yusof

Distributed Retail Chain Stores

Azwina M. Yusof

Dept. of Software Engineering

Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Malaya

50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

azwina@um.edu.my

ABSTRACT

This paper looks into how integrating on-line purchasing with inventory management system for distributed retail chain stores can automate and aid the process of decision-making in relation to on-line product sales and distribution. It extends the work done in [1], to include not only on-demand and automatic communication between the retail chain store’s head office and point-of-sale (POS) outlets, but also to include on-line purchasing capabilities for home users. The application uses distributed databases to store information relevant to customers, products and product transactions at different geographical locations. The system is designed to facilitate the management process between the head office and the POS outlets: it aids top-level management to make the right business decisions in terms of the right products being distributed at the right location and at the right time, and also products ordered by home users to be sent by the right POS outlet, and it aids low-level employees to manage the daily business transactions of each POS outlet efficiently.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

H.4.2 [Information Systems Application]: Types of System – decision support system

H.3.4 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Systems and Software – distributed systems, information networks, fact retrieval system

H.2.4 [Database Management]: Systems - distributed database

General Terms

Management

Keywords

E-commerce, Distributed database, Chain stores, Retail, Decision Support System.

1. INTRODUCTION

With the advent of computer and internet technology, the business world has experienced tremendous growth, especially in terms of inventory management, and product sales and distribution. Now,

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more and more companies and business organizations have adopted a more technological approach in dealing with their daily business activities and operations, with the sole aim of providing better and more efficient services to customers. With the emergence and growth shown in internet technology, customers are now expecting to be able to perform simple daily transactions on-line, from paying bills to purchasing goods. To be on par with current trends and to remain competitive, businesses, be it large or small, have to take advantage of current technologies to provide a more efficient and simple way of doing business that can attract customers.

As was discussed in [1], distributed retail chain store (DRCS) differs from traditional businesses, in the sense that while traditional business operates within one location, DRCS operates within several locations, where each location serves as a POS outlet selling the same selection of products to customers. Each POS outlet performs its own business operations; selling products to customers, performing inventory management and control, balancing accounts, etc. Thus, customers now have the option of purchasing products in whichever POS outlet is nearest to them. Examples of such DRCS are Walmart [2], Tesco [3], Sainsbury’s [4], Jaya Jusco [5], Giant Hypermarket, 7-eleven stores [6], and many more.

One of the main problems faced by DRCS is ensuring that the right products are always available to customers at any time. Sometimes what happens is that a product may be available in one POS outlet while another has run out of stock. Having the right product at the right time and at the right place is important as product availability is a form of customer service (Dubelaar, et al [7]). Some may even say that product availability is rated as an important dimension of customer service (Copacino [8]). Because of this, it is extremely crucial that top-level management provide customers with the right services by ensuring that products are always available to satisfy customers’ needs in each POS outlet in the distributed chain store. And this can be achieved by having an efficient inventory management and control system in each POS outlet and having the right data communicated to top-level management at the right time so that the inventory in each POS outlet can be monitored and controlled effectively.

Several researches have looked into ways to attain product availability by improving inventory control between suppliers and retailers (refer to Harvey Phillips [9], Suzette Hill [10] and Rainer, et al. [11]). Most of the current DRCS systems use supply chain management (SCM) to perform inventory control. According to Nevill, et al. [12], SCM works to get stocks at the right place within the right time and at the lowest cost possible. The argument is that if each retailer manages and controls its own stock, the chances of products becoming unavailable are rather

slim. Whenever a product is out of stock, the retailers will contact the suppliers for replenishment. These types of systems stress on the communications between the suppliers and the retailers. The advantages of having such systems are cost saving and increase in product availability, but for DRCS type of businesses, it keeps information sharing between the head-office and each POS outlet at a minimal. This will lead to top-level management at the head office not being able to gauge the performance of each POS outlet, therefore eliminating the decision-making process required to monitor the performance of each POS outlet, and of each stock at different POS outlets. Stocks that are not selling at one POS outlet cannot be transferred to another POS outlet where the sales performance is better, sales forecasting cannot be performed, and just-in-time business strategies cannot be implemented.

