customer management

Real-time inventory, stores and loyalty: Where retailers are investing in 2024 

Do you have a plan for technologies to invest in this year? And do you know where to focus your IT budget for maximum ROI? 

In our recent blogs, we asked if retailers were spending enough on their IT and, if not, how to make the case for increasing spend

If you’ve successfully navigated these stages to secure new budget and are now wondering where to start, here we look at retailers’ top spending goals for 2024 and the building blocks they’ve prioritised for maximum returns. 


We know that retailers are increasing their investments in new tech this year, with research showing that virtually all retail execs – an incredible 99% - predict increased spend. The growth in spend is sizable, with a 10% increase on average and nearly a quarter (23%) predicting 15% or more. 

When asked about their goals for their spend, most retailers (94%) ranked new technology as a significant driver for drawing in new customers, with 35% citing it as their main driver.  

And while ROI has always been important, these new tech investments are being held to an even higher standard. Enterprises now rank the ability to receive ROI within 6 months their second highest consideration (after ease of implementation). 

The metrics they’re using this year to gauge their success include increasing new customers numbers (54%) and retaining existing customers (47%). The amount customers spend is also scrutinised, with retailers looking for increased sales (48%) or cost savings (48%) that can be attributed to their tech investments.  


So we know that retailers are significantly increasing tech investments this year to create fresh, value-added customer experiences, but where are they focusing?  

There are three investment priorities in 2024: 

1. End-to-end inventory transparency 

Inventory visibility has always been important in retail. But with the proliferation of touchpoints and channels – both online and in-store – retailers now need to see a real-time view of all their inventory, right now.  

Without an accurate view of inventory, retailers are virtually guaranteed to interrupt the flow of an omnichannel shopping journey. If you don’t know the quantity of an item, where it is located, its current price nor status, you can’t offer the ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ options that are best for customers and most profitable for you.   

With the average retail inventory accuracy at only 63%, that can mean problems with a whopping 2 in 5 orders. And as the customer journey continues to evolve to meet changing consumer demands, providing a seamless omnichannel experience will only get more difficult.  

The solution: Real-time inventory 

A unified commerce platform gives you a single, accurate and up-to-date view of all your inventory so you can be sure that you have the right product at the right place at the right time. 

That means you can quickly see where inventory is and make better decisions about what stock to order and how to make it available in your physical, mobile, online stores, DCs and call centres.   

You’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and get products to customers faster. And you’ll increase sales by using ranging and fulfilment capabilities that enable you to sell products across channels (and even sell products not normally stocked within any channels).   


2. Unleashing omnichannel experiences through stores 

For most omnichannel retailers, the growth of ecommerce has meant boosting their investments in physical retail. That’s because the store is essential to creating and satisfying customer demand - even if the customer ultimately transacts online. Consumers now see both the online and offline shopping experience as part of the same buying journey and not as one versus the other. 

With the ability to see, touch and feel products and assess alternatives, stores are important for marketing and customer acquisition. Store conversion rates are typically 20-40% - around ten times more than ecommerce channels (only 2.5-3%). The store remains the dominant sales channel, still generating more than 70% of sales. And while the shift towards online retail is real, physical retail is going to continue to grow at 4% year on year.   

But at a time when 75% of retailers can’t connect their online and in-store transaction data, they struggle to deliver the cohesive, consistent unified experiences customers now expect.  

The solution: Point of sale  

As you transform your stores to be the centre of your omnichannel experience, your retail systems must transform as well. POS systems are now the anchor for unified commerce platforms that unify online and store experiences with back-end systems so you can create holistic experiences across all customer touchpoints.   

That lets you create the elevated experiences customers now crave, by bringing digital convenience to stores, fulfilling orders via stores to increase profitability and delivering personalised and tactile in-store experiences.    

Unified commerce is now retail’s top priority, with 88% of retailers investing in unified commerce or considering doing so to make their businesses stronger, smarter and ready for the future. Retailers who used unified commerce in 2022 saw a 7% revenue boost over those who did not.    


3. Attracting, scaling and earning more from loyal customers 

As inflation and cost-of-living increases put pressure on consumer spending, shoppers are becoming more discerning and deliberate, rapidly switching between brands in the search for bargains. That’s why customer retention has become an important strategy for retailers wanting to capture market share and maximise profits. Retaining customers costs less than acquiring new ones - customer acquisition costs have increased a whopping 222% in the past decade - and returning customers are more likely to spend than new customers.  

As more customers opt out of being tracked, retailers also need a compelling reason for consumers to be willing to identify themselves when they approach from different channels or touchpoints.  

On average, nearly two-thirds of US consumers belong to one-to-five loyalty programmes. However, most consumers use 50% or less of their memberships. So the challenge for retailers is developing engaging programmes that convert members into users and, in turn, create profitable loyalty.   

The solution: Loyalty 

With customer details captured and stored in single unified commerce hub, you can recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop with you. You’ll know which customers are most profitable and what their preferences are. Your store teams can view this information to offer personalised service and encourage conversion at point of sale. 

