Retail store operations:

1. Digitize time-consuming internal tasks.

While most progressive retailers have already embraced IT in a big way, there are newer
solutions that take efficiency and quality improvements to a whole new level by dramatically
reducing manual and error-prone tasks.

For example, NFC based payments systems speed up the payment process considerably, and do
away with queues

2. utomate key business processes

Many retailers are still running a collection of legacy systems designed for a particular function.
They may not communicate well with other systems which makes it difficult to achieve end-to-
end integration,  which is essential if you are to fully automate your business processes. So,
while you have may have different programs to handle tasks like inventory control, filling out
employee timesheets, invoicing, financial management and POS transactions, they do not
communicate well with each other.    You can improve efficiency, reduce errors and save costs
by integrating and fully automating these processes.

3. Personalize customer experiences

Successful retailers always strive to create high-value, personalized interactions with customers. 
The first step towards achieving this goal  is to understand the customer’s preferences and
requirements.  This is easy to do on your website of course, but not so easy to do with store
visitors. Nevertheless, personalization is now of paramount importance if you want to keep
customers loyal and ensure they keep visiting your stores. For more on this topic, read what
Openbravo CEO Marco de Vries has to say on personalization in fashion retailing and check out
our blog post on how to take personalization to the next level.

4. Integrate physical and digital worlds

As we know, omnichannel is all about making commerce frictionless across channels to deliver a
unified customer experience. This is particularly important in areas like fulfillment and
payments. If a customer buys an item online and has it delivered  to their home but then decides
to return it, how frictionless is that process? Do you insist that they wait at home for a courier to
come and pick up the item  — like Amazon does — or  do you let them return it to their nearest
store, which is possibly  more convenient. And if they return it to a physical store, can you also
do the refund in store?

Learn how Openbravo helped Bassols, a Spanish textile retailer, integrate the online and
offline worlds.

5. Optimize merchandising
Retailers do not make money by stockpiling inventory. The inventory has to sell, so when new
product, smart retailers ask pertinent questions such as “How many do we plan to sell?” “Can the
store make money selling the product?”, and so on.

Having introduced a product, a retailer’s prime focus is to optimize the inventory; the ordering
processes has to be streamlined by identifying the most best order-quantity and should be
integrated with the sales forecast to eliminate stock-out  and overstock situations. A good,
inventory management suite automates all these processes, boosting efficiency and reducing
costs.

6. Optimize the workforce

Retailers need staff in their stores to do a wide variety of tasks: help customers, process POS
transactions, handle new shipment arrivals, arrange merchandise and take inventory.  Automated
algorithmic-based labor scheduling tools can optimize staff at peak hours and ensure they remain
at their productive best.

Organizations that are leaders in operation excellence tend to have one thing in common: highly
efficient, automated processes supported by sophisticated information systems.

servicing the retail customers:

