your store staff are alerted to which orders they need to act on first, allowing them to deliver the great, speedy service customers demand.    

Leverage the efficiency of Adyen referenced refunds

Spending time ensuring customers are being refunded correct amounts can add unwanted cost to your business. Infinity’s integration to Adyen now reduces this burden through referenced refunds, which tie refunds to specific payments.

Omnichannel as well as in-store transactions are supported. Online refunds can be refunded to the original card in-store either with or without the customer being present, giving both you and your customers greater flexibility and peace of mind when it comes to processing refunds.

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TECHNOLOGY

Use AOAGs to manage failovers

Infinity ETL licensing now supports Always On Availability Groups (AOAG). It uses the listener’s name instead of the name of the server running the SQL server instance, saving you the time and effort of having to manually intervene in case of a failover.

Note that if you currently have ETL installed, you’ll need to relicense it for this enhancement to work. Also, if the SQL Server is not part of an AOAG, the licensing logic remains unchanged.

Save time cleaning up email messages

If you use Infinity Messaging to send emails and attachments to customers, you’ll no longer need to manually clean up the database and remove obsolete records. Instead, you can use the new message cleanup processor to automatically remove these records at regular intervals, saving you time and freeing up precious space.

Get the benefit of the latest RabbitMQ features

Infinity APIs are now compatible with RabbitMQ 4, allowing you to operate the API platform on the most recent version and giving you access to the latest security features and functionality.

For customers using multiple RabbitMQ instances for high availability, the Infinity platform now supports Quorum Queues within RabbitMQ to provide the maximum availability and performance.

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

New in Infinity – August 2025

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Help us develop and improve Infinity
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we’re giving you the option to share information with us about how you use Infinity. We’ll use this information to identify features that can be enhanced or retired, as well as any opportunities for user training and upskilling.

When you upgrade Infinity, you’ll be able to choose whether to opt in or out of sharing data with us. If you opt in, we’ll capture and analyse menu clicks at both the Head Office and the Back Office, along with technical information such as operating system and SQL versions. This will allow us to see which features are used heavily and which aren’t being used frequently, as well as giving us an understanding of the systems Infinity is being run on.

It’s important to note that we won’t capture any data that can identify individuals, including passwords or user names.

Taking part in data sharing means you can help shape the way Infinity evolves and ensure that it remains relevant and useful to you. Even if you initially decide not to share data with us, you can opt in at any time, and vice versa.

If you have questions or concerns please contact Infinity Support.

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INVENTORY

Easily order and manage non-stock items
Ordering and managing stock can be tricky if your business needs a regular supply of items that you don’t necessarily want to bring into your inventory. So, for example, if you sell coffee you’ll need a steady number of coffee cups to be on hand, but you aren’t going to want those cups to be counted as stock items that are sold on their own. Similarly, if the coffee machine breaks down, you need an easy way of paying for a repair by purchase order without treating the repair as an item.

To help make the ordering of these items more seamless, Infinity now allows you to include non-stock items in purchase orders. When you receipt them, the quantity on hand won’t increase, so you can keep these items on hand without them impacting your inventory.

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CUSTOMER AND LOYALTY

Expand your fuel offering with automatic discounts
If you’re a fuel retailer who uses Infinity’s loyalty solution and you offer cents-per-litre discounts, you now have even more options when it comes to rewarding customers for their business. We’ve introduced discounts that apply automatically, so that purchasers save on fuel without your store staff having to manually select which discount applies, thereby speeding up transaction times while still offering customers meaningful savings.

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INTEGRATIONS

Leverage seamless integration of accounting data into Xero
If you use Xero as your accounting software, or are thinking about moving to Xero, you now have even more reason to integrate it with Infinity. We’ve listened to feedback and introduced improvements that make our Xero solution easier to deploy, use and support.

We’ve improved the overall experience by polishing the user interface, simplifying installation, enhancing logging so you can easily track errors and providing you with better troubleshooting to quickly address issues.