Looking ahead, large retailers are learning to drive customer loyalty and growth by pooling data within an ecosystem of brands. Multiple companies are tapping into their complementary product and service offerings to develop a joint loyalty programme around a unifying customer value proposition.  

Consumers will receive heightened experiential benefits in addition to faster loyalty rewards growth, more flexible redemptions and an unmatched simplicity and daily relevance. Retailers and brands will see a rise in reach and frequency of usage. They will gain access to richer, more privileged consumer data, shared infrastructure and cross-marketing opportunities.   


Want help to decide which tech innovation projects to tackle first? 

We can advise you on the key technology investments driving growth and customer loyalty this year. Just contact me at kelly.brown@triquestra.com or get in touch.   


For insights into how a unified commerce approach gives you the flexibility and agility you need to keep in step with consumers’ changing needs, download our ebook:

New in Infinity – February 2024

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity while improving the customer experience. 

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


INFINITY API

Enhance business continuity during a processor failure 

The Cloud Events Service’s processors will now keep running even if one of them fails. The processors that aren’t directly impacted will continue to operate, lowering the risk of business interruption. You can configure the service so that you’ll be alerted via email to the failure by a fatal error warning. 


PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Faster access to historical sales impacted by unit cost changes 

When viewing historical sales transactions in item maintenance, you can now see exactly when changes to the unit cost of an item started to impact sales line costs. 

Improve data privacy by concealing stock costs from store staff 

If you want to keep the cost your business pays for stock confidential, you now have the option to hide it from the sales and credits screen at the Back Office so that it’s not exposed to your store staff.  


INVENTORY

Simplify urgent stock transfers from warehouse to store 

If your business manages all stock requests from the head office, you can now use Infinity’s replenishment request function to order branch stock, instead of raising a purchase order. This can be useful if you want to get an item from the warehouse to a store at short notice and you are happy for the warehouse to send what it can based on availability.

Increase receipting speed and accuracy with audible scan warnings 

Using Cloud Inventory to receipt items that have arrived in a consignment of multiple stock transfers will improve your detection of errors now that store staff get a “bad beep” warning when they scan an item that isn’t supposed to be in the consignment or an item that has an invalid barcode. We’ve also improved your staff’s ability to identify variances for over and under transfer receipts, making the receipting process speedier and more precise.  


CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Meet privacy law obligations by automating customer data retention periods  

We’ve enhanced Infinity Loyalty to give you more options for managing your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) risk. You can automatically remove customer data from POS and Back Office machines when there are no open sales orders and no transactions for that customer within a configurable period.  

Before you can use this functionality, you need to have a stable infrastructure, as the customer search will always use a connection to the Head Office. Also note that these changes should be part of your wider PII programme. 

Streamline mass updating of free prepaid product offers 

Offering free prepaid promotional products can be an effective way of engaging with your existing customers. We’ve made adopting this strategy more seamless now that you can use Infinity Loyalty to update many prepaid product balances at the same time.  

Enhance security by deactivating stolen partner loyalty cards 

If you use Infinity Loyalty with partner programmes, you can now block a customer’s Airpoints or Flybuys card that has been stolen or involved in a fraudulent transaction so it can’t be used as an identifier at your Point of Sale or at an outside payment terminal, thereby protecting your business from potential fraudulent card use. 

In addition, by blocking (and not deleting) the identifier, you remove the risk of it being allocated to another customer. 

Create tailored rewards when resolving customer concerns 

We’ve enhanced the ways you can reward Loyalty customers by enabling you to manually adjust a customer’s accumulator balance at the Head Office. You can use this new function to add a “stamp” for a customer, so that, for example, you can give them a free coffee as a way of resolving a concern or query.   

Speed up loyalty customer scanning during a sale 

Scanning a loyalty customer into a sale is faster and more efficient now that your store staff no longer have to open the customer search function before scanning the customer’s card. If you want to maintain customer confidentiality, this has the added benefit of not exposing customer information to your store staff. 


PRICING & PROMOTIONS  

Simplify the set-up of quantity-based promotions at any price level 

If you use quantity price breaks, you can now apply those breaks to prices 2-8, as well as to price 1, on the Infinity item master data. Applying breaks across all price fields can be easily managed using Infinity ETL, which saves you the hassle of manually maintaining the various individual pricing scales for an item.  


REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Improve stock management with better inventory-related reporting  

We’ve made a number of improvements to the end-of-month financial reports so that they’re more useful for inventory-related reconciliation. The Stock Movement Summary Report now offers a transaction breakdown using both quantity and cost values, as well as allowing you to easily see any variance between opening and closing balances. This means the report provides an easily readable view of all stock-related activity and allows you to identify instances where incorrect store processes were followed, such as selling items into negative stock.  

Other changes have been made to support these enhancements. Both the Stock Movement Summary Report and the Sales and Stock Gross and Profit Report now round the cost to four decimal places rather than two, as a way of further improving the accuracy of the reports’ cost figures over a long period, while the Chronological Item Movement Report includes the item on-hand quantity, which will be shown in red if a stock movement puts the item quantity into negative.  

