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Consider this Before Expanding Your Business Boundaries to a Different Country

With intense competition all around the market, various businesses are scaling and trying to expand their boundaries outside their current country. It not only gives exposure to your business but also helps engage new customers with your business. It is best to implement a Retail ERP Software from suitable Retail ERP Implementation Partner.  With the correct information, technology, and tactics, you can thrive in the international market. Having a unified commerce solution can open doors you did not even know existed. With Artificial intelligence, you can data, based on which the future of your venture depends.   This is especially complex for small businesses to go global. Getting deep insights into their business, targeted market, and consumer behavior are necessary. We have compiled a few tips to help you establish your business internationally with more ease.   Understand Your Market  If you have noticed tourists demand more for your services or products, you may first understand the driving factors of this behavior, also if your business would flourish in their home countries. Thoroughly research your target market, see if there is a gap between your product and the market. What is the demand like, also check the factors causing lack of demand? You may also want to look up to the trends impacting demand for your product.   Identify your target customers and understand their engagement with their favorite brands. Visit the county if possible and gain first-hand insights into how the market may impact your business.  Create Localized Strategies   As soon as you figure out the country you want to expand to, it is time to create relevant strategies. You have to be very strategic since this might become a more complicated process due to differences in location, currency, culture, regulations, and so on. You might have to tweak your offer a little to suit your international target audience.   You may as well connect with the local advisors and listen to their sayings in this. Let them help you create the best fit for your brand with your target audience. Employ local talent familiar with your culture, and then present their ideas to find the best ways to engage more customers with your brand. You may also consider if partnering with the local brand would help you gain a foothold in the market.   Pick Your Location  After picking the preferred country, creating strategies, now it is time to choose the ideal location. Conduct thorough research to completely understand the locality and look at the area from the user’s eye. Now, what does “looking through the user’s eye” mean? Identify if it is easy for your audience to reach you? If you are thinking of establishing a store, explore how many people pass through the preferred location in a day and whether they fit your demographic.   In the case of deliveries, check if it is easy for you to deliver easily, or do you have to push an extra to get it done? If you run home deliveries, go through the road maps and check if the routes are favorable, i.e., make sure the routes follow an effortless network with your warehouse, store, and target areas.   Make Sure Your Software Favors Your Business  You are thinking of expanding your business to international boundaries, in the near future, you may see yourself expanding even further. You need the right software to support your current and future business needs in every country.   Make sure your technology delivers the product in detail in the customer’s language and lets them pay in their currency. You may also want to boost your employee efficiency. The best way is with a unified commerce solution that unifies every business aspect under the same umbrella, i.e., financials, POS (point of sale), inventory, or kitchen, it connects everything under the same platform.   Your technology must help you adhere to the regulatory requirements of the locality. For instance, if you want to expand your company to a fiscal country like Russia, you need your equipment to adhere to the country’s certification standards.   Engage Locally   You may already have access to the digital tool to expose your product across the globe. Mobile apps, the internet, and social media provide an excellent platform for your product to read different customers internationally.   Create loyalty programs, think of new activities to engage more customers in your brand. Present your product complementing the local aesthetics, in the local language, currency, culture. Develop a hunger for your brand among the targeted audience. Extract their data from the social media platform to understand their engagement and the factors drawing them.   Expanding your business to different borders brings excitement, thrill as well as challenges along. You need the right data, technology, and strategies to thrive in the international market. A Retail ERP Software like LS Retail can tremendously help your business in the journey. If you are looking for a Retail ERP Implementation Partner, you may contact Trident, we are the gold implementation partner.  

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How LS Central Transforms Retail?

