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Why Good After Sales Services Enhance your Customer Services & Sales Both

Retail POS Solution /

Your job is not done as soon as you sell a product. In contrast, it starts from there! Many businesses use after-sales services as an effective promotional tool. This way, they can gain customer trust and drive the spread of word of mouth. Many organizations optimize after-sales services to build stronger bonds with their customers while encouraging them to come hopping back to you.   After-sales services start right when you sell a product, it includes what you do at the Point of Sale and how you follow up with your customers afterward. Repairing products on warranty or an easy product return policy are some extended services. There are many ways you can upgrade these services:   Allow Seamless Payment Mediums: Nobody likes to stand in long queues. Instead, people demand faster transactions. A cloud-based POS can help streamline the operation while ensuring customer satisfaction. They can even help themselves with payments if no store staff is available to help them out.   Get in Touch with Your Customers After 1-2 Weeks: Contacting your customers after 1-2 Weeks post-sales can give you some essential feedback you can use to enhance your overall services. Ask how their experience was with these services and how they would rate it. Apart from this, it helps generate a stronger relationship between a company and its clients. They feel being recognized and build more confidence in the services.   Maintain Communications: Keep in regular touch with customers through newsletters, articles, videos, webinars, and guides. Keep them updated about your new product or service launch. If you give them every information they need, they are not likely to fall for your competitions.    Personalize Notifications: If you feel your customer is satisfied with your products or services and other sales are happening soon, you can send them personalized emails or messages informing them about the same. Additionally, you can personally suggest what they can get out of it.   Ask for Recommendations: Ask your customers for their recommendations. Let them explain what else they expect from your business and what features are just not for them. Let them share their ideas of ideal services and, if possible, customize the same for them. This is one of the methods to make your customers feel recognized. Apart from collecting customer data like this, you can also use AI-based technology like LS Retail that extracts data from various sources and presents reports on customers’ activities and preferences. This is a much easier and more accurate method.   How After-Sales Services Enhance Your Business  After-sales services are one of the most important aspects of a business. They define what your business is, and how seriously you take your customers. This is what makes or breaks your business. If done right, and implemented the correct strategies, it can ensure the following benefits:   Overall Product/Service Improvement  Referral Promotion  Sales Enhancement   Loyal Customer   Improves your Services/Products   Getting essential feedback from customers on your product can address where you lack. Pay attention to it and enhance your overall services. You can also introduce new services complementing the old ones or custom make packages for classified customers. This way, you can keep innovating and evolving. ERP Solutions like LS Retail sets a platform where your business has comprehensively made reports driving better decisions. Apart from this, your constant improvement depicts your business receptivity. Expressing your customers how your business could improve due to their valuable feedback generates a sense of recognition while subconsciously binding them to your company.    Boosts Referral Promotion   A happy customer recommends a service to their family and friends. It has been observed that people tend to believe Word of Mouth more than any promotional measure. You do not even have to spend a thousand dollars on other promotional techniques when all you have to do is keep your customers happy and let them do the rest for you. This is where the power of multiplication shows up. People also tend to post about products and services on their social media for free exposing you to a greater set of audiences.   Enhances Sales   Improved services plus referral promotions are equal to sales boost. Marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart provide seamless after-sales services. From allowing a variety of payment methods (debit, credit, cash, GPay) to replacing or returning a product to dealing with customer grievances it supports everything. A unified solution like LS Retail handles every aspect of after-sales services, integrates multiple tasks, and saves time while enhancing sales.   Builds a Stronger Bond with Customers  Good after-sales services make customers feel cared for while developing good relationships. Tracking customer activities and classifying them in diverse groups for suitable deals ensures a sense of belongingness and warmth among customers. Emotions are what drive people to purchase more than their needs. Hence, maintaining an emotional touch with customers ensures their loyalty. There are various methods to collect their data. However, the easiest way is to get an AI-based technology like LS Retail to automatically extract data from various sources and turn them into actionable reports depicting customer behavior and preferences.    After-sales services are an effective marketing tool. Apart from boosting sales and building customers’ confidence, it ensures a healthy bond between a business and the customer. There are certain services like the one LS Retail offers, which takes care of all the after-sales services. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail Partner who has served various businesses so far. For further information or queries, contact us.  