In [1], a new type of SCM was introduced specifically for DRCS called Decision Support System for Distributed Retail Chain Stores (DSS-DRCS). DSS-DRCS extends current DRCS systems to include communications between the chain store’s head office and each of the POS outlets. Information is now shared between these two parties so that stock can be distributed accordingly between the right outlets depending on customers’ demand. Stock information and performance, once shared with the head office, provides crucial information for management to facilitate business and operational decisions. Figure 1 shows the idea behind DSS-DRCS. It consists of several POS inventory management subsystems and a Head Office (HO) monitoring subsystem. Each POS inventory management sub-system has its own database to store and manage its stock information. The daily activities of each POS outlet are maintained until day-end and then are transmitted to the inventory master file at the head office for synchronization. A complete transaction history is kept for all the inventory items for all POS outlets in the head office. This will aid top-level management in managing inventories for all POS outlets and also in monitoring the consumers purchasing patterns for the purpose of procurement forecasting.

InventoryMasterInformation on POS Outlet'sFilesdaily transactions is sent to HOHead OfficeHO MonitoringSub-systemFood MartPOSDbPOS OutletPOS InventoryManagementFood MartPOSDbStockFood MartPOS OutletPOS InventoryrequestPOSDbManagementfrom eachPOS InventoryPOS outletPOS OutletManagementStock aresent toeachoutletsSupplier

Figure 1. Decision Support System for Distributed Retail

Chain Stores (DSS-DRCS) The question that arises now is: What about purchasing on-line? While DSS-DCRS can aid in the decision-making process of top-level management in order to ensure that the right products are distributed to the right locations at the right time, it does not allow customers to purchase products from the comfort of their

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own homes. While this may not cause a problem for some, in order to remain competitive, businesses should always allow alternative options to customers.

Thus the aim of this paper is to extend the work done in [1] to include on-line purchasing capabilities. Having this in mind, this paper attempts to answer some crucial questions: How does the system determine which POS outlet should deliver the products requested by a customer on-line? What if the POS outlet that was selected to deliver the products does not have them in stock? Who should the customer communicate on-line with: the head office or the POS outlet?

2. CONCEPT/IDEA

On-line Purchasing and Decision Support System for Distributed Retail Chain Stores (here onwards referred to as e-DRCS) is a real-time system that consists of a comprehensive inventory management module to manage and control product procurement and sales in each POS outlet, an extensive report generation module that aids top-level management in sales forecasting, product distribution and other ad-hoc business decisions, and an on-line purchasing module that allows customers to purchase products from home. It not only allows communication between the chain store’s head office with each of the POS outlet, it also allows on-line communication between the customers and the retail chain store. It can be used mainly in medium and large retailing companies.

INTERNETe-Purshasing SubsystemInventoryMaster FilesDaily transactions of eachPOS outlet are sent to HOHead OfficeHO MonitoringSubsystemFood MartPOSPOS OutletDatabasePOS InventoryManagementFood MartFood MartPOSPOSPOS OutletDatabaseStockPOS OutletDatabasePOS InventoryPOS InventoryManagementrequestEach outletManagementfrom eachperforms itsPOS outletown inventorymanagementStock aresent to eachoutletsSupplier

Figure 2. e-DRCS with on-line purchasing capabilities

Similar to DSS-DRCS, e-DRCS consists of several POS inventory management subsystems and a Head Office (HO) monitoring subsystem, as shown in Figure 2. But unlike DSS-DCRS, e-DRCS also consist of an e-Purchasing subsystem to allow online purchasing to be performed by customers. Now, customers can buy products from the retail chain stores at any time from the comfort of their own homes and have the products delivered at a time that is convenient to them. But each customer

needs to be registered first before he/she is allowed to perform on-line purchasing. This is imposed on the customer partly for security purposes and also to allow for personal customer’s data collection. The customer’s data are stored only in the inventory master file in the head office, and not in the other POS databases at the different locations. Therefore, each customer communicates directly with the head office subsystem that will then determine which POS inventory management subsystem should process the customer’s online purchasing request.