Thanks to LS Retail Software Solution, various businesses have shifted their approach from choosing multiple software integration over a single commerce platform. Retailers, hospitality businesses, and restaurants in over 140 countries are overjoyed to use this platform and enjoy the benefits that come along. LS Central Software Solution is a retail management software that guarantees retail and hospitality management with its set of tools dedicated to providing visibility, transparency, and a single view of the entire business. However it is essential to find the most suitable Retail ERP Partner. With LS Central Software Solution, businesses are now equipped with technology that not only streamlines business but also reduces IT load and cuts costs significantly. For instance, a large ski resort in Canada used to have 26 distinct software solutions which needed to be updated and managed separately, causing too much load on its IT. They then decided to embrace LS Central, and now they can finally operate as a unified brand, track loyalty, run promotions and see their data. Eventually, the business became even more successful and competitive.  Here are some of the ways to keep your business ahead of your competition.    Omnichannel Integration   With omnichannel integration, you can let your customers shop wherever and whenever they want. LS Central connects to market-leading platforms such as Magento, Shopify, and Dynamic Webs. This integration guarantees two-way communication between the systems. Hence letting your staff and customers get real-time and updated information on each product. Be it product availability, prices, and offers on your online shop, they can always have updated data.   Additionally, LS Central tracks every sale you have made on a single platform, so you can even offer click and collect options so they can purchase online and collect it at the store if they want.   Contactless Options in Store  Customers were demanding contactless services even before the pandemic hit. They were looking for mediums to make things even more convenient without having to contact store staff.  By implementing self-service checkouts, you can ensure customers the autonomy they wish for while shopping in person while cutting the queues and saving time.  ScanPayGo technologies minimize contacts even more. LS Central combines loyalty with the POS (point of sale) in the single app that can run on your customer’s device. Being a One-stop-shop app, it lets customers shop, save lists, save money, apply coupons, check their loyalty score, and much more.   Drive Employees to Deliver Exceptional Services   LS Central enables a medium for employees to serve today’s well-informed customers.  With mobile POS, your staff can look up the product details- Its availability, alternatives, warehouse details, and even data on special orders. They can easily compare the size, color, and other details on their phone.   The key to obtaining loyalty is to build personalized services. At POS, employees can access their store’s loyal customer’s details, previous purchases, and preferences. They can even use LS Central’s AI-based abilities to make relevant recommendations and product suggestions.   Innovate and Go Beyond Industry Barriers   Customers are attracted to services that stand out in the crowd. Offer services that differ from your customers. You can use this LS Retail Software Solution, to run food service, retail, and hospitality within the same platform.   For instance, if you operate a mixed business like a garden center with a cafe, you can manage different segments within the same platform i.e., LS Central. You can easily align customers, offers, sales, food service, and a lot more within the same database. Furthermore, if you decide to expand and offer appointments with a garden designer, you can as well do it with LS Central’s robust LS Activity add-on.   Clear Visibility and Data-Informed Decisions   You can get a real-time view of your business with LS Central Software Solution. We recognize that data cannot help you make effective decisions. Thus, it offers intelligent functionality to make it easier for you to make relevant decisions.   For instance, one of its AI-powered add-ons called LS insight addresses KPIs that need the most attention. It delivers all the information that is more important for your business to grow.   Overstocking and understocking are some of the key issues businesses come across. With LS Retail Software Solution, you may get real-time visibility on your stocks and make more accurate, faster, and smarter decisions   LS Central is one of the leading unified commerce solution providers out in the market. Trident Information Systems is the best Retail ERP Partner, and is reinforced with 150+ technical professionals. If you are looking for an implementation partner, you can contact us.  

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Tips For Rapidly Expanding Brick and Mortar Retail Businesses

According to Grant Thorton, e-commerce in India is expected to be worth US$ 188 billion by 2025. Despite having e-commerce contributing to a large part of our economy, there are still masses who prefer to purchase products offline in India. Many seek assistance of ERP Software for Retail from suitable Retail ERP Partner. According to the Economic Times, Nykaa has decided to triple store count in retail expansion. It operates as an e-commerce platform selling everything from global cosmetic brands to jewelry. However, Indian consumers still want to purchase products offline.  Certain issues come along with offline stores.   Customers might visit the shop and find the item they want missing.   Managing an offline establishment requires more labor.   Standing in long queues can infuriate customers.   Digital disruptions might hamper operations.   Inability to meet evolving customer expectations.   Poor internal communication.   Brick and Mortar stores need a lot more labor than e-commerce. Therefore, rapidly expanding businesses need to seek technological assistance. It is recommended to implement a ERP Software for Retail Like LS Retail. It offers a suite of all the tools required to run a retail business. Integrating everything under the same platform boosts synchronicities and a smoother business flow. For instance, integrating your website with CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) can help you understand trends better.   Allow Customers to Check Product Availability Online   Consumers are drawn where convenience is more prominent. Just imagine how frustrated a consumer can get if he drives all the way to a shop and finds the essentials he wants missing? It is important to enabling product information and availability online, so your customers save themselves time and labor. Additionally, retailers may integrate all touchpoints and allow customers to place orders online while collecting the item right on their way.   Enable Contactless Payments   Allow your consumers various payment options like debit, credit, mobile payments, and so on. Enable quicker and easy payment options to shorten queues while making cash handling the lead of their concern while checking out. And such transactions are even safer. Retailers may also enable self-check-out services at the counter and help themselves while freeing store staff. This way customers unburden the staff allowing them to focus on other activities like helping other consumers find a product or guiding them through product instructions or simply greeting them at the entrance.   Personalized Services for Customers   Track each transaction with customers, understand their spending pattern, and create customized services for them. You will need AI-based technology like the one LS Retail ERP Software for Retail offers to extract data from different touchpoints and generate comprehensive and actionable reports. This data is essential for creating personalized offers, deals, and promotions while making it one of the best ways to penetrate customers’ emotions. Delighted customers refer businesses or products to their friends, families, and acquaintances thus driving a robust referral promotion. Word of mouth is the most effective and cost-efficient promotion method; studies have shown that a person is most likely to purchase a product referred to by someone known rather than following an advertisement.   Enable product Information on handhelds  Enabling product information on handheld devices empowers store staff and extracts all their efficiency. They can locate each item anywhere in the store without having to hunt for it. They can organize item placements according to demand, size, and other features. Targeting and discarding expired products becomes a piece of cake. Since the staff is less burdened, they can shift their focus on other prominent tasks such as helping customers out, organizing inventory, and other manual tasks.    Avoid Overstocking / Understocking   Having an integrated system that offers a 360-degree view on inventory in the shape of insightful reports. With ERP Software for Retailers, you can track each item, its durability and easily discard the expired products. Additionally, they may also predict demands and make purchases accordingly. These insights can work wonders for inventory planning.   Adopt a Unified Communication Platform   One thing that bothers them most in multi-chain businesses is communication. LS Retail, ERP Software for Retailers ensures a unified platform that connects all the departments in an organization, such as sales, marketing, and IT, etc. Allowing your employees free flow of communication is not only time-consuming and labor efficient but also saves a lot of confusion in an organization.   Since the competition in the retail industry is cutthroat, retailers have to find a solution that covers all their business needs while optimizing their resources. LS Retail is one of the most prominent B2B ERP Software for Retail having eligible implementation partners such as Trident Information Systems, the Gold Retail ERP Partner of LS Retail. Contact us for further information.  