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How do Successful Loyalty Programs Help in Increasing Sales and Drives Customer Behavior?

Retail POS Solution /

Did you know if you manage to boost your customer engagement rate by as low as 5%, your profit can increase up to 60%? Loyalty programs are a great measure to increase customer engagement from both existing and new customers.   Loyalty programs deliver tremendous benefits to a business, they make the customers feel being cared for, recognized, and valued. Why wouldn’t anyone want to come back to you if you make them feel special? Apart from financial, these programs proffer non-financial benefits as well.   Note that not just any loyalty programs will provide the same benefits, you need to carefully hold research, track customer behavior, understand their spending pattern, and generate customer driving strategies. A unified ERP software like LS Retail can help create loyalty programs like a piece of cake. Essential data is automatically generated in the form of dashboards, providing a single vision of truth. Therefore, driving customer behavior and boosting sales.   Why is Customer Loyalty so Important?  Research has shown that 80% of your business comes from your loyal 20% of customers. An effective loyalty program can ensure repeat business from 47% of your customers. Amazing eye-catching deals can drive a good sum of customers back to your business.   Most people believe that brands should offer loyalty programs while 60% of internet users address ‘earning rewards’ as one of the most valued aspects of a retail shopping experience. It is best to use software that helps create loyalty programs like LS Retail, where customers can earn loyalty points and redeem them in your retail store and its respective chains. You can create different schemes and set rules on how to collect and spend points.  Apart from this it can help segment different customers based on their spending patterns, choices, and habits. It also keeps track of the vouchers and offers that are redeemed or on stand-by.   How Effective Loyalty Programs Help Boosting Customer Sales?  An effective loyalty program can do wonders for your business, boost sales and connect with the customers emotionally. Nothing is more effective than a loyalty program based on a customer’s desires, spending pattern, behavior, and similar factors. Research has shown that people’s emotions drive them to purchase more than their needs. Given below are its amazing benefits:   Greater ROI   It is costlier to acquire new customers than to retain the existing ones. Paying for different forms of promotions can add up to the marketing costs significantly. Additionally, 50% of your existing customers are more likely to spend more on your new product. Hence, providing a higher ROI.   Stay Ahead of the Competition  Shoppers tend to go through a hundred brands before buying a product in a few clicks keeping the product in mind more than the store. It might drive a few businesses like yours to the bottom, putting larger stores like Amazon at the top.   Loyalty programs can change your game while not relying on the pricing alone. Since buyers tend to spend more based on their emotions than their requirements, a loyalty program understands the customer and creates perfect schemes for them. It makes them feel special and connects them on an emotional level.   Understand your Customers   A loyalty program helps you understand your customers better, their preferences, and predict their behavior. With a loyalty program feature, you can effortlessly identify trends, micro-segments and anticipate demands. Upgrade your marketing campaigns keeping customer habits in mind. Plan your stock, mix-match products, and boost cross-selling and upselling. All the channels a customer uses to access your business can store their data, process them, and turn them into insightful dashboards. Without proper customer insights, your business fails to create effective deals and offers.  New Customer Engagement   With a well-structured loyalty program, you can incentivize referrals, rewarding customers who bring new customers to your business. There is convincing evidence suggesting that referred customers are more profitable and loyal than non-referred customers ensuring more loyalty and low churn rates. 83% of customers show greater trust in personal referral than any other form of marketing. McKinsey’s study shows that referrals generate twice the sales of paid promotions.   Creates Brand Advocates  Loyalty programs not only encourage people to increase their engagement with your business but also promote it. According to some research, loyalty programs help boost referral promotion. People recommend a business to their friends and family members if they are happy with the loyalty schemes. Showing your customers how much you value them connects them emotionally and turns them into your brand advocates. Additionally, 86% of costumes engage with a brand by spreading the word.   Final Words   More customer engagement is the essence to boost sales. Ensure customer engagement with effective loyalty programs as it ensures a greater ROI, keeps you ahead in the competition, understands your customers, engages new customers, and creates brand advocates. ERP software services like LS Retail integrate all the channels and extract customer details which later help in making effective loyalty programs. Trident Information systems is a Gold Partner of LS Retail and has served various businesses so far. For further queries or a demonstration contact us.  

