Retail is a complex business that requires significant strategic planning to succeed. Operating a retail store or chain of stores can be challenging as it requires frequent evaluation and improvement. So, it’s more important than ever for retailers to ensure retail store operations are optimized, which means adopting best practices and technologies designed to achieve operational excellence. Learning more about the components, functions, and challenges of retail operations and how to improve them can help you improve your operational excellence.
What are retail operations?
Retail operations are the set of activities, processes, and resources involved in the planning, management, and delivery of a retail business. They include workforce management, physical inventory, supply chain, store layout, check-out, master data management, promotions, pricing, etc., which ensure store profitability and a good customer experience.
What are the key components of retail operations?
The key components of retail operations include inventory management, supply chain management, visual merchandising, customer service, and store management. Here are some components of retail operations:
1. Centralized data management – Your data must be centralized, from customer relationship management to vendor and product management. You will manage your retail operations more efficiently by managing your data from a central location. You’ll reduce expenses while increasing profitability. This is the one feature of retail operations that is non-negotiable.
2. Key Performance Indicators – Every retail business has key performance indicators, but yours will differ from those of other operations. This is where every retail chain is different. Even chains in the same industry may have different KPIs to track. Once you have identified your KPIs, you need to track them daily.
3. Inventory optimization – From tracking your products in the supply chain to allocation and replenishment, optimizing your inventory is the heart and soul of your profit center. If you pay too much for your inventory, you will lose revenue. If you hold your inventory too long, it will cost you carrying costs. By optimizing your inventory, you take a critical step toward maximizing your profits. Many retailers are moving towards automating their supply chain and delivery methods.
4. Productivity efficiency – Not only do your warehouses need to run efficiently, but you also need to monitor the productivity levels of your employees. This is critical if you pay your employees bonuses and commissions based on their performance.
5. Sales and expense control – Sales and expense analysis are also critical to any retail operation. Some expenses, such as rent, are fixed. Others fluctuate from season to season or even month to month. You will probably have peak sales periods. Understanding your sales cycle will help you control expenses and maximize sales.
6. Promotions and pricing – The system makes it easy to create targeted marketing or promotional campaigns based on CRM and performance data readily available in the system’s database. Retailers can control access to all price changes and can monitor and track price changes and performance.
7. Order fulfillment – Web order fulfillment from any combination of warehouses and/or stores allows retailers to track all fulfillment requests, their current status, and their location, including in transit. It provides your business with efficient supply chain solutions, omnichannel integration, and alerts for continuous order processing.
What are the Functions of Retail Operations?
Regardless of size or industry, businesses need the same basic functions to operate in the retail sector. These include,
- Product sales
- Customer service
- Store management
- Inventory management
- Store layout (online and physical)
- Marketing and promotions
- Payments and processing
- Financial management
What are the Challenges for Retail Operations?
Retailers must evolve with their consumers. Here are some of the challenges retailers face in their retail operations:
- Inventory management: Keeping track of inventory levels, ensuring that products are in stock, and preventing stockouts can be challenging for retailers.
- Seasonal fluctuations: Retailers need to be able to predict and manage changes in demand throughout the year, such as during peak holiday shopping seasons.
- Consumer preferences: Keeping up with changing consumer preferences and trends can take time and effort for retailers.
- Online competition: The rise of e-commerce has made it more challenging for brick-and-mortar retailers to compete with online retailers.
- Supply chain disruptions: Global events such as natural disasters, trade disputes, and pandemics can disrupt the supply chain and create challenges for retailers.
- Omni-channel integration: Integrating and managing different sales channels (e.g., online, in-store, mobile), working Omnichannel customer journeys & building customer loyalty can be challenging.
- Personalization: Creating unique, personalized customer experiences can be difficult and time-consuming.
- Cost management: In retail price inflation, keeping operational costs down while delivering a high-quality customer experience can be a balancing act.