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Cope with Post-Festive Sales Decline Successfully

Festive seasons bring great sales opportunities: every industry is packed with customers. Nevertheless, one industry that collects the most candies from the basket is retail. With ERP Software for the Retail industry, businesses are thriving in the market, if they are supported by the right Retail ERP Partner. Consumers shop extra, get drawn towards exciting deals, offers and promos. Businesses feel abundant and exploit as much profit as possible.   However, the issue starts the post-festive season, when the surge in festive shopping ends, best-selling smartphone models go out of stock, and lower-than-expected wedding-related purchases off-take. According to Bizcom, a sales automation firm that transacts with 7.5 million retail stores, revealed that sales fell 14% in November 2021 for fast-moving consumer products. Industry executives quoted “sales of smartphones, television, refrigerators and washing machines fell 15-20% sequentially in November.”   This crisis comes up every year. However, pandemics, travel restrictions, and other prohibitions made it even harder. Even though everything seems to be coming on track, retailers have to exploit the latent opportunities to stay ahead in the competition. They may implement a ERP Software for the Retail industry specifically designed to handle retail businesses while making their operations even more seamless and staying ahead of competitors.   Forecast Demand and Stock-Up   The first step is to forecast demands and order inventory accordingly: carefully research different items in demand and purchase inventory accordingly. On the other way around, you can also get an AI-based system extracting inputs and generating insightful and actionable reports. Organize inventory in-store according to the demand. Place the most demanded items in the most visible and accessible area. Having demand forecasted you may ditch items unworthy of investment.   Figure Out the Right Offer for the Target Audience   One of the most efficient ways to boost demand is to offer the right offer to the right audience segment. But how would you section your customers? First, divide your frequent and infrequent customers, then deliver exclusive deals and attractive offers designed especially for your loyal customers. You may create deals according to their shopping frequency and preferences. Integrate all the channels and extract customer data to get insights. A Unified AI-based technology can do this job perfectly. It attracts customer-related transactions and turns them into insightful reports.   Make No Space for Long Queues  Make sure you do not let your customers stand in long queues at the check-out counter. Enable more secure cashless payments to make the transactions quicker and keep the traffic smooth. Additionally, you may as well allow self-check-out ports and empower customers to make quick checkouts and leave the store soon. This way you can also free up the floor space and save other customers from feeling all congested. Adopt Retail POS Software like the one LS Retail offers to bust long queues.   Quickly Give your Customers What they Want  Customers are impatient and making them wait for their desired product/ service is a risky affair. Make sure they get what they want right away, connect all the touchpoints, and let them place orders from whatever platform they want. If they want to place an order while sitting in a metro while listening to the latest songs, so be it. Deliver their orders quickly or let them collect them from the store, the choice is theirs. As soon as they enter the store, make sure they do not struggle to find their item. Reinforce your staff with handheld devices containing product information, so they can quickly find the item and guide customers to the same.    Encourage Referral Promotion    Delighted customers might refer your business to others. A WOM (word of mouth) promotion is the most effective promotion. Encourage customers to share referrals with their friends. Enable social share buttons on your website, promote post-purchase messaging, feature referral programs on your home page, promote referrals on high traffic pages, and so on. Additionally, customers might even post your brand’s products on their social media and allow free promotion. Otherwise, you may also contact different influencers and pay them to sponsor your product to their audience.   Businesses must combine innovation with technology and work with “Technovation” to thrive in this sales shortage. We recommend implementing ERP Software for the Retail industry. LS Retail is an ideal solution in this situation. If you are looking for an implementation partner, contact Trident, the Gold Partner of LS Retail. 