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Retailers are Seeing Scary Supply Chain Ahead of Festive Season

Retail ERP Software /

Festive season drives a boost of business and stress altogether, challenging retailers at every step. Retail ERP Software can assist through this period brilliantly. Being able to stand strong and manage everything effectively, complying with the right strategies, getting retailers maximum profit, greater customer in-flow, and goodwill as a reward.   The festive season commences post-monsoon. In a span of 4 months, it mounts tremendous pressure on the retailers. Consecutive occurrences of multiple festivals drive different sets of consumers to buy assorted products or services. There is a high chance they would demand a mix-match of a few products. Additionally, the bid on a combination of regular consumption and gift factor adds to the complexity. It is always better to opt for Retail Management Software, as it ensures all the necessary tools required to get you through this frantic yet crucial period.   What Causes Supply Chain Hiccups?  The dazzling and cheerful festive season fetches various supply chain hiccups, turning jam-packed consumer seasons even tougher to deal with. Some major causes lead to supply chain hindrances:   Running low on inventory   Not having enough workforce   Low storage space   Last-mile fiction    Effectively Manage Supply Chain During the Festive Season   Working in silos can block ways to new opportunities, it delays operations and is prone to errors. Make sure you adopt Supply Chain Management Services like Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail Industry. You can make better replenishment strategies, plan loyalty programs, boost upsell and cross-selling, and much more.   Smartly Replenish Inventory   Replenishment strategies play a crucial part during the festive seasons. Poor replenishment can make this festive season a lot more stressful. Failing to find the desired product can lead your customers to approach your competition. You need technology that tracks your previous sales and patterns to help you make replenishment strategies. Working in silos will only make things worse. During high traffic, you need things to work faster and smoother, which is only possible with a Retail ERP Software such as Microsoft Dynamics 365.   Forecast Demand and Plan Wisely   It would be extremely helpful if you could successfully forecast customer demand during this festive season and stock just the right products. Apart from meeting daunting customer demands, it saves you from wastage and embarrassment. Analyze your previous sales, trends, and correlations to understand what people are demanding. Artificial Intelligence can provide tremendous assistance. You can easily pick an algorithm that matches your sales pattern the best and predict future sales demand on various levels. You can easily identify which product has the highest probability of being sold.   Read Customers and Offer Special Deals  During this heavy customer current, you are most likely to hook a good sale with smart strategies. Scan through their past purchase and spending patterns and identify which product they are most likely to purchase. Classify customers into different sets and plan offers for each set. Identify customer demands and encourage cross-selling. Offer discounts on the right products. Distribute coupons they can redeem later in the same or the other retail chains of yours.  Refill Stocks as Soon as You Can  All your efforts go in vain if your customers fail to find the desired products without delay. Going out-of-stock not only upsets your customers but causes a lot of embarrassment to you too. Track your inventory to stay updated as soon as you run out of stock. Inventory management tools such as the one Microsoft or LS retail offers can help you keep track of inventory and ensure prompt refilling. It is better to have your inventory data at hand, if you can get it on your mobile, even better. This way the updates reach faster to you.   Avoid Multiple Integrations   Having your data stored within different platforms can add to the complexities. Having to draw data from different software is more time-consuming and prone to errors. Similarly working in silos can do more harm than good during this opt for a unified solution like Microsoft Supply Chain Management. It is one of the Best ERP for Retail delivering a comprehensive supply chain suite – from Inventory Management to back office, everything packed within the same technological environment. Ensure free flow of communication throughout all the departments and deliver inventory requirements fast.   Final Words   Get ready for a business boom in this festive season. Ensure better Inventory Management and Replenishment with Retail ERP Software like Microsoft. Smartly replenish inventory, forecast demand and plan wisely, offer exclusive deals to your customers, and so on. Trident Information Systems is a Microsoft Gold Partner who has been serving various businesses for over two decades. For further information contact us.  

