RANDALL'S TO ROLL OUT SCALE-MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

COLE CORBIN

HOUSTON -- Randall's Food Markets here expects to lower its labor costs and improve its pricing consistency when it rolls out a scale-management software system chainwide, by March 1999.

The software, which has been used in one supermarket since last month, allows the retailer to combine different scales onto the same system and eliminates the need for manual price changes at store level, said Erik Joiner, manager of store systems at Randall's.

"We will see a significant savings on labor alone in eliminating the keying of price changes at store level," said Joiner. "We expect to see a return on investment within six months -- in some stores within a month and a half."

Retailer losses due to pricing errors can run as high as 3% in some departments, according to a source familiar with the situation, so cutting down on mispriced items -- especially in departments with high-ticket products such as meat and seafood -- can help a retailer's bottom line almost immediately.

"The system is attached to our network, so it allows the prices to flow from our own corporate offices to the stores," Joiner said. This allows for greater price consistency among Randall's 120 supermarkets and is especially important for items whose price regularly fluctuates, he added.

The software can also incorporate different scaling systems within a supermarket, so pricing for both meat and the ingredients for bread baked in the store, for example, can be controlled from the same corporate location. "This is important for us, since we use different types of scaling for different departments," said Joiner.

"The nice thing is if there is a keying error at the corporate level, you can change it immediately," he added.

The scale-management software, called Interscale, is from ADC, Tampa, Fla.