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Blend Digital with Physical and “Phygitalize” Business Operations

In the era of technology that amalgamates with the cut-throat competition among retailers, shoppers these days expect a blend of digital evolution with physical shops. This has impacted their mindsets as well. They have become even more impatient and expect stores to complement the same. ERP Software for Retailers like LS Retail can help shop owners comply with the dynamics. It is one of the best ERP Software for Retail.   Retailers these days are also burning their candles at both ends to not only meet their customers’ current expectations but to provide even better services and beat their competitors. Proving contactless payment options, self-check-out, and much more are some of the initiatives retail businesses take to boost the customer satisfaction level.  Retail Businesses prefer to integrate their front-office to the back while integrating every operation on a single platform. This helps them avoid multiple integration complexities as well as issues such as:   Information duplicity   Lack of coordination  Managers are unaware of immediate initiatives to be taken  Risk of losing important data  Wastage of resources  Over-stocking/ under-stocking   Blend Physical with Digital  This blend transforms how you see your business. You can explore aspects you never knew, ever existed. Operations become more streamlined and ensure maximum employee optimization. An ERP Software for Retailers like LS Retail can help you blend digital innovations into the physical store.   Integrate Back-Office and The Front Office   Even if your front-end and the back end in silos are the strongest, still finding ways to streamline these two cohesive units into the one is a whole new ball game. The data held by each section can be critical for the other. Just imagine how easy operations would become if you integrated your website data to your CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) and then to your billing or invoicing system. It will put an end to complications caused by data duplication. If integrated properly, it can create a bi-directional interface that supports your current customers as-well-as your future customers as well.   Avoid Overstocking / Understocking with a 360 Degree View on Inventory   With the right technology at service that can deliver a 360-degree view on inventory activities and forecast demands, the retailers are most likely to make smart inventory purchases. Insights on current trends and consumer buying patterns help businesses to stock up accordingly. For instance, during Durga Puja, some businesses in Kolkata could make a profit of 20-30% as they forecasted demands already, while other businesses that failed to forecast demands ran out of stock. Additionally, they can manage warehouses better with the data on most selling and underselling products. With these insights, retailers can negotiate with the vendors better.   Track Each Customer and Offer Unique Deals  Using AI-based technology can help you track every customer transaction and provide you with better insights into what customers are demanding individually or collectively. Retailers can create deals and offers accordingly. They can decide the best time to launch 50% off sales or customized coupons for individual customers. According to their habits and spending patterns, shoppers can be classified accordingly and offered exclusive deals on specific products they would prefer to buy the most.   Make Your Staff Quicker, More Enthusiastic, and Efficient    Having a staff that could work to their full efficiency without having to burden them is something several retail businesses are gradually adopting. Imagine how easy it would become for them if they could locate any product at the store in just one click, how much time they save while greeting customers with more enthusiasm. Apart from this, allowing the customers with self-checkout services again frees your staff from billing overloads. Having these technologies fills the efficiency gaps and boosts output.   Streamline Communication Among Different Departments   Since the time spent communicating through a chain of departments cuts down, businesses can save themselves plenty of time. With ERP Software for Retailers like the one LS Retail provides, retailers can get a single platform connecting different departments. A person for the sales department can contact the inventory manager to inform them about the current inventory requirements. It becomes easier to share ppts and feedback at the same time.   Integrate All the Channels Under the Same Platform  Shoppers demand more convenience in their shopping experience. In such a busy world, many customers are unable to make time to get into a store. Instead, they look for online alternatives for order placements, such as their website, applications, and third-party applications. They require the convenience of ordering their favorite shoes online while computing to their office or asking Alexa to order groceries while cleaning the living room. Integrating all the channels under the same platform allows enough space for sales to grow.   Data Security and Business Continuity   In any business, data plays a huge role in making critical decisions, let alone retail. Hence, data security is one of the major concerns for any organization, especially those working in silos, or on-premises. Losing and then the inability to lose financial or important customer data can ruin a business. Cloud-like Azure ensures data security, anti-theft features, and automatic and expandable backups. Azure backup services provide simple, cost-efficient, and security services to back up and recover data from the cloud.   It has become a necessity to combine physical stores to offer better customer services while streamlining business operations. LS Retail is an ERP Software for Retail offering a suite of tools and functionalities covering every business aspect. If you are looking for an implementation partner, contact Trident. We are a Microsoft D365 and LS Retail Gold Implementation Partner with a capacity of 150+ technical resources. Contact us for further information.  

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Give Holiday Shopper the Best eCommerce Experience Ever