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Bust Queues and Boost Sales during the Festive Season with M-POS

Retail POS Solution /

Haven’t you prepared for the festive season yet? Don’t take too long. Grab a POS Software Solution and bust those long queues annoying your customers! Mobile POS is a boon, especially during these overwhelming periods. Be it a restaurant or a retail business, a POS supporting mobile devices can change the game.   Research has shown that restaurants and retail stores using M-POS could make more sales than those sticking to old traditional mediums.   Working in silos can actually make you lose track of your sales, or even worse, you may lose customers to your competition.   Managing an overwhelming flow of customers is not easy, especially with old methods and limited staff. People these days are becoming even more impatient. Hence, they demand immediate attention. Failing to do so can deprive you of new sales.   Nobody likes long queues. Customers won’t hesitate to leave your store/ restaurant/ food chain without making any purchases.    Why M-POS Over Traditional POS?   While a traditional POS system works well with accepting all sorts of cards, it does have a fair share of its disadvantages. From being bulky to being fixed at a corner, it does consist of unnecessary complications. Mobile POS Software Solution. However, on the other hand, it is a cleverer alternative.   Mobile POS:    You can accept payments on the go with M-POS   It doesn’t need high-end technological knowledge You can carry it anywhere with you.   Can be connected via Bluetooth to make faster and more secure transactions   It is easy to maintain and has automatic settlements and integration capabilities.   Traditional POS:   Traditional POS can have greater installation costs.   Being bulky, it is fixed at a place.   Delivers less flexibility than a Mobile POS.   How does M-POS Help to Boost Sales?   Mobile POS for Restaurants or retail is a smarter alternative for the traditional POS system. It is simple to get it running. All you must do is select a POS Service Provider, download the application, connect your card reader to your mobile device, and you are good to go. Mobile POS systems generally work on Wi-Fi. However, LS Retail ensures continuity of transactions even with no internet access.   Encourages Self-Ordering and Self-Checkouts   During the festive season, where each member of staff is overloaded, customers demand faster and secure checkout mediums. Self-ordering and self-checkout can get it right. Allow customers to place orders and make customization independently, followed by check-out at the end. This allows your staff to be more efficient in their current tasks and empower customers simultaneously. Customers won’t skip a beat before leaving your store without snapping up a product. Hence a Mobile POS for Retail ensures flexible sales and seamless transactions.   Ensures Vibrant Customer Services   One of the greatest benefits of M-POS is its flexibility and this is where it outshines traditional POS systems. During festive seasons, customers expect cheerful and vibrant service even if the staff is busy. With M-POS you can reduce waiting times and even cut lines. This way your customers are bound to stick to your business. Whether you run a restaurant or a retail shop, you still have enough potential to treat customers vibrantly. Moreover, you have a personalized report on each customer, through which you can suggest products that might draw them.    Offer Special Deals and Discounts   Offering exceptional deals and discounts is one of the most common methods to boost sales during the festive season. However, if not done properly, you might end up losing potential sales otherwise. A suitable M-POS reads each customer’s preferences, purchasing patterns and customizes deals for classified groups or individual customers. It gets even easier to categorize products to be out on the sale. Considering current market demands, you can impose different discounts on various products. Offer gift cards, buy-one-get-one-free     Continuity of Transactions Even with No Internet    Not all POS Software Solution providers offer this feature. Some of them, like LS Retail, ensure continuity of transactions even with no internet access. Considering how overwhelming festive seasons can get and don’t spare enough time to breathe, let alone rest, internet connection loss can jeopardize prospect sales. Hence, it is recommended to have a backup that ensures continuity of sales.   Resolves Customer Queries Instantly    With a massive in-flow of customers, each with different demands and needs, they have different service requirements. Since humans are not designed to retain everything all the time, they need technological assistance too. A Mobile POS for Retail consists of the product details stored in. So, when a customer asks about a product’s price or other information, they can easily look it up on their assigned device and help them accordingly. This ensures faster transactions and minimizes customer traffic congestion. With increased efficiency, your staff can welcome and greet customers better, followed by more expeditious assistance.   Identifies Valuable Customers    Every business has a set of customers providing them with more business than the rest. A Mobile POS scans through each customer and their purchasing history. It also identifies customers making more sales than the rest. During the festive season, such customers deserve special treatment. Lavish them with offers they deserve. It not only makes such shoppers feel valued but encourages other consumers to make more purchases.   M-POS can have a massive impact on your sales during this festive season. With faster transactions and more efficient customer services, expect tremendous referral promotion. Some M-POS Software Solution Providers even assure transactional continuity even with no internet access like LS Retail. Create loyalty programs based on precise, actionable reports and ensure vibrant customer services. Trident Information Systems is a Gold Partner of LS Retail and Microsoft. For further queries contact us.  