Since e-DRCS consists of several POS outlets, when a home user makes an on-line purchase, how does the HO monitoring subsystem determine which POS outlet should process and perform the product delivery? And if some or all of the required products in the POS outlet chosen are out-of-stock, how should the system handle this problem? The solution that is introduced here is to take advantage of the postal codes system (Rhind, [13]). Since each area within a state has its own postal code, the postal code can be used to trace which POS outlet is the nearest to an on-line customer. Since there should only be one POS outlet within an area, the problem of having two POS outlets with the same postal code does not arise. When customers register with e-DRCS, they are required to enter their home address, which includes the postal code. From the postal code entered by the customer, the system can trace which POS outlet is the nearest to him/her by comparing it to the POS outlets’ postal codes. To include situations where a customer may want the products to be delivered at a different address than that of their home, the system also gives the customers the choice to determine the delivery address. Regardless, the system will take the postal code of the home or delivery address, compare it to that of the POS outlets, choose the POS outlet with the same postal code or the nearest to the customer’s, check if all of the products required are in-stock in the chosen POS outlet, and if they are, send a request to the chosen POS outlet to process and perform the product delivery to the required address. Therefore, the postal codes for each POS outlet and each on-line customer’s home address and delivery address need to be stored in the inventory master file in the head office in order to allow the process of choosing the appropriate POS outlet to be performed. If the chosen outlet does not have all or some of the products in stock, the system finds the next POS outlet that is nearest to the customer’s delivery address or to the chosen POS outlet. In this situation, product delivery may take a longer time. The system will send an immediate notification to the customers to inform them of this situation. Taking all of this into consideration, a summary of the processes involved when a customer makes an on-line purchase is shown in Figure 3. When allowing on-line purchasing, an e-commerce system must also allow for some form of payment to be made by the customers. In the case of e-DRCS, the standard payment methods that are allowed are credit cards, cheques, bank drafts, or cash upon delivery. e-DRCS also introduces a new form of payment method called store credit. Each customer is allowed to open a store credit account, where he/she will be given a store credit ID along with a store credit card. Each time a customer purchases products from the retail chain store, be it on-line or he/she physically goes to the store to purchase the products, the customer is allowed to transfer the payment to a later date by debiting payment in his/her store credit account. At the end of each month, the customer can make the payment using any one of the standard forms of payment as mentioned before, or by physically going to

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any POS outlet to perform the payment. This feature is introduced to allow customers with no access to credit cards to still purchase their products on-line, and limit the hassle of paying for their purchases every time a purchase is made.

get customer'sdelivery addresspostal codecomparecustomer's postalcode with eachPOS SitePOS outlet'sPostalpostal codeCodesfind nearestfound aPOS outletnomatch?yescheck thequantity-on-handfor each productPOS Siteordered at thePOS outletnoquantitysufficient?yessend customer'spurchase orderto chosen POSoutletsend deliverynotification tocustomer Figure 3. The processes involved in finding a suitable POS outlet to process and deliver an on-line customer’s order One of the unique features of DSS-DRCS [1] is the ability for the system to perform data transfer in two ways: either at the end of a working day, or whenever a POS outlet and the head office are on-line. The feature that allows the system to detect whenever the head office is on-line allows for this flexibility. In e-DRCS, this feature is also retained. This way, each POS outlet does not have to be on-line all the time, and whenever a POS outlet is on-line, the POS subsystem can detect whether the HO subsystem is also on-line. If it is, data can be transferred automatically. The data that needs to be transferred is the current

or daily transaction summary for each of the product sold at the POS outlets. This way, updated data can be stored in the inventory master file in the head office and accessed whenever a customer makes an on-line purchase and a suitable POS outlet needs to be chosen based on its location and product availability, or whenever a report on product sales performance needs to be generated.

3. TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE

In this section, the technology infrastructure behind e-DRCS is discussed; namely the functional requirements of e-DRCS, and the overall design and implementation of e-DRCS. Emphasis is given on the logical database design, as determining the distribution of data across different physical locations and minimizing the duplication of data is important when dealing with a distributed database system.

3.1 Functional Requirements

The aim of e-DRCS system requirements analysis is to extend the functionalities of DSS-DRCS to include on-line purchasing. Thus, the functionalities of DSS-DRCS are maintained but with on-line purchasing features added. e-DRCS consists of 3 main subsystems, which are: -

1) Head Office (HO) Monitoring Subsystem

The main functions of the HO monitoring subsystem is to manage and maintain the POS outlets under the control of the head office; i.e. to manage information on each of the POS outlet and information on the products that are sold at each of the POS outlet, and to manage information on the products sold in the retail chain store and the employees of both the head office and the POS outlets. It also contains a module that generates ad-hoc reports from the data gathered from all of the POS outlets to aid in strategic business decision-making, such as reports on what are the products that are popular in which location, which POS outlet has more of one product as compared to another, and etc. 2) e-Purchasing Subsystem

