5 Crucial Steps to Improve Store Performance 

You can stand out from other retailers and make your competitors jealous in several cases:

• When you have significantly increased key sales indicators;
• Large base of loyal and happy customers;
• Customized automation process.

To achieve these results and increase store performance, it is necessary to optimize operational processes, improve communication with customers, and train staff. Improve your store performance and take your experience to the next level with these important steps:

Step1

Strategy How to Increase Sales

Marketing and merchandising will come to the rescue of your chain store. Offer something completely new and interesting, and encourage and give customers the opportunity to try your product (of course, if there is such an opportunity).

Don't forget about impulse buying. Take care of effective layout, cross-selling, and additional product items that can attract the attention of buyers and lead to impulse purchases.

New, non-standard ideas, and profitable promotional offers, increase customer engagement and lead to increased sales volume. Experiment, organize promotional campaigns, offer attractive prices for popular products, run seasonal sales, weekly promotions, and encourage customers to buy more.

Tip

Are you doubting your new idea? Run a small test. Collect the data. Analyze it. Did it work? Scale it.

Step 2

Automation and technologies in retail

Automation was invented to make life easier for retailers, make business processes more efficient, improve store performance, and increase sales. With the help of technology, you can optimize all business processes and establish effective communication between all departments of a store or chain.

Thanks to modern technologies in retail, it is possible to automate the following processes:

• managing the assortment of goods, prices, and orders;
• data collection and analysis processes;
• planogramming process;
• loyalty programs;
• supply chains;
• staff work and other processes.

Let's take a closer look at the process of planogramming automation and analytics in retail.

Planogramming

The planogramming process is a set of measures for managing the layout in the store: from building planograms to monitoring their implementation.

The main advantages of implementing planogramming automation in the chain:

1. Saving time on building planograms and reducing the human factor.
2. The ability to analyze the results of different layout methods.
3. The quick layout of goods, taking into account the rules of merchandising, and agreements with suppliers and manufacturers.

Read more about how the planogramming process was implemented in one of the Ukrainian chain stores, read in our article "How to automate the planogramming process in a large retail chain. Case study PlanoHero and Chervonyi Market."

Data Analytics

Another important retail process is related to data analytics. What to do with a big amount of data? How to use data to improve store performance?

Data analysis helps to better understand what is happening in the store and what requires special attention. Information about problems allows you to make timely decisions and predict future processes based on data insights. And here, technologies based on artificial intelligence algorithms cannot be dispensed with.

The Datawiz BES analytical platform quickly processes large volumes of store data and quickly generates analytical reports. So, for example, A several-year report on the entire chain assortment is generated in 3 seconds.

Analytical reports make it possible to track sales dynamics, analyze assortment efficiency, marketing campaigns, supplier reliability, and loyalty programs, and monitor key store indicators.

Thus, you can quickly find the reasons for negative or positive dynamics at all levels, starting from stores, and going down to categories and SKUs.

With the help of the BES platform, each manager can control the key performance indicators (KPI) and evaluate their impact on the retail chain. Service reporting helps to set the right KPIs, monitor their implementation, analyze the work of the team, and make decisions based on up-to-date data.

Step 3

Customer loyalty

Happy customers are loyal customers. More loyal customers mean better sales.

It has been proven that the largest percentage of store sales comes from purchases made by loyal customers. Clients will be more likely to continue buying in your store if they find it profitable and comfortable. Loyalty programs are a key way to build lasting relationships and increase sales. A simple reward system (for example, buy 3 items, the 4th is free) encourages customers to visit the store and can increase the average purchase price. Mobile applications with the accumulation of bonuses, cashback, and discounts also work to increase customer loyalty.

Running special promotions and attracting regular customers strengthens both loyalty and customer satisfaction. At the same time, no loyalty programs will work if you have problems with the quality of goods or services, or if prices are too high.

Remember! Customers who enjoy shopping at your place will recommend your store to their friends and family! Thus, they will increase the number of loyal customers and maintain the reputation of the company.

Loyal customers are important not only because they bring more sales to the store. They stay true to their habits and continue to buy in your stores even during periods of crisis or pandemics when the budget for advertising is limited, and it is quite difficult to attract new customers.

Step 4

Trained staff

Your employees represent the store to customers and are responsible for the company's reputation. This makes personnel an important part of the business strategy.

It is your managers who have a direct connection with customers. And more often, they know best how and what your customers are looking for. This knowledge is really valuable for building the right communication with customers, taking into account their needs, and increasing sales. Therefore, the store staff should be able to help the customer find and choose a product, to interest and motivate to buy.

Find out from customers what they like and what is difficult. Let it be a social media survey, in person, or via email. So you can evaluate the work of the staff, as well as determine the strengths and weaknesses of the business strategy.

But a negative situation may arise when store employees do not provide proper customer service due to insufficient experience, knowledge, or motivation. Such unprofessional and unmotivated employees are something that the retailer cannot afford (because the result will be too expensive). After all, this will lead to a decrease in sales, loss of loyal customers, and reputation in general. That is why, each retail chain needs to take care of constant learning, training, and motivating compensation for staff.

Step 5

Analyze and track key store metrics

What are top-selling goods and what becomes illiquid? The retailer needs to understand how effectively the store is selling and whether the overall business strategy is working.

Keep track of best-selling products and be sure that your most popular products are always in stock. Analyze non-selling products that are never popular with customers. When changing the assortment, focus on the data analysis, but do not be afraid to stick to those main products that really work and sell. Thus, thanks to the analysis, it is possible to predict sales, demand, and the need for inventory.

At the same time, the analysis should be carried out not only on key sales indicators but also on the results of customer service. How satisfied are customers with their purchases and service? What feedback do they leave on social media? Evaluate customer behavior and compare with sales results. This analysis will show whether in-store marketing and merchandising are good or needs improvement.

Performance tracking will help you identify potential problems in your store and understand how to improve business processes without wasting time and money. Retailers that don't analyze store performance are missing out on valuable data that could help them make important decisions.