Help store staff make purchasing decisions for future promotions 

Infinity’s new RBP Promotions Report allows your stores to see upcoming and current promotions and helps them make the purchasing decisions needed to run those promotions. They can use the report to understand what they need to order and when they can reduce ordering as promotions come to an end, as well as to check that shelf labelling has the right pricing information. Head office staff can use the report to help stores plan and run promotions, including through advance advertising.


ADMINISTRATION

Enhance financial integrity with mandatory end-of-day completion 

If you use Infinity’s extended Cash Management functionality, you’ll find we’ve made some enhancements to reduce the risk of errors. Your store staff won’t be able to create a trading day if they haven’t completed an end of day on a POS station that has had sales activity, or if that station hasn’t linked to the Back Office that day. This ensures that all financial transactions are available at the Back Office when the trading day is created and removes the possibility of sales and till adjustments being missed. 

Extend lifespan of stock records for open transactions 

You can now keep stock transaction records open for a very long period if they are associated with open purchase orders and unreceipted transfers. The records will remain active and available for updating for the life of the transaction, even after the configured lifespan limit has been reached.  

Boost security by eliminating barcode login risks 

Staff logins can be a security concern for your business, especially if your people create barcodes by entering their credentials on third-party websites and then use those barcodes to log in. You can now negate the usefulness of these websites by requiring that all users log in manually rather than by scanning IDs.  .  


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 – October 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels to create frictionless customer experiences and drive growth.

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


INFINITY API

Enhance ecosystem integrations by accessing more transaction source data

As part of our continual expansion of Cloud Events payloads, we’ve included additional information about the transaction source, as well as any information about the use of external loyalty cards and fuel coupons, to allow you to enrich your integration with ecosystem platforms. 

Streamline sharing of sales data with ecosystem partners 

You can now use the Infinity Cloud Events service to securely share sales of specific products with ecosystem partners without having to waste time and resources manually cleansing and redacting data.  


PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Automate shelf pricing updates with Pricer integration 

Keeping your shelf pricing up to date, especially during a promotional period, can be time consuming and costly. Using Infinity's new integration with Pricer software, you can reduce labour costs by harnessing the power of real-time electronic pricing. The integration regularly sends the latest Infinity pricing information to Pricer, saving you the effort of manually updating prices and ensuring your shelf pricing is always current. 

Boost efficiency with ETL tool item selection enhancements 

Bulk exporting and updating item data using the ETL tool is easier and more efficient now that you can select items by subdepartment and product class rather than just by department, giving you more focused and targeted results.  


INVENTORY

Streamline inventory management by stock taking any time of day 

Businesses can find it hard to fit stock taking around the need to keep trading. Infinity Cloud now allows you to stock take during trading hours at a time that suits you and then refresh stock data at the Back Office, meaning you don’t miss any sales that happened during the stock take.  

Save time and effort when receipting multiple stock transfers 

If your business chooses to reduce transportation costs by shipping multiple stock transfers from your warehouse in a single delivery, you can now use Infinity Cloud to receipt all the goods in that delivery at the same time. When the consignment arrives, your store staff can simply scan the goods and Infinity will deal with the hassle of matching them to the right stock transfer, saving you time and effort.  

Simplify checks of shelf price labels using mobile devices 

Verifying shelf-edge pricing, particularly during a promotion, can be difficult for store staff, who have to match the shelf price to the price recorded at the POS station. To overcome this, Infinity Cloud now allows store operators to see both the standard price and the single product promo price on a mobile device as they move around the store. 


CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Increase accuracy of fuel loyalty balances via manual adjustments 

Loyalty program administrators in fuel businesses can now create both positive and negative manual adjustments to cents-per-litre balances, giving them more control over suspicious transactions and instances where operator error has inflated the balance.    


PRICING & PROMOTIONS  

Simplify the setup of quantity-based promotions 

If you use quantity break/price bands, you can now use additional price adjustment options to simplify and optimise the setup of scale pricing rules. By enabling price fields 2-8 on the item master, you can define a single rule to manage multiple items, reducing the overhead in maintaining these rules.   


POINT OF SALE

Improve security and employee safety with contactless cash recycling 

Handling cash is a financial and security risk for all retailers. Infinity’s new cash recycler integration improves your peace of mind by taking the responsibility for processing cash payments away from store staff and giving it to the recycler machine instead. This reduces both the chance of staff error when giving out change and the risk of theft, while also allowing you to enjoy the benefits of contactless cash handling.   

Boost profits by removing credit option from Windcave EFTPOS 

Customers who use the credit option when paying by EFTPOS as a way of circumventing the credit card processing fee cost your business precious revenue. To overcome this, you can now configure payment options at the point of sale so that when the customer chooses to pay by Windcave EFTPOS they must debit either their cheque or savings account, rather than using the credit option.   

Let customers quickly and easily self-scan loyalty cards on Magellan scales 

Infinity Loyalty now supports the use of Magellan scanner scales for scanning Loyalty cards, optimising the search for Loyalty customers at the Point of Sale.  


INTEGRATIONS

Speed up GRNI reconciliation in Xero 

Reconciling the GRNI account postings in Xero is faster and more efficient now that the original purchase order number displays on purchase order goods receipts.  


