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Do you know where you struggle with the greatest inefficiency in your retail operations?
Behind the scenes, retail’s brutally difficult. You have so many people and processes to manage. It’s no wonder you have at least some operational inefficiency.
If you’re not sure where you struggle because you’re already overwhelmed, these are some of the top areas to analyze:
1. Paper-Based Processes Slow Everything Down
Paper is your enemy. Always. You need to work to eliminate its use from your operations to the greatest extent possible.
Most retail professionals still do physical paperwork when performing in-store visits. This requires extra preparation, and if you forget the form you need, the entire trip can become a waste.
Then, these forms have to be manually stored and analyzed, which consumes even more precious time and labor. And as you’d expect, errors increase.
So, how can you transition all your paper-based tasks to digital ones?
2. Planogram Management
You know your planograms take a lot of time. Unfortunately, much of that time is involved in compliance. Then, to top it off, you don’t actually have the data to understand how consumers purchase, given the layout of your planogram.
How can you take more of the manual labor burden off of the processes involved with your planogram?
How can you implement smoother, more accurate methods for gathering purchasing data so you know exactly how to strategize to increase future sales?
As-is, most retailers unfortunately can’t gather this information in time to make wise business decisions. They’re caught in a reactive cycle.
3. Communication
As you scale your retail operations, communicating becomes extremely difficult. Traditional email doesn’t cut it because you have more complex teams and will need to keep records to account for compliance issues. This also affects your ability to keep employees accountable for their actions.
Finally, this also affects your reporting and ability to achieve your goals.
Near-field communications (NFC) can be used to make communication far easier to implement and track.
4. Implementing Sustainability
Customers want to see this from every business. But due to the complexity of managing retail operations, it’s difficult to implement.
Nonetheless, you must find a way to do it because customers avoid retailers who don’t value sustainability as much as they would like.
So, how can you identify ways (even if seemingly small) in which you can advertise that you use sustainable business practices?
Remember, eliminating paper makes you a more sustainable company. So, the more you improve your operations in general, the more likely you increase your sustainability also.
Efficiency in all aspects of retail is a key contributor to success. Analyze these areas in-depth to see how you’re doing and find the greatest areas for improvement.[:]