This subsystem provides features that allow customers to purchase the retail chain store’s products on-line. The main features that are provided in this subsystem are a search engine that allows customers to find the products that they want in a fast and easy way and a shopping cart feature to allow customers to add products to their shopping cart as they browse through the products on-line. Other features that are provided are Product Catalog, Order History, and Customer Feedback. This subsystem is stored in the head office and it accesses the data that are kept in the inventory master file. 3) POS Inventory Management Subsystem

Each POS outlet runs its own POS inventory management subsystem that accesses the database at the outlet’s location. The POS inventory management subsystem manages stock inventory information, such as the movement of stock between POS outlets, stock procurement, sales and etc. It can also be used to generate ad-hoc reports for the POS management to aid in making timely decisions. It also processes the on-line purchases of a customer, once the HO e-Purchasing subsystem sends the customer’s purchase order to the chosen POS outlet.

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The functionality of the subsystems can be classified into 8 main modules: -

i. Access Authentication – As a security measure, each user of

the system must be authenticated. Therefore, each user must first be registered and must go through the log-in process before attempting to access the system. This module consists of User Login, New User Profile, Update User Info, Reset Authority and Password Management. It is used in all three of the subsystems. ii. Site Profile Maintenance – Each POS outlet has to be

registered and all the items being sold at each outlet identified. This module supports : -

a.

Sites Constitution

A new POS outlet can be established, updated or terminated accordingly.

b. Sales Profile Setting

A detailed profile of each POS outlet can be initialized or relocated, i.e. the products that each POS outlet carries. c.

Item Pricing

A pricing structure is developed for multiple pricing levels to allow a POS outlet to sell an item at a different rate than the list price of the item.

It is used only in the HO monitoring subsystem.

iii. Product Maintenance – Provides data pertaining to each

product sold at the e-DRCS and is used only in the HO monitoring subsystem. This module allows for the addition, modification and deletion of product information. It consists of Product Registration, Item Classification (for the purpose of electronic cataloguing, e.g. adding new product category, etc) and Customer Web-Site Maintenance. iv. e-Purchasing – Provides the capabilities needed to allow for

product purchases to be performed on-line. This module allows customers to search for any selected products, or to browse the product catalog. While browsing or searching, customers can add any wanted products into their shopping cart. Once the customers have finished shopping on-line, they can view their purchase order and key-in the necessary information regarding the delivery of the products. Other features that are provided are Order History and Customer’s Feedback. This module is only used in the e-Purchasing subsystem. v. Store Credit – Allows customers to choose to perform

payment via store credit, i.e. transferring the payment of a purchase into their store account. With this module, customers need not make payment every time a purchase is made, but instead, payment can be made at the end of the month. This module consists of Customer Registration, Automatic Debit, View Account History, and Payment. This module is only used in the e-Purchasing subsystem. vi. Inventory Control – Provides data pertaining to the receipt of

goods, the movement of goods within and/or between POS outlets, and the sale, removal or other disposition of goods for record keeping purposes. For every action performed on an inventory item, a transaction is generated. These transactions control the increment and decrement of the quantity of an inventory item, and are stored in a daily

transaction set. History data can be maintained for as many months of transactions as needed for inventory management. IISThis module consists of Mark Of Sales, Stock Receivable, Stock Adjustment, and Inter-Site Stock Transfer, and is used only in the POS inventory management subsystem. This module is used to process both on-line and physical purchases made by customers.

vii. Info Look-Up – Generate reports on item pricing, stock

status, detailed sales history, product information, evaluation and sales analysis. This module, used in both the POS inventory management and HO monitoring subsystems, consists of : –

a.

Product Information Tracking

Information on each product sold at the DRCS can be generated upon request by using a search engine.

b. Stock Count

The sales performance of each stock/product can be generated to determined stock count. c.

Sales Report

This sub-module provides timely sales trend information of any or all POS outlets for any or all products in any duration of time.

d. Replenishment Forecast

In order to facilitate the purchasing decisions, replenishment forecast can be centrally computed at the head office based on uploaded sales transaction from each POS outlets. viii. Database Synchronization – Inventory records can be

uploaded from each POS outlet at day end– capturing and transmitting sales data and inventory data in an encrypted format through the internet connection to ensure consistency of the inventory master files in the head office. This module also has the ability of identifying when the head office is on-line so that the POS outlet can begin transmitting the necessary data. Thus, each POS outlet can either transmit stock data at day-end, or whenever the head office is online, or both. The system is dependent on both the transmitting and polling of such data so that both the POS outlets and the head office are completely up to date. This module is used only in the POS inventory management subsystem.