TECHNOLOGY

Accelerate upgrades with fewer exceptions  

We've enhanced the Infinity Upgrade Service to accommodate situations where applications are running that may block the upgrade from updating files in the Infinity folder. This will result in fewer exceptions needing attention post-upgrade, reducing the time pressures on technical staff.    

Support for diverse scale hardware at site level 

Businesses that configure scales at the site level can now set station-specific scale configurations, allowing for mixed hardware options to be supported.  


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 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels and deliver to changing customer needs. 

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


PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Streamline stock sorting by setting preferred sort criteria 

It’s now easier to sort and find stock items in Infinity using the criteria that makes the most sense to your business. When you browse for items in the inventory, your previous sort selection will be retained for the next session. So, for example, if you prefer to sort items by description, they will automatically be sorted in that order the next time you open Infinity.   

Empower store staff to control stock at new stores 

We’ve streamlined the effort involved in creating a new branch by providing a choice of which stock items will be sent to the store. When inventory items are copied from a source branch to the new branch, you can choose to only send the active items, or decide to set them all active and send them all. This empowers store staff to decide which items they want to keep, giving them more control over their stock. It also means your Head Office staff no longer have to be involved in setting up the inventory for a new store.  

Manage financial risks by setting store-specific cash limits 

Keeping cash in the cash drawer can be one of the most important financial and security risks your stores face on a day-to-day basis, and those risks can differ across branches. You can now empower stores to handle those risks in the way that meets their needs by allowing them to set their own cash drawer limits.   

Keep promotions running smoothly during franchise ownership changes 

Changing franchise ownership in the middle of a promotional cycle can be disruptive and potentially cost your stores valuable revenue. You can now minimise that disruption by easily transferring existing pricing and promotions when a store moves from one cluster in your organisation to another. This saves you having to recreate the promotions and means offers keep running without missing a beat. 


INVENTORY

Make supplier searches easy with non-case sensitive name check 

We’ve improved the user experience when creating purchase orders and receipts by making the supplier name check non-case sensitive. This means that you will find the supplier without any trouble when there’s a difference in the capitalisation of their name on the item record and the supplier record.   


CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Speed up loyalty prepay enquiries with full transaction info 

Your Loyalty support staff can answer Loyalty prepay customer transaction enquiries more quickly now that they can see more details about those transactions, including the date, the receipt number and the external transaction code.    

Improve efficiency during cents-per-litre rule searches 

Searching for specific cents-per-litre rules has been made more seamless and less time-consuming now that fuel administrators can easily filter and sort them.   

Customise error messages when external fuel balances unavailable 

Your Loyalty program administrator can now be warned that a customer’s external partner cents-per-litre fuel balance is currently unavailable using an error message that meets your customised business needs.  


POINT OF SALE

Boost sales by providing customers with estimated arrival dates 

Securing a sale can sometimes come down to being able to tell the customer that the item they really want to buy will soon be available. Infinity now allows your store staff to see more details about the estimated arrival date of goods on purchase orders, as well as quantities on draft orders, allowing them to drive sales by giving customers the information they need to make purchasing decisions.  

Seamlessly switch POS stations for faster transactions via auto-logout 

At busy times, your sales staff may need to switch between POS stations to process a high volume of transactions quickly, while also allowing you to keep track of who processed the sales. To meet these simultaneous needs, Infinity can now log users out after a set amount of time, rather than locking the entire station. This keeps the sales process moving while not compromising on the audit trail. This feature is also useful between shifts if a user forgets to log out and means the next user can log in without having to involve a manager in unlocking the station.  

Customise age-check policies store-by-store 

If your business sells items that have an age restriction and you use Infinity’s advanced age check module, age policies can now be set on a store-by-store basis. This is especially useful if your stores operate as franchises and franchisees want to apply different policies. So, for example, one store can decide to age-check everyone who looks under 30, while another store decides to check everyone who looks younger than 25.  

Enhance fuel transaction monitoring by identifying legitimate test deliveries 

Monitoring fuel transactions using Digifort DVR is easier now that the video footage identifies the pumps used for test deliveries to ensure they were legitimate. 


INTEGRATIONS

Republish cloud event sales invoice transactions effortlessly 

Cloud event sales invoice transactions can now be republished to either RabbitMQ or Azure should they need to be resent to the system that consumes them, ensuring that all transactions are sent and accounted for.  


TECHNOLOGY

Support for latest Microsoft technologies 

Infinity now supports SQL Server 2022, the latest SQL Server version available from Microsoft. Note that SQL Server 2016 and higher require a 64-bit operating system.  

Faster POS setup with accelerated data replication 

Infinity Point of Sale will be ready to use much sooner following improvements to the setup process. Accelerated data replication can reduce the time it takes to perform the initial setup data synchronisation down to just a few minutes, depending on network speeds and the amount of data involved.  

Reduce costs with enhanced Wishlist integration 

Infinity’s integration with the Wishlist company now supports a multi-tenanted back-end.  

