Software Tracking Company Launches Product Designed to Curb Transshipping
Cairnstack Software announced a service for inventory-management tracking designed to help AV manufacturers and integrators track products throughout the lifecycle, cut down on transshipping and locate the sources of gray-market goods. The TRXio software allows manufacturers to track products from warehouses to retail to end customers, President Reid Hanson told us.
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“Transshipping is a huge problem,” said Hanson. “A lot of people lose money along the way” when product is resold from one sales territory to another, he said. The transshipping issue is particularly troubling for manufacturers when it comes to gray-market goods, Hanson said. “When somebody’s buying it, copying it, putting your label and your box on it and sending it out the door, you’re warrantying products that you’ve never created,” he said. “It’s a huge product liability for manufacturers.”
Manufacturers using TRXio put a label with a QR code on the product carton that dealers scan to activate the product warranty, said Hanson. When they sell the product -- and add a transaction ID -- the manufacturer sees where the product was sold. Every time a QR code is scanned in the TRXio system, the geolocation and IP address pop up, he said. “You can see the distribution path that product had from your factory, who it was sold to,” and where any copies are, he said.
The company tags the product’s serial number so manufacturers can see where the customers are and the points in the distribution chain the product went through to arrive at the end user, he said. If a buyer sells a product down the road to another buyer that’s not a valid reseller, a valid purchase order number isn't entered into the system, he said. If a distributor or dealer is contracted to sell only in New York and products registered to it start showing up in warranty registrations from Asia, “this puts it all in order,” he said.
It’s up to manufacturers to decide whether they’ll honor a warranty sold through an illegitimate reseller, said Hanson. The software gives them the information they need to know how a product got to a certain customer. He gave the example of a speaker company selling a product that’s taken to Asia, copied -- down to the packaging and logo -- and sold, and then there's the ensuing flood of product warranty cards for the same model of product all over that region. If the product is in TRXio's system, manufacturers can contact customers who give an email address to find out where they bought the product, said Hanson. Having the distribution trail also limits a company’s liability for faulty product, Hanson said.
Hanson is a former AV integrator who started a product-tracking business when custom electronics sales turned south in 2009. The company tracked 4.8 million melons after a deadly Listeria outbreak in 2012, demonstrating its ability to scale, Hanson said. The company produces about 500,000 QR codes a year, and every unique code goes to a public landing page, he said. “It’s like a little webpage for every single product.” Gray-market violations show up quickly “when you start having seven people all register with serial number one,” he said.