3.2 Overall System Design & Implementation

The main aim of the overall system design and implementation of e-DRCS is to convert the functional requirements identified earlier into working system components, using current tools and technologies.

System Architecture. Architecture associates a system’s capabilities which are identified in the functional specifications of the system, with the components that will implement them. The architecture design of e-DRCS takes into account the functional requirements, and the existing tools and technologies needed in order to build the system’s infrastructure. It also takes into account the communications that occur between the head office and each POS outlet, and between the head office and the on-line customers. As shown in Figure 4, a 3-tier client-server architecture is chosen for the architecture design of the subsystems in both the POS outlets and the head office.

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POS DbADO.NETServerHTTPSQLServerHTMLJavaScriptPOS OutletC#, ASP.NETIISPOS-OutletHO DbADO.NETServerHTTP(Stand-alone ).SQL.Server.INTERNETHTMLHead Office.JavaScript.C#, ASP.NETHead OfficeIISPOS DbADO.NETServerHTTPHTTPSQLrequestHTML pageServerHTMLJavaScriptPOS OutletPOS-OutletC#, ASP.NETINTERNET(Stand-alone )Presentation Layer

Figure 4. e-DRCS System Architecture

User’s Accessibility. The user’s functional accessibility is important to determine that only authenticated users can access the modules that are authorized for them to use. The users of e-DRCS can be categorized into:

i. general users, i.e. the on-line customers

ii. the retail chain store staff. The staff can be further

categorized into the system administrator (refers to the staff in charge of maintaining the system), general staff (refers to the employees of the POS outlets and of the head office) and the store manager (refers to the staff in charge of managing the inventory in a POS outlet). Each of the users identified above has access over certain modules and sub-modules of e-DRCS, as shown in Table 1. Database Design. When conceptualizing the database design for e-DRCS, several issues need to be taken into consideration. Since a distributed retail chain store consists of several POS outlets distributed at different locations, determining which data needs to be stored in which location is very important. When several data are distributed at different locations, the possibility arises that the same data might be stored at more than one location. The database design of e-DRCS must determine the data that must be stored in the head office versus the data that must be stored in each POS outlet, while making sure that data redundancy is kept at a minimum. The criterion that was used in determining this is to identify all of the data that is relevant to and most accessed by the subsystem used in the different sites, i.e. the head office or the POS outlet. With this in mind, the data that are identified as relevant to each POS outlets are the information on the daily transactions and on product inventory, while the data that are identified as relevant to the head office are the information of each POS outlet, information on each product being sold, information on the suppliers, the employees, and the registered customers, and also information on the postal codes. The identified entities, the attributes of each entity and the relationships between these entities are shown in Figure 5. As can be seen in the figure, the most crucial aspects of the database design are in determining the locations of where certain tables are kept in order to avoid overhead in accessing data and also in minimizing duplicate tables stored in both locations.

Table 1. e-DRCS Users Accessibility

PricingInventoryMaster FilesHead OfficePKSupplierSupplierIDSupplierName. . .ProductCodeHOInventoryPK,FK1PK,FK2ProductCodeSiteIDMinQuantityMaxQuantityQuantityOnHandSalesPriceStatusPOSInventoryPK,FK1,FK2ProductCodeupdatesupdates

PKPKProductCodeStartDateEndDateSalesPricePricingStateTransactionRecordPK,FK1PKTransactionNoProductCodeQuantity. . .FK1SubCategoryPKFK2SubCategoryCodeCategoryCodeDescriptionPKProductProductCodeProductNameSupplierIdDescription. . .MinQuantityMaxQuantityQuantityOnHandSalesPriceStatusFK1maintainsProductCategoryPKCategoryCodeDescriptionPurchaseRecPK,FK1CustIDProductIDQuantitySiteID. . .ProductCodeinvestHOSitePKCoreIDcontrolsPOSSitePKSiteIDSiteNameTerminalIPAddress. . .employsperformsTransactionPKTransactionNoTransDateTransTypeEmployeeID. . .CoreNameTerminalIP...employsHOEmployeePK,FK2EmployeeIDPasswordAccessLevelPostal CodePKCodeNearest1Nearest2Nearest3POSEmployeePK,FK1EmployeeIDPasswordAccessLevelFK2StoreCreditPKFK1CreditIDCustIDAmount. . .PKCustomerCustIDNameAddressCityPostal Code. . .PKEmployeeEmployeeIDFood MartNameSiteID...POS OutletPOSDatabase Figure 5. Logical Database Design for e-DRSC