Effortless safety sheet distribution with API integration 

If you sell dangerous goods, distributing material safety sheets across your business can now be done via an API back-end, optimising the management of these documents and saving you the trouble of having to make them available on a site-by-site basis. 


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 – May 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels to create the seamless and personalised buying journeys your customers crave. 

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


APIS

Faster performance to reduce resources 

The performance of transactional APIs has been improved under high loads so that the resources required to run the APIs can be reduced and the API processes are faster, improving the overall user experience.  

Enforce domain separation between fuel inventory and sales data 

Businesses that apply domain-driven design and wish to send fuel inventory events to a separate endpoint from the sales data can now configure the Cloud Events Service with alternate API details for the fuel data. This helps to maintain domain separation between the fuel inventory and sales data domains. 

Simpler maintenance of debtor records 

Customers who update debtor records using the Accounts Receivable API no longer have to provide the financial details as part of the update, reducing the complexity and effort involved in maintaining these records. 


INVENTORY

Let store staff use mobiles for stock transfers 

Stock transfers can now be created in Infinity Cloud while in mobile mode, making creation of transfers more efficient for staff on the shop floor. The ability to scan by pack size has also been added to the stock transfer process to speed up the scanning of products that are being transferred. 

Easier management of purchase orders 

Customers who have their own purchase order references can now use those references when creating, viewing and searching for orders in Infinity, making it easier to find and maintain POs across your business.  


PRICING & PROMOTIONS

Launch quantity promotions for increased sales 

Infinity Rules Based Pricing now allows you to maintain quantity-based volume price breaks for items. For example, you can set up rules that allow you to sell a single item at $10 each, between 2 and 10 items at $8 each, and between 11 and 15 items for $6 each. Store staff can see thresholds that apply to the sale and then let the customer know about the available discounting, allowing you to drive higher-volume sales through lower pricing.


CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Better visibility of loyalty members within prepay accounts 

Your Head Office staff can now more clearly see which Loyalty member has been selected on the list of prepay account members, helping to reduce confusion when checking the names attached to a prepay account. 


REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Expand your reporting of customer types 

Customers who use Infinity’s Open Accounts feature can now see sales to open accounts in the Customer Performance Report, allowing for reporting on all customer types used in Infinity.


POINT OF SALE

Support sustainability goals by eliminating Vault EFTPOS printed receipts 

Businesses using Verifone Vault EFTPOS devices can now decide whether they want to stop printing a customer copy of thermal receipts by default. This can save you the cost that comes from automatically printing receipt copies if your customers rarely ask for them.  

Give store staff more visibility of fuel prepay transactions for easier refunds  

Store staff can now see more transaction information when refunding fuel prepay transactions, thereby helping them choose the correct transaction to refund, improving the speed and accuracy of the refund and providing an improved customer experience. 

Improve staff adherence to daily cash management process 

Several enhancements have been made to Cash Management functionality. You can now configure the system to perform end-of-days only, rather than end-of-shifts. This can help avoid confusion in businesses that do not operate on a shift basis. An extra prompt has also been added to the end-of-day and end-of-shift processes so that store staff are made aware if they create very short shifts by mistake, which increase administrative effort.  


INTEGRATIONS

Better inventory management and improved operations with enhancements to Xero integrations 

The Infinity Xero integration has been enhanced to push stock receipt, transfer, stocktake and adjustment transactions to reduce manual data entry into Xero when tracking inventory. 

Customers who use Xero to receive payments and accounts receivable statements can now post debtor transactions as individual invoices and credit notes, while Infinity remains the master of the debtor record for all transactions and pricing. Note: customers with a high volume of debtor transactions should ensure their transaction counts fall within Xero monthly transaction volume limitations. 

Supplier invoices that are posted to Xero have been enhanced to accommodate foreign currency suppliers so that offshore suppliers can be paid in their local currency. Freight that has been added to supplier invoices and disbursed across the items, such as landed costs, is now posted as inventory and goods received not invoiced, instead of as a separate inventory line, to provide better accuracy of full inventory valuations and cost of goods sold. 

Cash sales posting to Xero which use duty free mode, or debtors with tax exemption rules in Infinity, now correctly create tax-free and tax-inclusive lines for the various sales lines where appropriate so the tax from sales is accurately recorded in Xero. 

Help stores accepting eWIC cards serve customers faster 

Maintenance of the US WIC (Women, Infant and Children) products has been made more efficient now that the eWic APL file import correctly recognises the UPC PLU flag, thereby removing the need for manual updates of the item master. 


TECHNOLOGY

Commitment to modern .NET infrastructure 

All Infinity releases now require .NET 4.8 Framework to be present. This is part of Triquestra’s ongoing commitment to using enhancements from vendors and to maintaining technical support. When you receive a new Infinity release from now on, please ensure that .NET 4.8 is deployed to all workstations and servers that operate Infinity. 


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 – March 2023

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify physical and digital channels to create the seamless omnichannel experiences customers now expect.

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


PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Extend control over store-specific data

You can now prevent a range of Infinity data from linking down from the Head Office to branches, including customer records, print layouts, POS buttons and drilldowns. This feature gives your stores greater control over the data that is specific to them and ensures that it won’t be accidently overwritten by Head Office staff. 


