That was one of the headlines on the BBC Business News Website this week confirming price deflation is going to be a factor for some time to come. So whilst recognising retailers are having to sell more to simply stand still, what else can they do to stimulate sales and increase profitability?
I put the question to my colleagues in the RMS office and thought I would share just a few of their suggestions below – please get in touch to hear more of their comments and thoughts.
i) Keep your stores and staff fully informed and engaged with what’s going on – Generic email full of ‘nontent’ is something we hear a lot of complaints about – store staff call it ‘nontent’ because emails generally lack content worth reading or has nothing relevant to offer the reader – with many thousands of emails going out to stores daily the potential to destroy productivity is never more than the push of the (Send) button away.
Our cross-browser ‘Any channel communications’ tool-set fixes this by enabling Head Office teams to control and target content specifically to Stores, Departments, Roles or Individuals (be they in or out of the store) communicating information via bright, vibrant and engaging webpages. Key information including KPI data can easily be communicated via PC’s, Tablets or Mobiles so sales performance and focus can be kept in front of mind and not back of house. Inbuilt compliance tools ensure readership is optimised and ‘nontent’ abolished.
ii) Get your store staffing levels right – Employee scheduling is one of the most poorly supported HR tasks performed by retailers and often one of the most disliked, but nothing frustrates shoppers more than being unable to speak to staff or be served efficiently at the checkout. With Metro’s Workforce Management solution, staff scheduling doesn’t have to be complicated. Our powerful but simple to use tool-set enables retailers to easily understand what the true staffing needs are. Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity to increase sales, optimise labour costs and to deliver the best customer experience.
iii) Promote Value, not just Price – We often hear retail experts bang on about Experience, Product and Service but Value has a more significant part in today’s overall shopping experience, especially if they are to stem the flow of reduced margins. That’s not to say that price isn’t important to customers but from recently reading ‘Supermarket Shoppology’ by Phillip Adcock, price is only one part of the shoppers’ path to purchase and that the subject of price is actually much higher up the agenda of brands and retailers than it is for shoppers.
What shoppers want is the perception that the price offers a good deal. With this in mind take a look at how Print Controller software increased sales upwards of +6% at a local Booker store by including full-colour imagery and promotional information on the stores’ shelf tickets rather than displaying the price simply on non-descript tickets produced via the stores EPOS system – a picture really does speak a thousand words.
High impact Point of Sale material printed via Print Controller can include key product attributes, customer review scores, QR codes to access more information online and even price comparison information courtesy of Brand View™. Read more in The Grocery Trader magazine published earlier this year.
RMS are industry-leading trusted advisers in the retail marketplace. For over a decade, more than 70 of the best-known UK retailers have reported dramatic improvements in compliance; higher productivity of employees; and increased revenue and profitability after implementing software from RMS. Get in touch to see what we can do for your business.
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