Referring to Figure 5, the data that needs to be transferred by each POS outlet to the head office daily (either at the end of a business day, or whenever both are online) is the quantity on-hand

for each product being sold there. These data are stored in the table HOInventory. From this table, information can be generated on current stock availability of each product in each of the POS

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outlets. This information is crucial for top-level management to monitor the sales performance of each product in each of the POS outlets. For any product that is not selling well in one POS outlet but is selling well in another, the current stock can be transferred to the POS outlet with the higher demand. This will encourage transfer of stocks between POS outlets instead of replenishing supply by buying directly from the supplier. This information is also crucial for the system to determine whether a POS outlet that was chosen to process a customer’s on-line purchases has the ordered products on-hand. This table is stored in the head office for fast and easy access, and is updated at least daily, so that it contains current and up to date data.

Interface Design. In designing the user interfaces for e-DRCS, the two main users of the system were taken into consideration. For the customers, having a user-friendly interface is important so that they can perform on-line shopping in an easy and efficient manner. The user interfaces for the customers need to be attractive as well in order to attract more customers. For the retail chain store’s staff, having an interface that is simple and easy to use is more important than having an attractive interface. Consideration must be given to the fact that the staffs need to use the system everyday in order to perform their daily business activities. Therefore, the user interfaces for the POS inventory management and HO monitoring subsystems of e-DRCS are designed and built to adhere to the concept of ease of use, and uniformity, e.g. the layout for the user interfaces in the head office and POS outlets are the same (refer to Figure 6 and Figure 7), whereas the user interfaces for the e-Purchasing subsystem are designed to be attractive and user-friendly (refer to Figure 8). One of the core features of e-DRCS is its capability to generate numerous ad-hoc reports on sales performances and other relevant information that can aid top-level management make strategic and timely business decisions. The reports that are generated are in a table format as to allow for easy readability. For example, as shown in Figure 7, a user in the head office can choose to view the sales performance of any product by entering the Product Code and of any POS outlet by selecting the Site ID. This flexibility allows top-level management to make strategic business decision based on accurate data gathered from all of the POS outlets.

In implementing the functionalities of e-DRCS, data security is also taken into account. Each POS outlet is only allowed to view and modify its own inventory data, and not of other POS outlets’ data. The head office, on the other hand, is allowed to access the inventory data of each POS outlet whenever necessary, but only to view and not modify the data.

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Figure 6. User Interface for Product Maintenance Module in

the HO Monitoring Subsystem

Figure 7. User Interface for Info Lookup Module in the POS

Inventory Management Subsystem

Figure 8. User Interface for the main page of e-Purchasing

Subsystem

4. DISCUSSION

e-DRCS offers a solution to the problems faced by traditional retail chain stores, and also by DSS-DCRS. Retaining the advantages of the earlier version of DSS-DRCS, but adding several new features such as on-line purchasing and a store credit option, this proposed system offers advantages both to top-level management and low-level employees, as well as to the customers. An analysis on the benefits of some of e-DRCS features is shown in Table 2.

One of the main advantages of e-DRCS is in its ability to generate a variety of ad-hoc reports based on users’ needs. This feature is important in aiding top-level management in both the head office and the POS outlets to make strategic and timely business decisions in a more efficient way. Currently, the reports are designed in a tabular format. Further work can be done to allow for graph, chart and other types of reports to be generated. Other work that can also be considered is allowing customers to purchase items using mobile telephony technology. Further work can be done to see how this can be implemented and what are the design and security issues that should be considered when such a system is implemented.

5. CONCLUSION

One of the main problems of a distributed retail chain store is ensuring that the right products are always available to customers in the right quantity and at the right time. Also to remain competitive, the retail chain store should allow customers the option of purchasing items by physically going to any of the POS outlets belonging to the chain store, or purchasing the items on-line. In this paper, an on-line purchasing and decision support system for distributed retail chain stores was proposed as a solution to these problems. The key characteristics of e-DRCS are: on-line purchasing capability, POS inventory management, ad-hoc report generation, and sharing of data between the head office and the POS outlets. The sharing of data between the head office and each of the POS outlets, along with ad-hoc report generation are crucial for top-level management to monitor the sales performance of each POS outlet, and to make timely and strategic business decisions. To allow for this, the data of the system are distributed between each POS outlet and the head office with the aim of minimizing data duplication and redundancy, and allowing for fast and easy data access. Each POS inventory management system also has the option of working on or off-line. This minimizes the problems brought on by network traffic and network disruptions. This proposed system also offers

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customers the option of purchasing items on-line and the option of choosing their own mode of payment. By having all of these features, e-DRCS offers a solution for distributed retail chain stores that is competitive and feasible.