There’s never been a better time to integrate Infinity and Xero so you get the timely, granular, automatically updated accounting information you need while also leveraging Xero’s ecosystem of business tools.

Charge fees directly from EFTPOS devices
If you use Windcave as your EFTPOS provider, you can now add surcharges to these transactions from the EFTPOS device. This means you can charge a fee for things like contactless payments and have it recorded in Infinity, so you’ll get an accurate view of these charges in reports and transaction records.   

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

From agile to permaculture: Triquestra farewells Vidula Kulkarni

At the end of this month, Triquestra will say a fond farewell to our programme manager, Vidula Kulkarni. Since joining us in April 2016, Vidula has played a pivotal role in some of our most complex and high-impact projects, and she will be a familiar face to many of our customers who have benefited from her knowledge and energetic engagement over the years.

Before saying goodbye, we wanted to look back over her time with Triquestra to see how both she and we have evolved.

Vidula joined Triquestra at a particularly busy time, with several large projects on the go. Her background in software development meant she could hit the ground running when she took on the role of project manager, and she soon proved her worth by working closely with Freedom Furniture and Fantastic Furniture.

After a busy start, her role at Triquestra evolved from managing a range of smaller accounts to overseeing large projects and teams. Vidula has played a vital part in delivering some of our biggest initiatives, including the Pumped and Z Rewards customer loyalty projects for Z Energy, as well as Z’s Sharetank, a virtual fuel tank that lets customers prepay for fuel and then share it with family and friends. Other significant projects have included the Everyday Rewards loyalty scheme for GAS and digitally assisted sending for NZ Post, which streamlines parcel sending by allowing customers to complete documentation electronically.  

She’s revelled in the opportunities all these projects have given her. "Managing multiple projects simultaneously was challenging but rewarding. It helped me grow and develop new skills," she says. She’s also appreciated the support she’s had from Triquestra management, who have trusted and encouraged her to take on these challenges.

Vidula also leaves a lasting legacy at Triquestra in terms of how we deliver for our customers. It’s no exaggeration to say that she changed the way we work every day by implementing an agile approach to software development.

Vidula Kulkarni

She introduced us to terms like ‘scrum master’, ‘agile coach’ and ‘sprint’ and orientated our development cycle away from delivering large pieces of work at once and towards producing smaller increments. This change of approach has meant our customers receive more regular updates, while agile practices, such as daily stand-ups and planning meetings, have allowed the Triquestra team to gain a better understanding of our customers and their business drivers.  

"We started small, with a few people, and gradually expanded. The team quickly saw the benefits of agile, such as increased engagement and more efficient project management," Vidula explains. 

But as she said in 2017, there’s a difference between ‘doing’ agile and ‘being’ agile. Under Vidula’s guidance, Triquestra has avoided a one-size-fits-all approach and has adapted the way we work to meet customers’ needs and expectations. As she explains, “The benefit has been to think of multiple ways to do a project. It's not a rote way of thinking. So, for example, we adopted a continuous delivery model for Z, which was agile based, but which was totally different from how we worked with Fantastic Furniture.”

In recent years, Vidula has worked as our programme manager, overseeing projects, providing mentorship and becoming involved in pre-sales activities.

Now, though, she’s ready to take on a new challenge away from software as she and her husband set up a permaculture farm in Kokan, Maharashtra, India. She’s excited about the opportunity to contribute to the local economy and improve environmental conditions through sustainable farming practices. And she’s looking forward to returning to life as a yoga teacher, too.

We wish Vidula all the very best for her future endeavours and look forward to hearing about progress from the farm!

Triquestra celebrates Matariki 2025

In 2022 New Zealanders gained a new mid-winter public holiday to celebrate Matariki, named after the star cluster that rises on the winter horizon and heralds the Māori New Year.

The Matariki cluster, also known as Pleiades or the Seven Sisters, is visible across the world and has significance to people globally, being mentioned in the Bible and the Koran, and known as Subaru in Japan.

In traditional Māori culture, its first appearance in the early morning sky marked the end of harvest and was a time for people to come together for feasting, as well as to reflect on the past year and plan for the future. Now, all of New Zealand’s people can share in this important Māori tradition with a holiday that this year fell on Friday, 20 June.

