If you work in retail, chances are you use some kind of retail software to manage your business. If this is the case, congratulations! You’ve taken an important step towards running a better business. Not only can retail technology help you be more organized and efficient, it can help you sell more stuff. Here are eight ways that your retail software can help you sell more.
1. Inventory Management
Retail software can put you in sync with your stock. You can easily see what’s selling well, what isn’t selling at all, and how much of each product you have left on hand. This means no more guesswork when creating plans for ordering new inventory – if the numbers are there to support it, you can be confident in what you’re ordering and how much of it to order. This also means no more trying to sell out-of-stock items, or having dead stock (products that you have sitting in storage but aren’t moving). You want your retail store to be filled with the right products for its intended purpose, and when you have the right data to inform your buying decisions, you can be sure that your store is always stocked with what will sell.
2. Staffing Decisions
Retail software should also allow you to make better staffing decisions. If specific products are selling well or not selling at all, you might need more staff on hand for customer support and stocking. If specific products aren’t selling as well as others, this is a good indication that you might need to re-evaluate pricing or even discontinue the items being under-purchased. Again, having the right data at your disposal allows for informed decision making that can keep customers happy and staff members productive.
3. Marketing Decisions
Retail software can help you in terms of marketing. Likely, the retail software in use contains some kind of customer relationship management (CRM) module that allows for tailored messaging to different individuals based on specific preferences and shopping patterns. This feature is especially helpful when combined with the ability to track email open rate within your CRM system – an email marketing campaign that’s not delivering a high open rate isn’t going to help you sell more stuff, so it should be adjusted or discontinued. Retail software allows for a better understanding of what your customers want and how best to communicate with them in an effective way – this is one of the best ways to improve your bottom line.
4. Analytics
Analytics are a huge part of retail software. After all, the point is to extract information from your business and make it actionable in order to improve performance. Analytics can help you optimize pricing, plan for future inventory needs, identify products that aren’t selling very well but just might be with a few changes, and so on. When you have a better understanding of how your business is performing and where it can be improved, you’re able to make those improvements happen more quickly.
5. Cloud Functionality
Cloud-based retail software allows for features such as back up capabilities, remote logins (from home or on the go), and real-time data sharing between users. These are very important in terms of keeping your business running smoothly. What’s more, when you work with a retail software provider that operates solely in the cloud, there will be no need to adjust to new versions – they’ll always become available for immediate use.
6. Integration
Retail software should ideally integrate with other systems within your business, making it easy for users to enter data and retrieve information (i.e., sales) regarding specific products, customers, employees, etc. Retail software should make transferring data between systems as easy as possible through API integrations or other means of interconnectivity. This way you’re able to use your retail software in conjunction with accounting software, inventory management software, and other business software you might already be using.
7. Real Time Access
Your retail software should allow for real time access to information (such as sales and inventory data). You shouldn’t have to wait hours or even minutes to see which customers bought what products and whether those individuals are at risk of defecting from your brand because they haven’t made a purchase in three weeks (or whatever time frame you choose to use). With accurate and up-to-date information, decisions can be made in real time – whether it’s about staffing, marketing campaigns, or something else.
8. Scalability
Retail software shouldn’t limit your business from growing its customer base or expanding its product catalog. Scalability means that your business can continue to expand and evolve without it affecting the software itself. Retail software should remain functional and useful no matter how big or small your business becomes – whether you add 100 employees or 10,000 in a span of five years, the software should accommodate for your needs.
Retail Software Best Practices
Retail software is all about improving your business while keeping things simple. Software providers should offer intuitive, user-friendly interfaces that don’t require lengthy training sessions in order to understand how to use them properly. The ideal retail software will act as a central hub for your entire company – you’ll be able to see everything at once through one program rather than having to bounce around between different platforms and software. It should also be easy to access from anywhere, whenever you need it.
The risks of using retail software that doesn’t meet these standards are pretty clear – your business will ultimately suffer as a result. You won’t know where revenue is coming from or going, how best to allocate resources and personnel, or anything else that is vital to the success of your business. Retail software should help you save time and money rather than draining your resources while serving as nothing more than a platform on which to sell products.
The best way to ensure this is by working with a retail software provider that offers intuitive user interfaces, scalability, and complete integration with other systems your business is currently using.
Retail software can be beneficial to your business year-round by streamlining processes, reducing costs, and increasing productivity. Retail software providers have taken note of this shift in focus and have responded by developing platforms that are used by many modern retailers to manage their online, brick-and-mortar, and omni-channel businesses.
While retail software should certainly help streamline your business operations, it’s also important that the provider offers user-friendly interfaces that don’t require lengthy training sessions in order to understand how to use them properly. Additionally, you should be able to see all of your company’s information in one program rather than having to bounce around between different platforms and software. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself wasting valuable time and money troubleshooting problems and errors when the system fails.
Sunvera Software develops next-level software applications from start-to-finish. We are a premier software and mobile app development agency specializing in healthcare mobile app development, custom mobile app development, telehealth software, sales dashboards, custom mobile app development services, retail software development, supply-chain software, ecommerce, shopify, web design, iBeacon apps, security solutions and unified access software.
We are proud partners with Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Schedule a free 30-minute call with us to discuss your business, or you can give us a call at (949) 284-6300.