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Why it makes sense to move your retail management software to the cloud

Uncategorized /

As a successful retailer, chances are you are already running some of your IT functions in the cloud. That’s smart. The next logical step is to move your entire retail management system to the cloud, and go from the on-premises version to its software as a service (SaaS) one. But even if you know that the cloud is experiencing exponential growth, and that you will, one day, take the leap, you may be hesitant to do it now. Perhaps you are afraid you’re not ready for the change. Perhaps you have security concerns. Maybe you can’t clearly identify which practical, day-to-day benefits you’d get from moving to the cloud. Whichever your reasons, you want the best for your business, and you care about staying competitive. You want to make the right decision, and employ technology that will propel you forward today and tomorrow. While you are debating whether the cloud is for you, here are 8 good reasons why you should consider migrating your system. 1. Stay up to date, automatically With traditional on-premises software, businesses are responsible of keeping their hardware and software up to date. In order to stay current (and safe), they’d need to purchase new hardware every few years, and to update their software every few months. But in reality, retailers usually have more pressing concerns than keeping track of the latest software patch or upgrade. And if the company is using multiple software solutions and there are integrations in place, a system upgrade can become a costly and lengthy project. As a result, many companies end up with outdated IT environments that work, but don’t really support the business, and may even hinder it. In the worst cases, this old tech might reduce the company’s ability to grow and take on new projects, or stay on top of consumer demands. When you are using SaaS in the cloud, all these concerns belong to the past. You don’t need to worry about periodic maintenance, or to budget for expensive and complicated software upgrades. Instead, your supplier takes care of updating your software regularly. And if you have configured your add-ons correctly, you can maintain all your extensions, and even your configurations. SaaS software guarantees that you are always, automatically, on the latest version, and can use all the new functionality that comes with it. 2. Enhance productivity with intelligence One of the biggest advantages of the cloud is the advanced computational power it offers. Tasks that until yesterday were too complex for even the most powerful computer, for example predicting future sales patterns, are now within reach of any retailer. Businesses can run their data into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) powered tools available in the cloud, and without having to pay for extra servers or data scientists, they can get the answers they need, with minimal effort, very rapidly, and at a fraction of the cost than comparable on-prem technology. There is a wide variety of AI tools available in the cloud, giving businesses infinite possibilities to improve their effectiveness and productivity. AI can also help make smarter decisions, and deliver more personalized, to the point customer service. Would you like to send personalized promotions and special deals to your customers based on their shopping history and specific tastes? Are you thinking about adding a chatbot or virtual agent as a first-line customer support? Or perhaps you’d like to offer intelligent search on your e-commerce site? When you run your software in the cloud, all these initiatives are accessible to you, and can be started within a very short timeframe. But AI can do much more than help deliver bespoke customer experiences. You can use optimize your inventory with advanced forecasting that can factor seasonality, promotions, trends, and product substitutes and complements into your forecasts. You can refine your hiring practices with intelligent talent acquisition solutions. You can simplify searches across your catalog for both staff and customers using AI-powered accurate product tagging applied to images. When you infuse your business with intelligence, you also make it more proactive, agile, and profitable. 3. Guarantee business continuity with a reliable infrastructure With traditional in-house IT setups, businesses are at constant risk of downtimes and failures. On-site servers can’t usually guarantee a consistent performance, and if a key piece of your hardware breaks down, you may be left unable to serve customers or close sales – and could even risk losing your business data. As regards reliability, a traditional infrastructure usually necessitates a disaster recovery plan, requiring you to build redundancy, carefully monitor conditions, having dual firewalls and more – in short, you need to budget for time-consuming, expensive, complex monitoring. Switch to SaaS software, and you can step away from all of these problems. Even if you experience a hardware failure – say your computers or servers break down – you won’t lose your data, as it is safely stored in the cloud and can be accessed when and as you need to. The cloud also guarantees higher reliability. Large cloud services like Microsoft Azure, with expansive resources and entire dedicated teams, have already built in redundancy, from failover hardware to datacenters located across the world. As a result, Azure, the service where the cloud-based version of LS Central resides, can guarantee 99,995% uptime, and top security features.  4. Respond quickly to changing market conditions You know how important speed of action is in the retail industry. Yet, traditional IT environments are all but agile: even a project as simple as adding new servers or applications can be very time consuming. First, your IT staff needs time to procure the hardware or software that will fit within the current infrastructure. Then they have to set it up and test it, and finally, they’ll have to go through implementing it. In the past, this process was the only way to implement change. Today, this is an outdated and ineffective way of operating – especially when the businesses you are competing against are agile and unburdened by traditional infrastructure, such as e-commerce players. To stay