Learning about Matariki holds a special meaning at Triquestra, a proudly diverse New Zealand company. In the past, we’ve held events celebrating Eid-al-Fitr, Diwali and Chinese New Year, and in the spirit of inclusion we saw last week as a chance for everyone to learn about New Zealand’s Indigenous culture.

Our guides on this journey were Trev Teau and Kauri Wharewera from Kulture Ink, a tattoo studio that specialises in Māori and Polynesian design, to explain the history and meaning of Matariki. They introduced us to the nine stars that comprise the Matariki cluster, explaining that together with other surrounding stars they form the shape of a waka, or canoe, with Matariki at the prow and Orion’s Belt at the stern.

Trevor Teau & Kauri Wharewera from Kulture Ink

Each star within the Matariki cluster has its own meaning, including Pōhutukawa, which connects us to those who have passed on, and Tipuānuku, which has a connection to the food that comes from the earth.

The most important part of the Matariki celebration is Hautapu, which involves feeding the stars with a sacred offering of food harvested from the earth, water and sky. During hautapu, loved ones who have passed away in the previous years are remembered and mourned, and the food is cooked before Matariki rises. The ceremony ends with the rising of the sun.

Kauri explained that Matariki is a time to harvest not just food but also the lessons that have been learned in the past year, while planting the seeds for the coming year until Matariki rises again.

Afterwards we enjoyed a feast of our own, including fried bread fresh from the oven. Sharing food also gave us a chance to reflect on the similarities between Matariki and Eid, as well as Easter, which are connected to the lunar calendar and have a focus on feasting, and the ways that people across the world find similar ways to come together and celebrate with a feeling of renewal.

New in Infinity – June 2025

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

 Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.

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INFINITY API

Leverage real-time cost information

Our Products API now lets you see a real-time value for weighted average costs if you create transactions or carry out inventory analysis in an external system.

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Quickly locate branch item information in clusters

Searching for detailed stock item information can be time consuming, especially if you have a lot of stores offering different prices or sourcing items from different suppliers. Head office staff can find the branch information for an item in a cluster more quickly now that they can sort branches alphabetically instead of having to know the branch’s numerical ID.

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INVENTORY

Get a consistent view of stock take results

Stock taking is one of the most important tasks in your business, and getting the count right is vital to maintaining accurate inventory data. To help your staff quickly identify and double-check variances before they complete the stock take, you can now choose to list items in the printed stock take report in the same order they appear on screen, meaning staff don’t waste time trying to match what they see on screen with what’s in the report.

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REPORTS & ANALYTICS 

Summarise stock takes by stock count group

We’ve also enhanced stock taking by giving you a new report that summarises stock takes that have been carried out based on stock count group. The Stocktake Count Group Summary Report provides an overview of stock takes that have been carried out at branches, lets you see variances and gives you the option to list results according to individual stock count groups.  

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POINT OF SALE

Monitor staff safety at the point of sale

Staff safety is a growing issue across the retail sector, with some staff regularly dealing with threatening or abusive behaviour from customers. You can now keep track of how often your staff are facing this problem by using new functionality at the POS. When your staff feel threatened, they can press an on-screen button that records the event, allowing you to monitor how often these incidences are happening and enhancing your people’s sense of well-being.

Speed up processing of sales by under-age staff

If you sell age-restricted items, such as alcohol, you need to be sure that you’re complying with the law without compromising speed of service. To help you serve customers quickly and efficiently while meeting your legal obligations, Infinity now recognises an under-age staff member each time they complete a new transaction, instead of forcing them to log back in after every sale.

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ADMINISTRATION 

Send invoices and statements to multiple debtor contacts

Managing debtor customers is a more seamless experience now that you can automatically send invoices and statements to more than one email address, saving you the hassle of manually emailing documents to the relevant people in the business and enhancing lines of communication.