- Employee management: Hiring and training employees, managing internal communication, scheduling, and ensuring customer service standards are met can be challenging.
- Compliance: Retailers must comply with various laws, regulations, and standards, such as data protection, consumer rights, and labor laws, which can be complex and time-consuming.
How to Improve Retail Operations?
Here are some steps you can consider to improve your retail operations:
1. Increase employee productivity: Employee productivity goes beyond ensuring your products are shelved and merchandised. It also means they have to sell. Suppose you don’t track, measure, and report the number of units and total dollar volume each salesperson sells. In that case, you will need to determine if your employees are productive and profitable for your retail business. Providing operational training to your employees can help increase team efficiency and improve customer service. Businesses can also specialize in training activities to focus on achieving their unique goals.
2. Measure individual store performance: Determining key performance indicators (KPIs) can provide metrics to measure business growth and progress toward goals. These metrics can be helpful for operational decision-making and the overall success of a retailer. Not only does every employee need to earn their keep, but every store in your chain needs to perform as well.
3. Compare sales at multiple levels: To get an accurate picture of your retail sales, you need to compare sales at different levels, which also means including closed stores in your numbers.
4. Set store budgets: The best way to ensure that each store in your retail chain is profitable is to set store budget targets based on store age, past performance, and management experience.
5. Prevent losses: Damaged or stolen merchandise can quickly reduce profits. So, minimize your losses; it will immediately improve your bottom line.
6. Optimize inventory management: If you are performing regular inventory controls and monitoring (cycle counts and physical inventories), you probably need to be in control of your retail operations. Control your inventory more effectively, and you will be more profitable. You’ll reduce the risk of costly overstocking or frustrating stockouts by conducting inventory counts.
7. Take action to achieve your marketing goals: Marketing is more than just attracting visitors. You can better manage your marketing metrics by focusing on your customer data to find hidden opportunities.
8. Automate and Optimize – Automation can help retailers accomplish tasks faster by using technology tools to streamline operations and optimize business areas that have not reached their highest potential. Optimization can help with business management by eliminating inventory and supply chain redundancies and lowering operational costs.
9. Unify online, and offline sales – Omnichannel retailing connects all channels, combining the showroom and website to create a unified experience. Unified commerce solutions improve the customer experience no matter how they choose to shop and increase efficiency across all channels.
10. Offer experiential retailing – Experiential retailing is a great way to engage with customers beyond just selling products. Today, retailers are finding innovative ways to draw customers into the store, not only through their products but also through their in-store experience, encouraging customers to spend more time with their brand. Collecting customer feedback can also be beneficial to retail operations, as it can highlight areas of operations that may need improvement.
11. Optimize returns and exchanges – Better product returns management can reduce costs and improve consumer loyalty. Providing a seamless returns experience has become necessary in the retail market, but many retailers need to improve their operational and technological capabilities to ensure a smooth customer journey. BORIS (buy-online-return-in-store) offers the ability to meet and convert customers personally.
12. Streamline checkout- Fast, frictionless in-person shopping experiences have become an expectation in 2023. Streamlining your checkout process will make it easier for shoppers to click buy and track their orders.
Conclusion:
For enhanced retail operations, businesses can use data analytics to make informed decisions about inventory levels and product assortment, implement effective supply chain management systems and provide employee training to improve customer service. In addition, implementing technology solutions such as point-of-sale systems, inventory management software, and customer relationship management tools can also help streamline operations and improve overall efficiency.
Streamline Retail Operations with ChainDrive
ChainDrive operations management software provides built-in KPIs, targets, and analytics so you can instantly assess and report on everything from store and employee performance to loss prevention to store budgets and sales goals.
Optimize your store’s retail operations with ChainDrive operations management software. ChainDrive’s retail management system is the easiest way to unify your sales channels and sell online and offline. If you want to grow your business, market to your customers, and sell everywhere in one unified database, request a free live demo with the ChainDrive team.