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Why your restaurant needs intelligent analytics according to a CIO

Restaurant Management ERP, Retail ERP Software, Uncategorized /

What opportunities is your restaurant missing out on just because you are afraid of change? The past few months have shown us that businesses cannot continue operating with their old models. During times of disruption and uncertainty, speed and agility become necessary for survival. Restaurants have discovered that they need to be able to adopt new models of food delivery, quickly. They must be able to make staffing changes at the last minute. To substitute ingredients and dishes depending on what’s available. To calculate costs and optimize purchasing, factoring in limited seating, reduced opening hours, and shifting consumer habits. Traditional technology can’t support these levels of agility. Restaurants need to start their digital transformation, quickly, and they need to focus on building intelligence into the business. According to a study by IDC, companies that center their digital transformation on intelligent technology improve their productivity, drive cost efficiencies, and have 8 times the revenue and twice the profitability as non-digitally transformed enterprises. 6 practical benefits of analytics in your restaurant business With the new generation of intelligent analytics, businesses don’t need a team of data scientists to gain insights and wade through data. Cloud-based intelligence-powered analytics is accessible to most restaurant businesses, and can provide tangible benefits. An Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered analytics and reporting software can enable businesses to: – Find meaningful patterns across vast amounts of data. Perhaps you’ll see that your mall location gets more customers when it rains, or that your downtown location sells more wine glasses, but fewer beers, when the main of the day is steak. – Optimize ingredient ordering. Historical consumption patterns can help you predict how much you’ll sell next week. The system can also help you calculate what you need to order. – Decrease waste. Once you figure out that your portions of sauce are too big and mostly end up in the can, or that selling wines by the glass on weeknights ends up in a lot of waste, you can take steps to cut your losses. – Optimize stock usage and distribution. At some point, it might make business sense to move the content of your freezers from a location in a mall that is seeing low foot traffic to one that is still doing good business. – Engineer the right menu. Are there any unpopular dishes on your menu that are costly, or complex to produce? Are your most popular dishes providing you with healthy margins? Could you do more to sell your highest-revenue dishes? An analytics software can help you make design a menu that is better aligned to your guests’ tastes while also giving you more in return. – Simplify staffing. An analytics software can help you see whether you have too many or too few staff members working in a location at a specific time, making better use of their time and of your resources. “There’s a value in being prepared for the future. Even if a technology may not drive clear returns today, if it puts you in a position to be able to respond to changes, then it’s worth it.” Leon DeWet Former restaurant CIO 4 tips from a restaurant CIO Leon DeWet is a former restaurant CIO, and a strong believer in the power of analytics. DeWet was a CIO in restaurant chains the likes of Cracker Barrel and O’Charley’s for 28 years. During his time in the industry, he saw technology transform both the restaurant business and consumer behavior. He saw trends, short-lived fads, and at times, truly revolutionary technology. Analytics, in his opinion, belongs to the last category. DeWet shared with us four tips for restaurant executives who want to make the most out of intelligent analytics and reporting. 