So, for example, when the customer buys an item in-store, you can send the invoice to the purchasing team as well as to the customer’s primary contact. And at the end of each period, you can send statements to the primary contact and to the customer’s accounts payable, so that the right people see the amount due.

Enhance financial integrity of trading days

If you use Infinity’s extended cash management module, you can now require store staff to complete any draft trading days before creating a new one. Trading days can also be completed the next day if necessary even if new sales have been processed, giving you peace of mind that all transactions are correctly accounted for.

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TECHNOLOGY 

Use the latest Microsoft technologies

Infinity now ships with SQL Server 2022 as default, giving you the most recent version of SQL Server currently in Microsoft’s mainstream support. We also continue to support SQL Server 2016, 2017 and 2019, while customers on SQL Server 2012 and 2014 should be planning to update to a later version.

Proactively address database-related performance issues

If you use a version of SQL Server Express, you’ll now be warned when the database size reaches a threshold of 9.8GB or higher, allowing you to proactively address issues before they affect your store operations.

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

Introducing Chay Grant, Quality and Support Lead

Chay was recently appointed to the role of Triquestra’s Quality and Support Lead. Here he introduces himself and explains how his role helps us deliver quality outcomes for customers.

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I’ve been at Triquestra for just over 10 years. During that time, I’ve taken on the roles of Support Analyst, Implementation Consultant, Test Analyst, Business Analyst and Technical Analyst.

All these roles have allowed me to gain knowledge and skills across the business, and they give me a unique insight into the challenges and opportunities that face both our team and our customers. I’ve also been able to develop many different relationships, both at Triquestra and with our customers.

At the heart of all I do is the drive to understand our customers’ needs and to ensure that the quality of the software we deliver to meet those needs is exceptional. This desire, coupled with my previous background in teaching and education, has inspired me to take on the role of Quality and Support Lead.

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My vision

My vision is to lead an empowered Triquestra Test and Application Analyst team of adaptable, high-performing, independent thinkers who achieve quality fit-for-purpose outcomes for our customers. This means our customers regularly and consistently get the help they need to keep their businesses running smoothly and ahead of the game in a competitive market.

As I’ve been in the same shoes as my team, I understand the unique complexities they face. Very rarely are two problems or business opportunities identical, and that can be challenging.

So, you have to be flexible, willing to think outside the box and really adopt a critical-thinking mindset. You have to get inside customers’ thinking when it comes to the results you’re delivering, and communication is always key. It’s the glue that holds everything together. You have to be willing to be a life-long learner, which is something I’ve carried across from my teaching experience. And that willingness leads to continuous improvement, which allows us to grow as a team.

This kind of mindset benefits our customers, too, because it means we can adapt to their needs and deliver on them. And those needs are always changing.

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Building relationships

During my time at Triquestra I’ve had the privilege of forming many different working relationships, both with our team and our customers. Relationships are built on trust and understanding, and having that trust and understanding means you can work collaboratively both in-house and with customers. This sort of collaboration improves the quality of output, and you get there more quickly too. There are fewer links in the chain, and everyone is close to what is going on and the expected outcomes.

I’m looking forward to taking on this latest challenge and delivering the best experience and results for our customers.

New in Infinity – March 2025

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

 Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.

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INFINITY API

Leverage the latest .NET technology

Starting in April 2025, Infinity APIs will be shipped to use .NET Core 8, the latest long-term support framework from Microsoft. This upgrade will ensure enhanced security and provide cutting-edge features for operational APIs.

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Monitor data changes for enhanced security

Field audit logging is a great way to keep track of changes to Infinity data fields, allowing you to protect profitability, monitor inventory and maintain system security by making sure data is being captured and maintained correctly. We’ve enhanced the item fields that you can audit by adding alternate barcodes, so you can easily see if a barcode has been changed, who changed it and when.

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INVENTORY

Get a consistent view of custom item attributes

Last year, we gave you the ability to use additional custom fields when you search for items and view their details, so you could easily see the product data and attributes most relevant to your business. We’ve now extended these changes to include purchase orders, replenishment requests and demand forecasts, giving you a consistent view of item attributes across a range of vital stock management processes.