1. Have a message of hope. Your salespeople should be able to not just inform, but to also
inspire, educate, and instill confidence in your customers so they can complete projects, find the
perfect gift, or just treat themselves.
Those who don’t deliver a hopeful message in their retail environment deliver bland and blah
experiences.  Their stores share a sameness filled with boring products, promotional pricing, and
disengaged employees.
2. Call people to take risks. When a shopper purchases an expensive piece of jewelry, a fashion-
forward outfit, or a premium merchandise, it naturally pushes at their comfort level. Salespeople
who understand this help shoppers move past their comfort levels focused on budget or brand to
see how the premium product is a better fit for their lifestyle.
Without encouraging shoppers to try on a new look or to buy a more expensive item, salespeople
encourage shoppers to look for safe bets. This is at the heart of why so many retailers are stuck;
their employees, themselves, make safe bets so the newest, the premium, or the luxury items are
seen as wasteful or extravagant.  
3. Focus on relationships. Retailers have to make space for relationships to grow. That means
you must have enough coverage for employees to be able to spend a little extra time with
someone and enough retail sales training that they truly understand how to approach and engage
- truly engage - a stranger. That's what creates excellent customer service.
4.  Celebrate newbies. When new shoppers venture into your store, they must find an exceptional
experience. It’s easy to love your returning customers, but you need to love those first-time
visitors as much - or even more - than your regulars.  This tips the customary thinking on its
head... that you must treasure only repeat customers.  Your employees make strangers feel
welcome with their language and their attitude and by offering such things as a store tour on that
first visit.
5. Plan for the major holidays. When you plan ahead for all the ways you could touch a customer
during a holiday season, when decorations, emails, schedules and social media posts are thought
out in advance, your customer experience during those holidays remains high. Holidays are a
time of celebration long before the actual holiday gets there.  Making sure you are prepared
ahead of time will attract customers to your store and will ensure they linger once they are inside.
6. Have a leader who can rally the troops. So many managers are promoted because they were
good salespeople that they were never given any additional training on how to manage other
people or inspire great customer service. If that’s you, you must be willing to change
from salesperson to leader. That means you must set the goal posts of sales, encourage your team
to creatively do more, and create a wow experience for every customer. It means you celebrate
your team’s victories. It means you make them feel special, so they can make others feel special.
It no longer is about you as an individual; it is now about you, the leader of your team.
7. Make it feel like each encounter is unique and just for them. An exceptional experience is as
much the setting as it is the encounter with your salespeople. When every inch of your store is
thought out to how it could surprise and delight, and you add a professional retail sales team,
who is constantly consumed with making everyone else’s day before they try to make their own
day, exceptional experience is a standard, not a rarity.
retail human resource management:
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN RETAILING Human Resource Management
involves recruiting,selecting,training,compensating and supervising personnel in a manner
consistent with the retailers organization structure and strategy mix .

THE SPECIAL HUMAN RESOURCE ENVIRONMENT OF RETAILING:

THE SPECIAL HUMAN RESOURCE ENVIRONMENT OF RETAILING Retailers face a HR
environment characterized by Large number of in experienced workers Long hours Highly
visible employees Diverse work force Variable customer demand

THE HRM PROCESS IN RETAILING:

THE HRM PROCESS IN RETAILING The HRM process consists of these inter related
personnel activities
1.Recruiting retail personnel
2.Selecting retail personnel
3.Training retail personnel
4.Compensating retail personnel
5.Supervising retail personnel

Recruiting retail personnel:

Recruiting retail personnel Recruitment is the activity where by a retailer generates a list of job
applicants.Many retailers have a career or job section at their websites through which the
applicants can apply for the prescribed job. For entry-level sales jobs, retailers rely on
educational institutions, ads, walk-in-interviews, employee recommendations etc. For middle
management positions, retailers rely on employment agencies, ads, and current employee
referrals etc.

Selecting retail personnel:

Selecting retail personnel Here the retailer selects new employees by matching the traits of
potential employees with specific job requirements. J ob analysis and description, the application
blank, references are some tools used by the retailer in this process; they should be integrated.

Training retail personnel:

Training retail personnel Every new employees should receive pre-training about firms history
and policies, as well as job orientation on hours, compensation, the chain of command, and job
duties etc. Training program teach new(and existing)employees how best to perform their jobs or
how to improve themselves

Compensating retail personnel:

Compensating retail personnel Compensation should be fair to both the retailer and its
employees. It will help to motivate employees and improve their efficiency. Compensation may
be direct monetary payments (salaries, commissions and bonuses) and indirect payments (paid
vacations, health and life insurance and retirement plans)

Supervising retail personnel:

Supervising retail personnel Supervision is the manner of providing a job environment that
encourages employee accomplishment. The goals are to attain good performance, maintain
morale, motivate people, control cost communicate, and resolve problems Supervision is
provided by personal contact, meetings, and reports.
financial aspects of retail management:
Retail cash flow management is the procedure of monitoring, analyzing, and adjusting the cash
flow that comes through selling merchandise. For retail business, the most important part of cash
flow management is to avoid extensive cash shortages due to increased gap between cash inflows
and outflows. The larger the gap, the more the chances the store will be out of competition.
Therefore, effective cash flow management is imperative in planning and in the competent
functioning of all aspects of retail operations.

