It’s the economy stupid was the slogan used to put Bill Clinton in the White House. Every time a staffer lost sight of this theme, he or she was quickly told to refocus and drive this point home. The same should be said about your retail business and the focus required to make it successful. A quality Point of Sale System is the vehicle to achieve success by capturing information on your customers and their buying preferences, proper inventory stock levels and what items and services to expand with. Retail success takes focus, hard work and technology tools to make it happen. When your POS System is a glorified cash register, why bother?

It is nice to be recognized when you walk in to a store, but if multiple employees (some across the room) shout out “ËœHello!!’ as soon as the door opens, it can come across more as a “Ëœduty’ rather than “Ëœwe’re glad you’re here’. This can be compounded by the employee(s) not looking at the person they are greeting.

Remember customers are people too and can tell when you are being friendly and when you are just doing what a manager told you to do.

An honest greeting (even if it is not as a customer first enters) is much more welcome than a dutiful greeting when the door opens.

The ProphetLine POS/Retail Management Company spent much time and money using some of the best retail minds to give retailers reports that make sense. Our primary consultant was Alan Fisher of Retail Business 101. A report should be a concise summary of easy to understand data to make positive decisions from, not just a list with hard to understand information. All of the Point of Sale information is aggregated into the comprehensive Retail Stock Ledger. ProphetLine then takes this information and builds quick view reports that allow you to identify problems in your inventory and the necessary actions needed to correct the problem. Click the Retail Stock Ledger link to get a better understanding of what goes on and why. You can drill as deep as you want into the Retail Stock Ledger or build Open To Buy Plans with confidence your numbers are correct.

Good POS Software should have some reporting views that allow you to look at the overall health of your business at a quick glance. ProphetLine is constantly finding ways to make available valuable information for the busy small business person. All of these new reports are based on the comprehensive Retail Stock Ledger. My favorite is the Compare Sales, Profits, and Inventory Percentages. This report gives you a quick view of a department or class contribution to a retailer’s revenue and inventory value. For example, if a department has 20% of your inventory value and only accounts for 5% of your overall revenue, you have a problem. You can then drill deeper and find the problem in the Retail Stock Ledger.

– Alan Fisher
www.retailbusiness101.com

I have always been astonished to watch salespeople from some software companies review reports with retailers. They seem to assume that quantity of reporting and level of detail sell systems. Unfortunately, many retailers also equate quantity with quality. Once the software is installed, faced with thousands of combinations of reports, the retailer runs no reports, using the computer system simply as life-support for a series of procedures. The same uninformed decisions are made, maybe just a little faster.

Think about a controller’s approach to analyzing a business. At the end of the month, the controller does not start by saying, “I think I’ll review all the journal entries in the general ledger and see how we are doing”. The controller looks at a financial statement for the business to find areas that have missed the budget or have experienced significant change over previous periods. Then, details are reviewed to determine why these events occurred before a course of action is determined.

Inventory management should be approached the same way. The first step is to look at a financial statement for the inventory to determine problem areas that need further research. Starting at the top with a class-level look at performance, areas with high shrinkage, low profits, low turn rates or high markdowns should be reviewed with more detail to determine what is causing the problem and what action should be taken.

So, if you find yourself talking with a software salesperson who believes 10,000 reports are the answer to your problems or that inventory management is the same as reordering, run as fast as you can. Instead, find a company that understands what inventory management is and how it is done.

Alan Fisher is the president of Retail Business 101, Inc., an inventory management consulting firm. His company specializes in working with independent retailers on open-to-buy and system utilization.

Visit their web site at www.retailbusiness101.com

– By Jeff Haefner

Here are 15 quick and easy tricks that I’ve noticed other
successful retail businesses doing to keep their customers coming back for more. This works because when you let your customers know that you appreciate them, they’ll show that they appreciate you by purchasing more of your products and will
become a loyal customer, guaranteed.

Some of these tips require retail technology and some don’t.

Here you go:

1. Always say hello. Your sales people, your cashiers, and
all your employees must always say hello.

2. Acknowledge your customers children.

3. Ask your customer their name and use it.

4. Suggest accessories and other items that enhance your
customer’s purchase and their life. If you have a POS system, be sure to enter “suggested add-on items” in your software, so employees get reminders and start remembering on their own.

5. Open the door for customers whenever possible.

6. If you’re busy and the customer is waiting for help,
give them an estimate of how long they’ll have to wait.

7. When a customer says “Thank you”, say “You’re welcome.”
Add “It’s my pleasure” after you say “You’re welcome”.

8. Have the owner personally call a high-ticket customer
and thank them for their purchase. Your POS software should allow you to print off a list of your high-ticket purchases in seconds.

9. Offer to carry your customer’s purchase to the car (even
if it’s small).

10. Send handwritten thank you notes.

11. Send a birthday card with a gift certificate or coupon
for a free product. You can use the CRM portion of your POS software to quickly identify and track customers’ birthdays.

12. Tell the customer why a product isn’t right for them.
This type of honesty will surely create a life-long loyal
customer!!

13. Teach the customer how to use the product they
purchased. Clothing retailers might show their customer how to accessorize their purchase.

14. Make your return policy as easy as possible.

15. If your customer lost their receipt, reprint the
receipt for them on the spot. (This is very quick and easy with the right POS software technology.)

Bottom line, train your employees to do the little things
that improve your
customers’ satisfaction and your sales will increase,
guaranteed.

Now go ahead and make sure you’re consistently doing most (if not all) of the tips above.

