JD Sports Fashion is expanding the use of hand-held scanning devices in stores to improve customer service and speed up in-store processes.

Customer satisfaction has increased as sales staff can now give shoppers information immediately on what items are in stock and the nearest store that has a particular item if it is out of stock.

JD Sports IT development manager Shaun Armstrong said it is now developing new add-ons to its service. “Inter-store transfers are something we’re developing at the moment. We want to be able to evoke all the order and delivery processes from the hand-held device where customers can request an item and it be transferred from another store,” he explained.

“It’s about selling the item there and then. We don’t want any missed opportunities.”

Armstrong also said that all new stores that the group open will implement the devices.

The visual scan confirmation technology, Datalogic Skorpio, is also used for timesheet implementation, deliveries and customer enquiries in stores, across the group’s 450 stores. About 2,000 devices are now in use across the group, with up to eight in each store.

At present, the device is used during stocktakes and price markdowns. Stockroom staff receive a visual confirmation when an item is correctly scanned and they don’t have to look at the screen to confirm a bar code has been read during a stocktake.

This speeds up the scanning process, ensures minimal missed scans and enables staff to spend more time on the shopfloor selling.

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