INVENTORY

More control over nominated suppliers

You can now restrict your staff from manually ordering from nominated suppliers, thereby preventing purchase orders from being created against internal suppliers or staff inadvertently ordering from nominated external suppliers.

Increase efficiency with automated stock replenishment requests

Replenishment requests can now be automated centrally at the Head Office for stores based on minimum levels set for stock items. When stock is running low, it is ordered automatically, thereby reducing the store overhead involved in manually monitoring stock levels and requesting additional goods.

Increase visibility of non-freight item costs

The Freight field that is used when receipting and invoice matching has been re-labelled FRT/Extra, making for a more intuitive experience when matching non-freight item costs, such as customs fees, to purchase orders.


ORDER MANAGEMENT

Better visibility of quotes and order data

Quotes and orders layouts have been enhanced in several ways:

  • Branches’ GST details are now included on orders and quotes.

  • The GST number on the quote removes human error from the process and maintains accurate information through the sale conversion process from quote, order and to sale. 

  • The addition of customer emails to quotes helps store staff follow up with customers when seeking to convert quotes into orders.

  • Discount breakdowns allow customers to see discounts clearly compared to base price on quotes, while the subtotal breakdown allows B2B customers to easily see the tax component and tax exclusive total of a quote or order.


CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Give customers more visibility of loyalty discounts

Fuel retail customers can now see their cent-per-litre loyalty discount total broken down as line items. For example, they will be able to see their SuperGold discount calculated as part of the total discount, giving them confidence they have maximised their fuel savings.


REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Easier access to current store promotions and prices

A new report allows you to view products, the rules-based pricing promotions that are in play, and the prices before and after tax. This can be useful when you need to verify that current signage matches the price loaded in Infinity or if you want to generate a list of current prices for ad hoc price checks.

Improve analysis of waived payments

The Product Sales Summary Report now includes $0 transactions, meaning you can see transactions where no payment was taken from the customer. This is useful in cases where an item has been processed but a fee, or other associated payment, has been waived.

Better visibility of cash adjustments

The Safe Balance Adjustment Report now show the reasons for safe adjustments that have been made, allowing you to review activities related to cash-up, bank reconciliation and accounting.


POINT OF SALE

Help store teams deliver more personalised CX

You can now add customised information relevant to your business to the Customer Details screen at the Point of Sale, such as external loyalty memberships, favourite store, or product preferences. Your store staff can then use this information to upsell or otherwise personalise the customer experience.

Increase visibility of planned stock orders

You can now give your store staff visibility of draft purchase orders, allowing them to see the quantities of stock that are contained in draft orders. Note that this should be used carefully where drafts are still under review and are subject to change.

Integrate Hikvision’s video security system

Infinity can now be integrated with Hikvision for recording POS activity in real time. Data input from a range of functions performed by your store staff is merged with video footage, giving you oversight of sensitive transactions. Customers wanting to take advantage of this integration should be aware that some support from Hikvision will be required to make it fully functional.


ADMINISTRATION

Automate trading day reports at unmanned fuel sites

Fuel retailers who run unmanned sites with outdoor payment terminals can now automatically create and complete trading days once all the terminals have settled. This frees site managers from manually creating the trading day to see Infinity reporting on site performance.

Increase control over staff passwords

You can now limit the ability to force password changes to staff members with the same or lower access levels. This is useful if you want to limit password changes to supervisors and their direct reports.


TECHNOLOGY

Stay current with latest Microsoft technologies

Infinity is now certified to work with Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022.


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.

Four ways to revamp the fuel customer experience

This post was originally published on 12 May 2021 and updated on 22 February 2023


As consumer demand for convenience, speed, variety and affordability rises, the convenience store format needs to transform. Kelly Brown describes four areas to focus on to modernise the c-store CX.

With demand for traditional fuel expected to plateau around 2030, fuel retailers are urgently innovating to replace shrinking revenues and dwindling profits.

The leaders have quickly moved to improve and expand their traditional products and services and launch in new, but related, market segments. They recognise that the future business of fuel will be less vehicle-centric and more focussed on the customer. They’ve developed a customer-centric mindset and are building new skills and capabilities to compete with unfamiliar competitors.

monochrome-customer-satisfaction.png

We’ve seen some impressive transformations. The retailers making the first move are creating differentiated experiences for competitive advantage and forming strong customer relationships that are driving up conversions and profits.

It’s an immense undertaking. 

While fuel retail has always been challenging – very fast service is non-negotiable, transaction volumes are high and operations typically run 24x7 – this requires a fundamental transformation of the standard business model.

And customer expectations have never been higher. Today’s consumers expect brands to deliver fast and frictionless experiences through compelling interactions across all physical and digital touchpoints.

Building customer loyalty requires a complex mix of emotional and rational factors that enable you to connect and build relationships with customers across all your channels and communications.

 

 

So where should you focus? 