As the festive season arrives, it brings boundless joy, parties, and massive opportunities for retailers to strengthen their bond with the existing and new customers. This is the time when retailers can reinforce their eCommerce availability most probably with an ERP software for Ecommerce, since shoppers are predicted to make 65% for their purchases from eCommerce platforms.   Indeed, they are going to purchase from the tangent store as well, as eCommerce cannot provide the striking display, employee suggestions, live inspection, etc. that physical stores have, still shoppers are most likely to purchase items online. Therefore, retailers need to use every facility at their disposal to ensure an excellent eCommerce shopping experience.   Retailers must use an AI-based Platform to optimize their resources. One of the most common questions during the festive season is going to be “where is my order” and agents need to be as quick as possible during the heavy customer traffic. 19% of their time is dedicated to looking across an enterprise’s content sprawl or asking other officials to help them with the data.   This situation must be avoided, or else the customer might cancel his order and look for the services elsewhere. We have accumulated a few tips to enhance the eCommerce shopping experience.    Reinforce Your Workforce with the Right Tools and Support   As more customer service agents are working from home, they need the right tools and support in order to maximize their efficiency. In fact, 42% of remote workers claim that their efficiency is directly proportional to the system they have been provided. As holiday shopping ramps up, they need to be quicker and more efficient with the growing customer traffic. Easy access to the relevant data will do the job.   Customize Data-Based Recommendation   Your eCommerce storefront might be more convenient than shopping in a tangent store, yet it cannot offer the aesthetics of a brick-and-mortar store such as employee assistance, real touch inspection, and signage. Therefore, you have to make sure they come across the products that are right for them. Use all the features at your disposal to provide a 360-degree view of your customer using a unified database. You can then use AI (Artificial Intelligence) platform like the one LS Central offers to create exceptional shopping experience, real-time inventory tracking, order tracking, deals and offers, etc.   With cloud-based technology, you can suggest relevant products not only based on the shopper’s history but also current trends among other shoppers. With the help of data mapping, the system algorithms “learn” and modify according to this data while ensuring more precise decisions.   Offer Multiple Platforms for Shopping  Customers these days are busier than ever, which drives the need for e-commerce convenience. Most of them do not have enough time to go to the store and purchase items every now and then. Hence, they look up to eCommerce platforms as an alternative: social media, websites, and third-party apps. Allow different shopping platforms, and do not forget to integrate them for smoother operations. Allowing multi-channel integration using cloud technology can access and read customer data more swiftly while generating insightful reports.   Leverage employees on placing orders wherever and whenever they want: be it while computing to the office, chilling out with friends, or even in the middle of a party. The options should be available.   Keep Mobile Shopping Experience a Priority  Having an eCommerce site is not enough to attract sales. Retailers must focus on the convenience of mobile phones. Mobile sure draws sales, but that does not mean people will stop coming to the physical store: they were shopping offline, and they still will. Many consumers choose e-commerce due to the risk of product unavailability at your store. You have to make sure your site can handle the waves of customers marching its way, especially during the festive period. It must work well on mobile, as well as let you track inventory and sales across all the channels. A unified system like LS Central optimizes the same database for all locations while ensuring transparent and real-time data of all the products you have.   Deliver Flexible Options   Last but not least, allowing shoppers delivery options play a huge role. In the case of online shopping, shoppers want their deliveries handled either quickly or cheaply, but most preferably both. However, according to some research, customers would rather prefer free over quick delivery. Most of them would even wait for 3-4 days in case the delivery is free. A unified ERP software for Ecommerce can take care of that.   During the festive season, home delivery is not the only thing that customers want. Ensuring flexible options on purchase and return of a product could make a massive difference.  To get an end-to-end vision of all sales, inventory, and business overall, businesses need a Unified Commerce System like LS Central that uses the same database for all the channels. If you are looking for an LS Retail Implementation Partner, contact Trident.  

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Your Retail System Might Ruin Your Holiday Season