6. REFERENCES

[1] Azwina M. Yusof, Chor Sai Kan, “An Electronic Commerce

based Decision Support System for Distributed Retail Chain Stores”, WSEAS Transactions on Communications, Issue 1, Volume 3, January 2004, pp. 110-116

[2] Walmart homepage, http://www.walmart.com/ [access July

2004]

[3] TESCO homepage, http://www.tesco.net/ [access July

200404]

[4] Sainsbury homepage, http://www.sainsbury.co.uk/ [access

July 2004]

[5] Jaya Jusco’s homepage,

http://www.jusco.com.my/JuscoHome/index.php [access July 2004]

[6] 7-eleven homepage, http://www.7-eleven.com/ [access July

2004]

[7] Dubelaar C., Chow G., and Larson Paul D., “Chain Store

Inventory: A Cross Sectional Evaluation”, University of New South Wales School of Marketing Working Paper, ISSN 1324-681X, ISBN 0 7334 0570 3, 1999.

[8] Copacino, William C., Supply Chain Management: The

Basics and Beyond, Boca Raton, FL. St. Lucie Press, 1997 [9] Harvey Philips, “E-commerce shortens the supply chain”,

New Zealand Manufacturer, Wellington, Sept/Oct1999, pp. 12-13

[10] Suzette Hill, “Supply chain management in the age of e-commerce”, Apparel Industry Magazine, Atlanta, March 1999, pp. 60-63

[11] Rainer Alt., Karl Maria Grunauer and Christian Reichmayr,

“Interaction of Electronic Commerce and Supply Chain Management – Insights from ‘The Swatch Group’”, Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Science (CD-ROM), 2000

[12] Nevill, Steven J., David G. Rush and Dorothy W. Sadd,

“Real-World Examples of Inventory Effectiveness”, Supply Chain Management Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 39-46

[13] Rhind, Graham, “A Guide to International Address

Management”, March 2001, http://www.grcdi.nl/international_address_management_guide.pdf [access July 2004]

Table 2. e-DRCS Features and Benefits Analysis

FEATURE BENEFIT Fully integrated retail point of Control the productivity and management of all POS outlets and employees. sale system. Allows you to react quickly to correct errors; change prices, reorder stock,

etc. Standalone.

Each POS outlet performs daily operations offline. It needs to be online only during data transfer to the head office, either at day-end or when head office is on-line.

Immediate update of on-hand Updates all sales histories after each sale in a POS outlet. This eliminates quantities after each transaction batch processing of information; provides up to the minute stock status for all

products, reduces out of stocks, etc. for all POS outlets.

Stock status for ad-hoc POS salesperson can respond to customer inquiries regarding inventory and

enquiries. the availability of items; pricing and accounting status.

Management can gather inventory data for any or all POS outlets whenever

necessary. Will allow inter-site stock transfer.

Salesperson performance.

Sales are tracked for each salesperson for productivity and commission

reporting.

Price changes can be executed The prices for any item in any POS outlet can be changed at any time without for any POS outlets. wasting operation and communication time. Database Maintenance Report Generation

Authorized users are able to perform housekeeping for database maintenance

to decrease the probability of storing useless data.

Can generate a variety of reports on stock status for every/all POS outlets, daily/monthly sales performance for each/all POS outlets, etc. The reports are useful for strategic business decisions and planning by management

Automatic update of head office POS terminal can automatically identify when head office is online to master files perform the necessary updates, or wait till day-end. On-line purchasing capabilities

Allow customers to purchase product on-line. Customers need not identify

the POS outlet that will deliver their products instead this will be done automatically by the system.

Customers are given the options of settling their order bill either by credit cards, cheques, bank drafts, or cash upon delivery. They also have the option of opening a store credit account that allows them to transfer payment to their store credit account to be paid at the end of the month.

Options in mode of payment.

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