Startup Idea: Inventory Management and Delivery Tracking Software for Retail

Startup idea to synthesize and enhance different aspects of a retail business - truck delivery routes, in-store inventory management and product look-up feature. The software should integrate with existing systems, offer real-time tracking of deliveries, and improve searchability in inventory by enabling alphabetical search option for all the stored items.

I work at Kroger Company, and while we are one of the largest retailers, the second, and we make more profit and total sales that either Apple or Microsoft, we need a face lift in some of the technology that we currently use.

The biggest thing for me, is our current software between our truck routes leaving the warehouses, and the actual routes that the trucks are on. Basically, the company hasn't updated the software that we use to see delivery times, to the actual GPS on the trucks.

So, if a truck is delayed, and the original manifest says that it's leaving at 4 Am for a 3 hour delivery, I won't know about it. This means that I can't manipulate or schedule my labor around when I need to make an adjustment.

Our ordering and inventory system in the store is completely non existent.

We currently use CAO system for ordering, but we have no way of finding product in our inventory from it without a UPC of Line number.

A simple fix would simply be an alphabetical search option for the name of the product to tell me if it is in the inventory. We carry over 45,000 items, and yet, we can't search our inventory, by name.

It's highly inconvenient to the customers and the employees. I would personally pay for software that could do that.

It would save us an immense amount of time when dealing with our customers, particularly at our customer service points.