Festive season all over the world brings excitement as it marks family gatherings, vacations, home-cooked food, and lots of shopping! Despite distinct geographies, customer preferences, and socioeconomic factors, India stands united in its cohesive obsession with binge shopping. First is Diwali sales, and then comes the Christmas offers. Customers shop like crazy during this time. Credits to Amazon Great Indian Festival sales, Myntra’s end of the reason sales, and Flipkart’s festive dhamaka days sales that give enough and even more reasons for shoppers to splurge.   For retailers, this period brings both excitement and anxiety together. On one side, this is a golden time to fetch the biggest catch, and on the other side, it puts their retail system, strategies, customer services, supply chain, technology platforms to a test. They must use a ERP Software for Retail to ease the situation.  This time becomes the most difficult for the retailers still working in silos. Since several retailers in India are not used to a mindset of investing in a unified platform to ease their burden but spend more on the on-premise infrastructure till it wears out, retailers have to go through tremendous pain during this time. Often it has been observed in shops without an integrated platform that fails to accurately forecast demands, they end up suffering losses they could have prevented.  Given below are some of the most common issues with soloed systems followed by their way-outs.   #1 Inability of Your Current Technology to Handle High Transactional Values  This is a nightmare-ish issue a company could face. However, retailers are not unfamiliar with it. Some research has shown that 96% of retailers have faced this disruption over ten times across the previous three years. Reasons may include network disruptions, third-party outrages, human errors, etc. However, the most common reason is disconnected legacy software systems. The patchwork of different technologies and functions added over time causes downtime of the system.   The Solution: As a solution, retailers should look forward to replacing their complex and hard-to-maintain siloed system with a unified software solution such as LS Retail. A unified system covers the entire business under a single platform leaving no space for communication-based disruptions caused by a lack of communication among different systems. To add up, a single provider is delivering this technology while ensuring complete support, quicker and simpler management.   #2 Inability to Figure Out the Exact Part of Your System that Goes Down  This issue can again arise due to aging and disconnected systems failing to communicate with one another. These systems are often so old they refuse to coordinate with any new system but with the now broken / unsupported hardware, such technologies are most likely to put a strain on your current system while hampering your day-to-day operations. On top of that, a system fails, it becomes extremely hard to identify which IT stack it was. How are you supposed to identify which part needs repairing?   Solution: Retailers do not have to invest in unreliable distinct system integration that hampers their smooth business functioning. Instead, it is time to spend on future technology that will not fail them. Sticking and repairing their old system and hoping for it to not fail them when they need it the most is irrelevant.   Retailers have spent years not investing in the modern technology but fixing the old one until it “works.” However, the good news for retailers is that the modern, unified commerce technology platforms are not as costly as they might guess, and they deliver a faster ROI. There are businesses like Gallo Clothing that use LS Retail and have not faced issues since.  #3 Inability to React Quickly to Customer Demands  One of the major causes of this issue might include the unavailability of stock. They are hugely damaging their bottom line. A study by IHL Group – global research and the advisory firm found that retailers miss out on about USD 1 trillion in sales only because of unavailable items. While almost one-third of shoppers turn to Amazon and other eCommerce platforms. Many retailers admitted that the reason behind these out-of-stock scenarios is their outdated technology and the reasons majorly contributing are:   Limited view on their inventory  Unreliable data  Shortage of data analysis tools and accurate forecasts.   Solution: Weekly or daily reports are not relevant in today’s scenario, especially during the festive season. You need a real-time view of your data so you can track your stock, sales, and customers throughout your retail chain.   You can get real-time data availability with a single software environment consisting of your financials, warehouse, admin, inventory, CRM (Customer Relationship Manager), POS (point of sale) system, and so on. You can track sales, productivity, and stock in real-time and bring those hour-consuming replenishments to a few minutes.   Keeping the above-mentioned points in mind we can conclude that working in silos is not the best idea. It might not handle the festive pressure well. System disruptions hamper business operations and might even cause losses. The situation gets even trickier when you cannot even figure out where the issue lies. Additionally, the system is most likely to bun inefficient for handling rapid customer transactions. The best possible way out is to get a unified software solution like LS Retail a Retail management software India. It offers a set of tools required to manage a retail business. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail Implementation Partner. Contact us for a demo. 

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5 Retail Strategies to Gratify Customers in 2022

After such a crazy year where new challenges sprung and never spared a single industry, we are finally on the verge of 2021. With a new year comes new challenges, and businesses need to adapt to stay prepared already. With a unified technology like LS Central Software Solution, retailers can get a smooth pass-through challenging time.   In today’s scenarios where you can expect anything uncertain happening suddenly, retailers may bump into various Obstacles in 2022, such as:   Keeping up with rising customers, where customers expect smoother and customized services.   Difficulty in finding the right technology for your business.   Losing loyal customers to the competition.   Keeping up with labor shortage and optimizing existing staff’s efficiency.   Difficult internal communication among different departments for e.g., difficulty in communicating the inventory requirement to the warehouse management.   Poor decision-making due to lack of demand forecasting which later leads to overstocking and understocking.   There is a motto in any business “Customer is the king” while keeping them on a pedestal. The customer must be satisfied with a service, or else they may jump to the other brand in a heartbeat. With customers being so moody and becoming high maintenance, retailers need similar technology to keep up with the same.   Keep Customers Satisfied in 2022   The year 2022 brings new challenges as well as new opportunities: a fresh chance to satisfy customers. We have compiled five strategies to keep your customers intact with contentment.   Contactless Payment   Omnichannel experience  Personalized promotions, deals, and offers.   Self-Checkouts  Staff Efficiency Optimization   Allow Contactless Payments  These days, hygiene has become an even bigger requirement. Contactless payment options not only deliver more convenience but also help comply with the social distancing norms. Contactless payment includes anything other than cash, be it debit, credit, UPI, etc. Allowing mobile payments and Wireless payment options adds to customer ease.   Deliver an Omnichannel Experience   Customers these days have become highly unpredictable and moody, demanding smoother ordering and payment options. They incline more towards the brands that can offer enough flexibility to place orders and make payments anytime, anywhere. Let the customer connect your business through various touchpoints like apps, websites, third-party applications, and so on. This way, you can reach more customers who have limited access to either of those platforms. Additionally, unifying all channels also cuts complexities and streamlines the entire journey for the retailer as well.   Offer Personalized Promotions, Deals, and Offers   Different customers feel differently about a product. You have to understand this algorithm and offer personalized promotions, deals, and offers. Seek a powerful AI-based technology for this i.e., a technology that keeps tabs on every customer transaction and understands their habits, spending patterns, likes, dislikes, and other relevant data to make customized deals and offers.   Everyone loves surprises: you can also offer a surprise basket consisting of your new launches or a basket full of a combination of products at an attractive price. This strategy is helpful in reaching your customer’s heart since you make them feel special and belonged, they connect emotionally to your brand, and may even refer your store to others.   Bust Long Queues and Allow Self-Checkouts   With technology advancing rapidly, customers’ patience is dropping at a significant rate. Making them stand in long queues can be a risky affair. Thus, retailers have no choice but to deal with it smartly. Allowing self-check-out options ensures speedy transactions and free floor space. This feature is especially important during the festive season, where retailers are packed with a massive crowd. Some customers would rather drop everything as it is at the store, and leave as soon as their patience runs out. It is a risky situation where the only person benefiting is your competitor.   Optimize your Staff Efficiency  Reinforcing your staff with the efficiency of optimizing equipment like a Cloud POS solution can help provide greater customer satisfaction. If a customer has a tough time finding a product, one of your staff members can quickly locate it via his mobile device. With a POS, your staff can communicate with different departments more efficiently while cutting the computing time. Inventory can be stocked at the store already before running out. Moreover, maximizing your staff efficiency can bridge the gap between labor shortage and your business.   A unified software solution like LS Retail Software Solutions can work like magic. Being backed with an AI-Based technology, you can track customer behavior, create personalized deals, and offers, forecast demand, and manage inventory better. A cloud-based POS enables a 360-degree inventory view. If you are looking for LS Retail implementation, contact Trident Information Systems, we are a LS Retail Gold Partner, backed up with more than 150 technical resources. 