Use branch transfer requests to maintain optimal stock levels

Every retailer knows how important it is to have the right stock in the right place at the right time. If your business has multiple sites, Infinity Cloud now makes moving stock across stores easier with the introduction of branch transfer requests.

If your store staff notice stock is running low or need to increase stock for any other reason, they can scan the items and then send a transfer request to another store. If you use Infinity Messaging, the other store will be automatically alerted to the request. It can then transfer you the stock, giving you another, seamless way to maintain optimum inventory levels.

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ORDER MANAGEMENT 

Send tax invoices to online customers automatically

You can now enhance your customers’ online ordering experience and speed up order processing in stores by automatically emailing GST invoices. Note that this will require a change to your customised A4 print layout, if you have one.

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CUSTOMER & LOYALTY 

Elevate your loyalty offering with Eagle Eye

Infinity now integrates with Eagle Eye, allowing enterprise-level businesses to take advantage of its flexible personalisation loyalty solution. The integration enables real-time earning and burning of loyalty offers, points and vouchers held in personal wallets via API for optimal customer experience.

If integrating with Eagle Eye would suit your business, please get in touch to discuss the customisations needed to get it up and running.

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PRICING & PROMOTIONS

Quickly identify pricing rules that apply to promotions

Our complex pricing solution lets you easily create promotional rules for either single items or multi-buys using multiple pricing attributes that you can then apply to promotional offers. With the latest changes, store managers can now quickly see which pricing rules apply to a promotion, giving them a better understanding of current offers.

And if you use Infinity Cloud in your stores, your store staff can also easily see which single-quantity promotional rule applies to items when they check shelf prices.

Calculate multi-buy web cart prices more reliably

If you use our web pricing solution, you’ll find we’ve improved speed and performance when a high number of rules-based product sets are in operation, meaning that multi-buys are more quickly and reliably calculated in the cart and the customer’s overall shopping experience goes more smoothly.

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REPORTS & ANALYTICS 

Track multiple stock adjustments

Keeping your inventory straight sometimes means having to adjust stock numbers in bulk, such as when a group of products was incorrectly receipted, arrived damaged or was inaccurately counted. We’ve made it easier to keep track of when this happens and to understand changes made to your stock levels by allowing you to report on groups of products that were adjusted at the same time.

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ADMINISTRATION 

Drill down on stores’ trading day results

Getting an accurate view of trading results at your stores is a vital way of understanding the cashflow through your business and your stores’ overall position. If you use Infinity’s extended cash management module, you can now easily search for individual store trading days, giving you the granular cashflow visibility you need.

 Streamline logging into Infinity Cloud

Logging into Infinity Cloud at a store branch is a more seamless experience now that the branch selector automatically defaults to the only branch in the list, making the logon faster and smoother.

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TECHNOLOGY 

Use the latest Microsoft technologies

Infinity now fully supports Windows Server 2025, allowing customers to use the most recently available Microsoft operating system in enterprise environments.

 Enhance monitoring of progress during upgrades

Monitoring the progress of automated upgrades is easier now that you can track progress and identify issues using the Infinity Upgrade Dashboard. Working in conjunction with the existing upgrade command function in Head Office, the dashboard displays the overall upgrade progress, while also allowing you to see if a specific branch has upgraded and is ready to trade, and to identify any stations that had errors. You can also see where an upgrade command was sent and should have executed but has not.

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

The inspiring future of retail: Insights from the Australian Retail Association Leaders Forum 2025

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Australian Retail Association (ARA) Leaders Forum 25 in the vibrant city of Sydney. The association is Australia’s oldest and largest national retail body. It represents a $430 billion sector that comprises more than 120,000 retail shop fronts and online stores and that employs more than 1.4 million people. The forum was part of its mission to inform, educate and unify the independent, national and international retail community.

This event gathered some of the brightest minds in retail to discuss the key issues and trends that are shaping the future. The iconic Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge served as backdrops to the forum, which was hosted at the International Convention Centre. The energy was electric, filled with the anticipation of fresh ideas and collaborative opportunities.