Making money and increasing cash base is not the only part of efficient cash flow management.
When a retail store is not able to maintain the optimum balance between cash inflows (the money
received through selling the merchandise) and cash outflows (the money paid to vendors and for
store expenses), it may not be able to pay the salary to its employees and suppliers’ bills.

Consequently, the retail organization may be profitable one as per financial statements but in
actual it is unable to pay the bills on time. Further, in case of credit facility, if customers do not
pay their due bills or pay very gradually in installments, the retail organization may still find
unable to pay the employees’ salary.

Therefore, organization should manage its funds effectively otherwise shortage of cash will
result in increased costs, such as late fines if electric, water bills are not paid to government.
Further, if loans are not paid to bank or other private lenders, again the organization should be
ready to pay hefty penalties.

Effective cash flow management can eliminate these unnecessary costs and make the store
financially sound enough to pay their all minor and major bills well in time and create
competitive advantage and create the opportunity for more favorable payment terms on some
types of purchases. Finally, organizations those know the benefits of effective cash flow
management improve the manner in which they receive die cash through merchandise selling
and make proper provisions to make their timely payments
retail information system:
An important element of the supply chain is the retail. Retail is the place where the products and
goods are sold to the end users. Retailer purchases goods and products from producers in large
quantities and in turn sells them to consumers in smaller quantities.
Retail Management Information System
If the retailer is on top of above information, then he would be able manage his business
efficiently. In the current scenario, large retailers have their shop across physical geographies.
For them, it becomes very important to centrally manage all shops. Retail management
information system precisely does this with help of hardware, software, database and various
modules.
Objective
The objective of the retail information systems is as follows:

 An information system should provide relevant information to retail manager regularly.

 An information system should anticipate needs and requirement of the retail manager.
 An information system should be flexible enough to incorporate constant evolving needs
of the consumer market.
 An information system should be able to capture, store and organize all the relevant data
on a regular and continuous basis.
 The retail Information systems should be aligned with strategic and business plans of the
organization. Therefore, it should be able to provide information, which supports and
drives this objective.

Characteristics of Retail Information System

The retail information system should have following characteristics:

 Retail Information systems Information systemsRetail Information systems should

connect all the stores under the company's
 Retail information system should allow instant information exchange between stores and
management.
 Retail information system should handle the various aspect of product management.
 Retail information system should handle customer analysis.
 Retail information system should allow the store manager flexible pricing over a financial
year.

Role of Retail Information System

Retail information system should support basic retail function like material procurement, storage,
dispatch, etc. It should allow the manager to monitor sales of product mix and daily sales
volume. An information system should help in inventory management.
Variety of Retail Information System
Retail information system is applicable to different types industry within retail management. An
information system can be developed to manage fashion store, pharmacy, a grocery store as well
as a toy store.
supply chain management in retailing:
Retail supply chain management therefore is how you optimize those processes to maximize
both speed and efficiency. You should deliver your products into a consumer’s hands as fast as
you can. However, you don’t want to pay outrageous amounts to do that. You must optimize
your processes to be as efficient and affordable as you can manage. Invest in shipping software
Shipping software helps retailers import, organize, and process their online orders for fast and
reliable shipping. They help you create and print shipping labels and ensure you’re getting the
best rates with carriers.
A few popular options include ShipStation, Shippo, Ordoro, and ShippingEasy.
Partner with a 3PL provider
Realizing that most retailers aren’t going to specialize in logistics, 3PLs, or third-party logistic
providers offer a way to outsource either part or all your fulfillment processes.
Integrate Your Systems
Integrating your retail systems gives retailers all sizes the power to compete. You can offer free,
2-day shipping and trust your products will get there in time, even if you’re not Amazon. If you
can perform advance logistics operations, then you’ll have more power with your suppliers.