Here are four areas to explore:

 

 

1. Enhance the purchasing experience

Create a seamless experience across the end-to-end ordering and purchase journey, with personalised offers and incentives to encourage store visits, and fast point of sale transactions on the forecourt and in stores.

monochrome-fuel-scanning.png
  • A mobile app will let your customers pay for fuel without leaving their vehicles. Don’t restrict it to payments - use the app to help customers find their nearest service station, view their purchase history, accumulated loyalty points, discounts and rewards, or pre-order coffee, convenience items or a carwash.

  • By identifying customer pain-points and aggressively embracing innovation, Z Energy has delivered a world-first in fuel retail with the launch of its virtual fuel tank called Sharetank.  

2. Create a Convenience Hub

The convenience store format is ready for change. Consumers are cutting back on big weekly supermarket shopping trips and choosing to purchase more of their groceries at easily accessible local stores. 

  • Become a neighbourhood hub by expanding beyond traditional c-store offerings into high-quality products and fresh food, and design places customers want to visit, rather than need to visit.   

  • In highway locations, encourage customers to stay as long as they want, with fresh in-store and takeaway food, and rest areas for travellers. 

  • Consider the un-manned store model, which reduces costs while offering customers a quick, digital experience.  

3. Offer ordering and pickup

monochrome-customer-rewards.png

With the surge in ecommerce over recent years, consumers want new options for purchasing, payment and fulfilment.  

  • Boost sales and profits by letting customers place and pay for their order in advance using your mobile app. When they reach the store, all they need to do is pick up the order and go. Some fuel apps let customers order items while they fill up, and an attendant delivers them to their vehicles.   

  • New self-serve software offers a simple yet sophisticated solution to meet customer demands for speed and convenience via digital experiences.  

  • Draw online shoppers into stores by offering omnichannel services such as click-and-collect.  

  • Home delivery apps let your stores drive sales and engage with new customers, while continuing to encourage their local communities to shop in store.   

4. React smarter and faster to demand changes

Make better decisions about product assortments, by matching breadth and depth to demand, trends and local demographics.  

  •  A unified view of inventory will give you total control over your wet and dry stock to improve efficiency, reduce overall stock, create more satisfied customers and boost the bottom line. 

  • Maximise profits, conversions and promotional impact by customising products, prices and promotions nationally, regionally and even by individual sites.   

  • Offer a range of discounts to appeal to different shoppers, including dollars off the price, cost per litre, percentage off the price, cost plus a specific margin or markup and more.  


Want help to revamp your c-store customer experience? 

As you transform your CX to deliver the seamless and personalised buying journeys your customers crave, your point of sale and retail systems must transform as well. If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your physical and digital experiences, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop the agility to innovate and scale new services, faster


For more on how to deliver every c-store customer a personalised, fast and seamless experience, download our new ebook:  

New in Infinity – November 2022

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you create the convenient and seamless omnichannel experiences your customers now expect.

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


INFINITY API

Extend access to New Zealand addresses

Infinity’s integration with the Addressify address validation service now supports New Zealand addresses. Using Addressify prevents customers from providing inaccurate or incomplete address details, giving you the confidence that loyalty customers and online and store orders are linked to the correct customer address. To use this feature, you’ll need a service agreement with Addressify (details of their New Zealand service are launching soon).


PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Faster access to product profitability data 

Searching for stock items has been enhanced by allowing you to filter by gross profit percentage. Using this filter, you can quickly identify items that are falling below target and adjust prices accordingly. 


CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Expand your collection of customer data

Your store and head office staff can now add a small piece of customised free text to each loyalty customer’s account, allowing you to capture customer data that fits your business needs and giving you greater control over the information you collect. For example, if a customer is a registered company, you can use this field to store the company’s ABN/GST number.

Give customers more visibility of manual discounts 

Customers can now see the details of manual fuel related discounts that have been applied to transactions on the printed receipt. This removes confusion about the type and amount of the discount that the customer has received.   

Launch new fuel promotions for non-loyalty members 

Fuel retailers can now offer dollar-off fuel coupons for non-loyalty customers (in addition to existing cents-per-litre coupons). This gives marketers another tool to incentivise customers to shop with them, increasing customer retention and boosting sales. This feature uses the Infinity API. 


REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Easier access to epay and Flybuys refund data 

Infinity has been enhanced to report on refunds of epay items and Flybuys sales, helping you to identify these transactions more easily to mitigate potential fraud.  

Improve cash adjustment reporting 

Your POS users with the required permissions can now record meaningful reasons against safe balance adjustments, allowing for more efficient reporting and decreasing the time needed to investigate cash discrepancies. 


TECHNOLOGY

Stay current with latest Microsoft database 

Fresh installs of Infinity now ship with SQL 2019, giving you the latest database engine available from Microsoft by default. Upgrades are not impacted. Note that if you are using a 32-bit version of Windows, SQL 2019 cannot be installed. You will need to use SQL 2014 which has been previously shipped with Infinity. 

Improve SQL Server performance 

Customers who have a suitably configured and licensed read-only SQL node in an Availability Group can now direct reports to a read-only node to distribute SQL workloads and deliver faster reporting.  

Faster Infinity installs 

Unattended installations of Infinity can now be completed more quickly, following the implementation of a bulk copy function when setting up new Infinity workstations.