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A wealth of knowledge

The keynote speakers provided the undoubted highlight. Each presenter brought unique expertise and perspectives, igniting lively discussions on a range of critical topics, from current economic challenges to AI, data mining and sustainability.

The forum kicked off with an engaging session called Retail’s Future Vision, which featured renowned economist Chris Richardson of Rich Insight speaking about the current economic landscape in Australia and its impact on the retail sector. His analysis of consumer behaviour and spending trends provided actionable insights for retailers looking to navigate the challenges posed by inflation, shifting consumer priorities and changing buying habits. In addressing Trump’s tariffs and the shift to the likes of Temu and Shein, Chris said, “competition is fierce and it will be fiercer.”

The transformative power of technology was the focus of an absorbing panel discussion titled Retail 2025: State of Play, well hosted by Vanessa Matthijssen, the Asia-Pacific Consumer Industry Lead at Deloitte. The conversation featured industry giants Scott Fyfe, CEO of David Jones; Richard Goodman, CEO of FoodCo Group; Agnieszka (Agi) Pfeiffer-Smith, Managing Director of Dan Murphy’s (Endeavour Group); and Tim Schaafsma, CEO of Coco Republic. Together, they explored the evolving retail landscape and shared insights on how businesses are adapting to changing consumer expectations in preparation for 2025.

Panel discussions delved into how AI and data mining can enhance the customer experience, optimise inventory management and drive sales. It was fascinating to learn about real-world applications, from personalised recommendations to predictive analytics that can help retailers forecast demand.

With sustainability becoming a key focus in retail, passionate expert Bronwyn Johnson, Senior Business Development Manager at Too Good To Go, shared that “40% of the food we produce goes to waste.” I had the good fortune to talk with Bronwyn and discuss the work she does with some of the major fuel and convenience brands in Australia that allow customers to use an app to buy food that would otherwise go to waste.

Panel insights shared how businesses can incorporate sustainable practices into their operations, from ethical sourcing to eco-friendly packaging, with the discussion underscoring the importance of aligning business strategies with consumer expectations for sustainability. The collective commitment from the industry to adopt greener practices was truly inspiring.

Beyond the speaker sessions, the forum provided ample opportunities to network with fellow retailers, industry experts and thought leaders. Engaging in conversations over coffee breaks and during breakout sessions allowed me to share experiences, challenges and solutions with like-minded individuals. It was a reminder of the power of collaboration in driving innovation and success in the retail space.

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Leaving inspired

As I wrapped up my time in Sydney, I left the ARA Leaders Forum 25 feeling inspired and equipped with knowledge to take back to my colleagues at Triquestra and our customers. The insights gained from economists, AI experts, sustainability advocates and customer journey strategists highlighted the dynamic nature of retail and the necessity for adaptation and forward-thinking.

This event was not just a conference—it was a gathering of passionate individuals committed to improving the retail landscape. I am looking forward to applying what I learned and staying engaged with the discussions initiated during the forum, as we all strive to create a more innovative, sustainable and customer-centric retail environment.

Until next time, Sydney! Your vibrant spirit and the invaluable lessons from the ARA Leaders Forum 25 will be cherished.

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Striking the Stock Balance: Managing Inventory in a Tight Market

Managing inventory is one of retailers’ biggest challenges and largest costs — no matter their size or sector. Striking the right stock levels and adjusting them to meet customer demand is vital to maintaining profitability and driving down cost, especially when the retail market is tight.

Here, we look at some of the ways that inventory management impacts the bottom line and offer solutions to the problem of having the right amount of stock in the right place at the right time.

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Empty shelves vs buffers

Deciding how much stock to keep on hand can be tricky at the best of times, but when consumer spending falls it can be the difference between profit and loss. Medium-sized retailers without large warehousing facilities, in particular, often face an impossible choice — buy in more stock and risk having excess inventory or be cautious and potentially disappoint customers and miss out on sales.