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How to Cut Costs Using Unified Restaurant Management Software?

In an industry that is dynamic as well as low margin, it is important to track your food costs. Various restaurants suffer food wastage because of a lack of proper technology and proper cost-cutting techniques.   As the restaurants get struck by the massive competition, limited seating, and rising price of the ingredients, they need to optimize ingredient usage, buying, and cutting wastage.   An ideal Restaurant Management Software helps manage raw ingredients, spillage, menu prices, and food wastage while assisting the ways to minimize wastage. LS Retail is one such software that delivers a comprehensive set of tools and functionalities to help entrepreneurs run their business optimally while minimizing waste.   In the food and beverages industry, food costs are a major expense. An excellent restaurant management software like LS Retail helps you connect sales, inventory, and kitchen within the same platform while delivering everything you need in a unified manner.   Such a platform delivers complete transparency over your inventory and synchronizes inventory to recipe management. You will automatically receive notifications when you need to add a new inventory while subtracting the items already exhausted. Some software offers enough flexibility to adjust inventory on phones to remove some items that fall from the jar, spoiled meat, rotten vegetables, and so on.   Manage warehouse inventory like a piece of cake with automatic inventory tracking. Track where your inventory is headed. Check if the space is properly optimized so you can adjust more of it in there. Keep the environment favorable to increase the durability of your items. Apart from this, other ways help you cut food costs.   Manage Your Yield   An ideal yield management software enables you to know the actual yield of an ingredient; how much of the total ingredient is being used. For Instance, if you need 5 kg of meat to cook a dish, not the whole 5 kg is going to be used, the bones might get discarded in the process. Yield management computes the exact quantity of the stock that will be used and based on the same, it updates the inventory. It further eliminates the risk of over-ordering or under-ordering while reducing restaurant costs.   Keep Tabs on the Variations  Variance is another essential aspect that plays a massive role in cost-cutting. An ideal restaurant management system can make it easier for you. The variance is the difference between the actual ingredients consumers versus the ideal food costs. A variation of 3-5% is acceptable. However, any variation above that is a matter of concern. To cut food costs, regular variance monitoring is necessary. You can identify the source of high food costs while bringing down the overall restaurant costs.   Standardize Recipe and Cut Waste    Having a restaurant management system that standardizes your recipes can help you manage costs. How? The recipe management system records every ingredient and the right amount to prepare a dish. While preparing a meal, the chef already has the recipe available with the right amount of each ingredient. Hence, it reduces the chances of errors.   It is one of the most key features because several times your chef might mix up a few wrong ingredients, now the dish cannot be served, resulting in discarding the whole dish and adding to the restaurant costs.   Reduce Pressure While Cutting Labor Cost  Labor costs are one of the major costs in a restaurant. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor them. Of Course, hiring them is a time-consuming process. However, retaining them is not something restaurants have mastered so far. Managing labor is a costly and time-consuming affair. The enormous industrial pressure drives them to switch jobs. One of the easiest methods to retain your staff is to adopt robust restaurant management software that automates manual tasks and reduces pressure while letting your staff work with greater efficiency.   Hand-over Monotonous to Automation  Billing has always been a labor-intensive and monotonous task. However, now the time has changed since a restaurant management system can automate the billing process. Not just this, it also integrates the back office to the front under the same platform while streamlining complex tasks. You no longer must look for someone who is trained to manage these tasks.   Apart from billing, a KDS reduces your dependency on manual labor. It ensures that when a server receives an order, it is displayed on the right kitchen screen. Apart from this, when there are changes in the order, it also flashes on the screen right away. Therefore, ensuring low dependency on manual labor.   LS Retail is a unified Restaurant Management Software that delivers a comprehensive set of restaurant management tools under one umbrella. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail and Microsoft Partner and has served various business ventures of distinct levels. For further information, contact us.  