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 2022

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels to create new omnichannel customer experiences and drive growth.

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


INFINITY API

Extend access to inventory data

Infinity APIs now have near real-time support for additional inventory-related transactions for integration with third-party systems, such as ERP, warehousing and order management software. This allows you to perform a range of vital inventory business processes, including stock adjustments and allocations, receipting stock from purchase orders and receipting stock from a transfer. Stock transfers can also be posted to Infinity from third-party systems, such as warehousing systems.


INVENTORY

Easier status changes for bulk PO imports

You can now bulk import purchase orders into Infinity with their status set to ‘complete’ using Infinity ETL. Completed purchase orders retain their external references if the references are included in the import, so that they can be used during receipting. This feature saves time and reduces operational complexity, particularly for businesses that sell high volumes of products.


PRICING & PROMOTIONS

Launch new fuel promotions for non-loyalty members

Infinity Loyalty now gives you the ability to create promotional fuel discount coupons which can be offered to non-loyalty customers. This allows fuel retailers to incentivise new customer segments to shop with them, helping to boost repeat customers and increase sales.


CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Faster collection of loyalty points

Infinity gives retailers the ability to issue loyalty points on spend without the need for double entry into an external secondary system. The loyalty card number is captured and discounts are redeemed using a barcode identified at the point of sale. Previously, this service was limited to customers who held Goody cards, but it has now been extended to other secondary loyalty providers as well.


REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Give stores better product performance data

The Customer Performance, Supplier Performance, Product Performance and Employee Performance reports can now be filtered by custom fields that have been added to an item record. A store manager can use this feature to focus on the performance of products according to criteria stored in these fields relevant to their business. For example, stores can search product environmental star ratings and report on star ratings 3, 4 or 5, while filtering out results for ratings 1 and 2.

Better readability of data exported into Excel

Data exported out of Infinity into a spreadsheet is now easier to read and use in your business with the inclusion of column headers. This enhancement applies to all exportable data, including items.


POINT OF SALE

Seamless integration with Latitude financing to boost sales

Your customers can now take advantage of Latitude’s interest free financing at the point of sale without the need to fill in paper forms or go through an online portal. Infinity’s new integration allows you to seamlessly offer financing to Latitude account holders, broadening customers’ purchasing options and reducing the friction that can come with financing transactions. This new integration extends to Latitude’s Gem Finance operation in New Zealand.


TECHNOLOGY

Stay current with .NET 6.0

Infinity APIs and supporting components now use .NET 6.0, the latest general release of the .NET framework from Microsoft. This follows the end of Microsoft’s long-term support for .NET core 3.1 on 13 December this year. Triquestra is committed to ensuring the APIs run on supported .NET platforms, with 6.0 long-term support due to run until the 12 November 2024. 

Customers do not have to update all APIs at once to .NET 6.0 versions, as we will still support current versions and mixed operation of both .NET 3.1 and .NET 6.0 APIs. However, APIs which deliver new features or fixes as part of your standard API release will require .NET 6.0 to function. 


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 – June 2022

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you unify your physical and digital channels, create a differentiated omnichannel experience, and let your teams work more efficiently.

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


INFINITY API

Access real-time fuel inventory

Fuel retailers can now get a near real-time view of fuel inventory levels at branches, helping to simplify their stock management. Fuel tank dip values and inventory levels can now be regularly posted as an event notification for processing by external downstream systems, such as fuel delivery management software.


PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Easier updates to item costs

If your business uses Infinity’s inventory review function to manage price updates at branches, you can now update an item’s recommended cost at the branch when that item’s unit cost is updated at head office, saving you the time and effort of changing the cost manually. If you use Infinity ETL to bulk update item data, you also now have the option to update the recommended cost of an item for a specific branch or for all branches.


PRICING & PROMOTIONS

Launch new fuel promotions

Fuel retailers can now offer dollar-off fuel coupons with each fuel transaction, giving marketers another tool to incentivise customers to shop with them, and helping to increase customer retention and boost sales. It allows them to reach a different customer segment, with different purchase motivators.


REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Give stores access to sales data at-a-glance

You can now give your stores easy access to stripped-down sales information using the new Product Sales Summary Report. This report includes the number of individual items sold and total value, minus information you might want to exclude (such as costs or margins).

Better cash management reporting for branch managers

The Banking Transaction Report is now available at the Back Office, allowing branch managers to view the movement of money into and out of the trading location.

By viewing their banking deposits and receipt transactions, they can more easily reconcile bank statements or review cashflow within their store.


POINT OF SALE

Faster item data updates via Wedderburn scales integration

Infinity is now fully integrated with Wedderburn scales. This means that changes to item data in Infinity, such as price per kg, can be pushed directly to Wedderburn, rather than users having to update the prices again independently on the scales.


TECHNOLOGY

SQL Server Always On Availability Group

If your Head Office database is set up in an Always On Availability Group (AOAG) with appropriate read-only access, you can offload some Linker load to the read-only node to distribute the SQL activity for the Linker, thereby reducing the load on the primary SQL node. Note: At present, only one high-use query uses this feature.


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.