Either way, you lose. Overstocking can tie up your working capital and see you paying for excess floor space, while also resulting in markdowns that can hurt your margins and limit your ability to invest precious resources in new products and innovations that give you a competitive edge. It can also expose you to losses from theft, fraud, spoilage or administrative lapses.   

Meanwhile, understocking puts you at risk of not being able to complete sales and of losing revenue. Research shows that a third of in-store shoppers will go elsewhere if what they’re looking for is out of stock, while almost half would simply walk out and abandon the purchase altogether.  

However you choose to connect with your customers, whether it be in-store or online, getting stock levels right is essential to delivering the kind of service that boosts sales and keeps customers coming back, while also containing the costs of doing business.  

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The curse of poor stock visibility

You can only avoid over- or understocking when you know what stock you have coming in, what is being sold and what you have on hand. When retailers struggle with the fundamentals of inventory control, such as stock taking, demand forecasting, planning and receipting, they set themselves up for botched sales and increased costs.

Incorrect inventory information can be a particular pain point for shoppers browsing online.  A recent study found that 40% of retailers have to cancel at least one in ten customer orders, primarily due to inaccurate inventory data. What’s more, customers don’t just use webstores because they’re convenient — they use them to ensure that what they want to buy will be there when they walk into the store. If they come in only to find the items they want aren’t available, they will lose trust in you and think twice about coming back.

On the other hand, poor stock visibility can also lead retailers to remove items from the webstore so that they’re available for click-and-collect orders when, in reality, plenty of stock is on hand, once again resulting in disappointed customers and lost sales. 

And poor inventory visibility doesn’t just lose sales and increase costs. Store and call centre employees have to deal with all the problems that arise, including upset shoppers, misplaced products and inaccuracies across different systems. That means inventory inconsistencies not only churn customers — they also churn staff. 

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Getting on top of inventory

The first step towards making better inventory decisions is ensuring you have high-quality data at your fingertips. This begins with the human factor, so that your staff are trained and supported to enter accurate information on time when completing essential tasks like stock taking and receipting.

As well as implementing good processes that are correctly followed, you can use a retail management system that maintains stock in a central location, so it can be actively managed for optimal results and without unnecessary and potentially inaccurate replication of effort. It should also easily and accurately receipt stock, with unders and overs seamlessly identified.

With a robust system in place, you can arm your staff with a single, real-time view of all stock across the business so they can make sure they are ordering what’s needed and that it’s available to meet demand in your physical or online stores. And by having visibility of items that have been allocated to customer orders, they can be sure they aren’t selling goods that are already committed.  

Then, with unified inventory management across all locations and customer touch points, you can take an ‘endless aisle’ approach to fulfilment without the need for expensive warehousing or having to keep stock on hand just in case it’s needed at a particular store. Using this approach you can:

• Reduce inventory costs by moving stock to the right location when it’s needed and cutting your overall stock requirements

• Lower fulfilment costs by delivering direct to the customer using store-to-door, click-and-collect, kerbside pickup or optimised sourcing

• Reduce overselling or underselling with real-time inventory updates that remove the issues of selling unavailable stock or having more stock than listed online

• Offer more purchasing and fulfilment options to customers so they can locate items in-store, buy online, collect in-store, reserve online, receive the same day or at a time and location of their choice 

Of course, implementing these changes also comes with costs, so it’s important to involve your CFO right at the start. Getting their buy-in and endorsement means assessing how the investment in a retail system that meets your inventory visibility needs helps to deliver cost savings and real value over its entire lifespan. 

Create a budget by calculating how much the system will cost in terms of licences, implementation, training and maintenance. Then compare these costs to the benefits you expect to see from an accurate enterprise-wide view of inventory, including tangible and intangible returns, such as cost savings, increased revenue, improved decision-making, enhanced scalability or competitive advantage.  

A cost-benefit analysis should show with absolute clarity how a new system can deliver a positive ROI. 

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Want help to achieve better inventory visibility?

If you’re struggling with inventory management and are looking at how to build a foundation for a seamless customer experience, talk to us about how to start with a real-time view of inventory.  

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