New Rules Talk to us

New Rules for retail

Make every store hour count.

We help large and mid-sized multi-site retailers in Australia move store hours from low-value tasks to customers, stock and sales.

Technology has changed the rules of store work. Most of the work hasn't changed.

Stores still spend hours keeping up work that systems could now carry, while the work that sells waits, and wages and shrink keep rising as a share of sales.

What we believe

Tight rosters are not the end game. Tight process is.

  1. 01

    Stop the waste before you digitise it.

  2. 02

    Rethink the work for what technology now makes possible.

  3. 03

    Know what it's worth before you spend.

  4. 04

    Prove it in stores, small and fast.

The best-run stores we know have lean rosters, the best service and the highest conversion. Process and technology get them there.

The cost of an empty shelf

  1. One empty facing. A customer reaches for it, and the sale goes somewhere else.
  2. Across one store, about 8 in every 100 products are out of stock at any time.
  3. Across every store, it repeats every hour you trade.

About 4 cents in every sales dollar.

That is what out-of-stocks cost retailers. Getting stock from the dock to the shelf is store work, and it is where store hours count.

$8,000,000a year in sales at risk

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Source: Gruen, Corsten and Bharadwaj, Retail Out-of-Stocks: A Worldwide Examination (2002). Averages across retailers studied, not a forecast for your stores.

From inside stores

We have done this work in real stores.

At a national discount retailer, led by Fabio and Cam.

A team member on the shop floor checks the AI assistant on a handheld.

In-store experience

An AI teammate that answers on the shop floor

Team members ask a question out loud on their handheld and get an answer in seconds: where a product is, how a process works, what to tell the customer.

About 100 team members and managers use it in a live store.

A team member carries a carton from the stockroom towards the shop floor.

Store productivity and availability

The right work, in the right order, by the right people

Deliveries arrived in the order the warehouse picked them, and rosters followed the clock, not the work. We sequenced deliveries to match how each store fills its shelves, then built store hours around the tasks that matter most, done in the right order by the people best at them.

Fewer handling steps between the dock and the shelf.

Illustration of a store floor and stockroom, with RFID readers tracking products as they move.

In-store experience

Knowing what is in the stockroom without a full scan

One label type for every product, and fixed and worn readers that place each product as it moves.

95% stock accuracy in a trial store. The work moved to a funded product team.

The 14-day store diagnostic

In 14 days, know where your store hours go, and where they should.

A $25K fixed fee, two or three of your stores, and a change plan you keep.

  1. Days 1 to 4On the floor
  2. Days 5 to 10Pick the opportunities
  3. Days 11 to 14The change plan

How we work

From diagnostic to every store, one store at a time.

A small senior team, your own people and the systems you already have. Each change starts in one store, so it is quick to try and cheap to stop.

  1. 01

    Diagnose

    In 14 days we find where your store hours go and pick the opportunities worth taking.

  2. 02

    Test in one store

    Each change runs in one store first, against a measure agreed on day one.

  3. 03

    Scale what works

    What moves the measure rolls out across your stores. What doesn't stops in that one store.

  4. 04

    Hand it over

    We build the tools, routines and training with your team, so the change holds without us.

A small senior team. You work with both of us, in your stores.

About us
Fabio Oliveira

Fabio Oliveira

Co-founder · stores and operations

Cam Birrell

Cam Birrell

Co-founder · strategy and design

Let's meet in one of your stores.

We'd rather meet you on the floor, but your office or online works too. We'll reply within two working days.

Or email cam@newrules.com.au