– By Jeff Haefner

http://www.possoftwareguide.com

The make it or break it of a POS implementation is not so much the function of the software as the willingness of the client to change and adapt their business processes to fit the new retail management software. All POS software products have strong points which made you select them in the first place and small deficiencies you were willing to overlook in the selection process to get the new and improved functions. To try and have the new software work just exactly like the old is a recipe for disaster. By the time you program for the old functionality, de-bug and go way over budget, the gains in productivity are mostly negated. The POS software you select to improve your business should be 95% of what you are looking for, straight out of the box and return on investment must be your top priority.

Many businesses offer their customers a lot of benefits, but do the customers know about them? From time to time, it is a good idea to step on the other side of the counter and see your business from a ‘customers’ perspective.

 

This takes a different mindset, as employees and owners of a business ‘see’ the ‘store’ more frequently than an average customer, but do they really see the ‘store’ as a customer does. Take a step back, walk outside, maybe drive around the block and park your car as if YOU are the customer. Now take the time to ‘see’ what your customer sees…

 

Is the outside of the business clean?
Is the parking convenient and clearly marked?
Is it clear if the business is Open or Closed?
Is the main entrance clearly defined?

 

Once inside…

 

Are you greeted promptly?
Is the inside ‘neat and clean’ or ‘cluttered’?
Are the employees friendly and helpful?
Are sales/specials clearly displayed?
Are ‘clubs’ or especial events clearly outlined or displayed?

 

Prices and marketing will get customers in the door, but some times you have to take a walk in the customers shoes to see if your business practices, layout, promotions, etc will make them want to come back the next time.

As with most software companies, we get many request for software enhancements when it seems the Point Of Sale (POS) software is missing some function, report, etc.

Prior to requesting an enhancement to a software package, it is always a good idea to go over your business procedure in detail to see if the procedure itself can be adjusted and because any time a software enhancement is requested, the change will require detailed information on the Who, What, When, Where and How it should work. Getting this information before hand by going over your procedures will better document it for your internal needs and get a jump start on clarifying the enhancement if it is still needed.

When documenting your business procedures, it is very common to leave out this you internally ‘just know’. These need to be documented as well for several reasons. The software company adding the enhancement may not know these ‘internal basics’; when new employees are trained, they may not know them and having it documented will speed training times; incomplete or unclear steps left leave it up to programmers to ‘guess’ what is needed to get to the next step, thus slowing the development process and delaying the changes.

It may sound overly detailed, but it is usually best to create documents with the complete novice in mind. Imagine trying to explain to a young child how to unlock a car. If you don’t tell them what a key hole is, there is no telling where they will try to put the key.

Most businesses looking for a new Point Of Sale (POS) system are looking for some reason, but often fail to follow through with some of the advantages they could gain from the new software due to the mentality “Ëœthat is the way it has always been’. Changing Retail Application software systems such as Point of Sale is much like going on a diet. Unless you identify the problem areas, outline what you want to accomplish and devise a plan to reach your goal, it will typically fail. By the same token, a diet should start with a trip to your doctor. Changing retail software should follow the same paths. You should identify the problem areas of your current POS (or lack thereof), decide what you want to accomplish with a new system and devise a plan to reach your goals.

As with a diet, your business diet should also include a trip to a doctor. Although not a typical doctor, the software manufacture, retail distributor or agent should assist you in your plan. With this stated, how would you feel if you went to a doctor, simply told him you wanted to go on a diet and he quickly wrote you a prescription, gave you a bill and sent you on your way? Although it might seem just what you want, typically it will not give the results you expected. You may be back in the doctor’s office with “Ëœproblems’ such as high blood pressure, mood swings, etc. The same is true for your business software purchase. If you get a quick “Ëœprescription’ (were a perfect fit), a bill and sent on your way, you will most likely be back with the same type of unexpected results from you diet. High blood pressure (I am working twice as hard after the change), mood swings (some days it seems to work and some days it doesn’t), etc.

Another cause of software “Ëœgrowing pains’ is due to a lack of commitment to follow needed steps in order to achieve your goals. Like diets, changing software can be a little painful in the beginning. The pain should go away, however, if you did your homework, created a plan, consulted a doctor/vendor and asked/answered the right questions. The hard step in both a diet and changing software has to be following through. Change is hard, especially when “Ëœit has always been this way’. A change in diet often results in a slight change in lifestyle (fewer trips to fast food restaurants). A change in Point of Sale software also can result in lifestyle changes (new business processes). Both are easy to “Ëœgive up on’ and fall back into the “Ëœold way of doing things’ and both will achieve the same results if that happens: time wasted, money lost and more frustrations.

If business processes are well thought out and examined, the good productive ones can be kept and new streamlined ones added in. Take UPS and FedEx as an example. Do you think they would train drivers on which foot to enter their truck with if it didn’t make a difference in the long run? Sure it may not make a big difference in the split second it takes to step in the truck, but multiple that times the number of times he is in and out of the truck each day, week, and month. The time saved quick starts adding up which means money saved, faster deliveries, happier customers, more repeat business, etc. The same can be true with your business processes. Imagine if you saved a customer 15 seconds when they came to your business. Now 15 seconds is not a lot, but think about the number of customers you have in a day, a week a month or a year. How much time have you saved? How much time have you given your customer? More time allows you to devote more time to your customers giving them a more friendly experience in your business making them want to spend more time (and money) with you.

Although business processes can be a bit painful to change, if done correctly, they can give more benefits to you, your staff and your customers than staying with “Ëœthe way it’s always been’ could ever do.