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5 Restaurant Technology You Need to Know.

The time is evolving, and so are the expectations of customers with the restaurants. Times are gone when customers are liable to commute to the restaurant in order to get their favorite meals. They want to eat wherever and however they want. In addition, with technological advancements, they expect faster services and complete attention from the staff at the same time.   Research has shown during the pandemic that the food home delivery ratio increased to a certain level, and this was the factor through which restaurants could manage to survive. Usage of third-party food delivery applications like Swiggy, Zomato, and so on grew significantly. Technology played a vital role in restaurant survival.   Now, the customer can enjoy food wherever and however they want. They can now make changes to their order without having to ask a staff member. For instance, they can tell them to add more cheese to the pizza or ask for extra ketchup right there and then without a server. In some reports, we discovered that people would pay more to add Ons when they have a self-service facility available.   As technology has evolved so much, there is still room for growth. To meet customer preferences and not to mention to evolve, restaurants need to invest more in further technological advancements. This way, they can focus more on what they love: creating delicious meals and delicacies and unforgettable experiences. We have compiled a list of restaurant technologies that restaurants must be aware of.   Online POS  An Online POS system or a Cloud-based POS system is more than billing software. It is more advanced and delivers more features than the traditional one. Older POS were merely used to collect bills online and offline separately. However, the scenarios have changed, and modern POS can collect bills, take orders, track inventory, and integrate the front office with the back. Everything is saved on the cloud so there is no risk of data loss. Even if there is no internet, the transactions are recorded offline and saved on the cloud as soon as they are connected to the net.   Apart from this, a cloud-based POS records customer transactions from different channels which can later be utilized to create deals and plans for the customers. According to some reports, about 61% of businesses want their next POS to be cloud-based. Some of the reasons include its cost-effectiveness and scalability. Online POS can be availed of a monthly subscription. Therefore, ditching the need to invest in high upfront costs. It does not even need hardware and is quick to deploy.   Artificial Intelligence (AI)  Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human processes by machines, specifically computer systems. This technology can process even the natural language, collect data, and make sense from a vast amount of data. In the case of restaurants, there are many applications powered by AI such as:   Chatbots: chatbots are designed to understand speech patterns and have relevant conversations through which customers can book a table or order food online. Platforms like- official websites and social media platforms can be used.   Predictive Ordering: this feature analyses your restaurant’s previous orders and revenue and forecasts future needs while helping you avoid over-stocking or under-stocking.   Staff Scheduling: scheduling and staffing solutions help you schedule staff optimally.   AI is the heart of businesses which helps them grow and evolve exponentially. Therefore, allowing restaurants to elevate their service standards.   Kitchen Display System (KDI)   A Kitchen Display System (KDI) is designed to replace your traditional paper ticket and kitchen printers. The job is not done here, there are a lot more things it offers. As soon as a customer place an order, it flashes straight on the accurate kitchen counter. If guests want to make changes or wish to have add Ons they may address them straight away while notifying the chef.   There is a function called recipe viewer, which enables chefs to follow a specific recipe and avoid wastage. A recipe viewer will also cut costs on training and call attention to nutrition and allergy information.   Business Intelligence (BI)  Business Intelligence optimized AI to compile, integrate and analyze business data, turning it into a single vision truth while driving more logical decisions. Business Intelligence and analytics solutions have been used to increase business efficiency, and their effectiveness is not new to restaurants.   With this technology, restaurants can place suitable lunch meals in the relevant areas or provide reports on the breakfast items making the most profit each week. Restaurant owners can also identify if the crowd in a location would like to see stand-up comedy during dinner. Having these kinds of data at hand helps make more logical decisions and    Contactless Payments and Self Ordering Devices  Restaurants need forms of payments that require little or no contact with shared surfaces. For instance, mobile wallets, biometric authentication payments, credit cards, debit cards. Contactless payments are much safer, especially in this era where social distancing has become one of the necessities.   Similarly, self-ordering devices vitally helped cope with the pandemic. They enable customers to make their orders without a server in the restaurant kitchen. Customers can either use self-serving kiosks, tablets on the table side, or even their mobile phones.   Internet of Things (IoT)  Internet of things refers to all the items and devices that are designed to connect to the internet and each other to transmit data. For instance, connected kitchen appliances like ovens, freezers, and deep fryers upload their status automatically to the cloud ensuring seamless operational flow and regulatory compliance.   With IoT, managers do not have to go through each device and check their condition. Instead, they can simply go through the reports and see the presence of an issue and think of a resolution.    As time flies, the restaurant industry is rapidly changing. It needs to adopt technological advancements to fulfill customer demands and embrace better efficiency. LS Retail provides a suite of tools that ensure customer satisfaction as well as better business efficiency. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail Partner who has served multiple business ventures. Backed with a team of 150+ experts and two decades of experience, we deliver excellent software services. Contact us for further information.  

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