1. Find the small drivers of benefits “Analytics can be a powerful tool to find the small changes in behavior, or in processes, that can drive huge benefits. While you still need to keep your eye on traditional big drivers, like the number of labor hours you’re spending or the number of guests, if you can, dig deeper to find out what is driving those numbers. Why those small changes can you see taking place? How do you influence them? How do you shift them? Looking at these details can have a big impact on the bottom line.” 2. Adjust your metrics to a changed reality “Don’t be blinded by what have historically been deemed ‘key metrics’ within the organization. Take, for ex, table turns. How fast you can turn a table only matters if you have guests to fill that table. Perhaps, if there are few customers you should rather focus on selling more to who’s already at the table. Look at what’s happening in your business before you decide which metrics to focus on, keeping in mind some metrics might make sense in some parts of the day, but not at other times.” 3. Use analytics to predict, not just describe “Too many restaurants are still too focused on using analytics in a reactive way. They look at the historical data to try and understand what has happened. Instead, I think that the true value of analytics lies in their ability to help prepare for the future. Where is the business going to go? How do I intersect it ahead of time? It’s important to also include external data, to intercept external behaviors that may have an impact on your business down the line. For example, if you see that the average miles driven by guests is going down, you need to stop, and understand what that is going to do to your customer base, what may have caused it, and how you can mitigate against it. Or if you are heading into hot and muggy weather, you should look how your sales and presences were affected in the past, and prepare. The AI can help you notice these kinds of trends and link them to other factors, so you can plan ahead.” 4. Think of technology as an investment in core infrastructure “I think we need to change our mindsets. An investment in technology is no different than investing in the latest

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Why physical stores are still vital for retail

Retail ERP Software /

During the Covid-19 pandemic, online became a fundamental channel for retailers. Even as overall retail spend decreased, eCommerce sales grew over the previous year. The impressive results may overshadow that eCommerce still represents just a small percentage of total retail sales: in the U.S., the number is as low as 14.5%, according to eMarketer data. This means that over 85% of retail still happens in physical stores, which makes a synergy between online and offline key to retail success in the near future. Here are eight reasons why you should still invest in your brick-and-mortar store locations. 1. People are more likely to buy a product when they’ve seen it in person. According to KPMG research, the top reason why consumers prefer to shop in physical stores is to see, experience and test products in person before buying them. Having a physical location where people can go and make sure that, yes, this paint is exactly the color I want, can dispel consumer doubts and help close a sale. Seeing things in person can, also, reduce the risk that a product will be returned because it’s not the right size/color/material. 2. Customers who pick up items in store buy extra stuff. Click and collect (also known as BOPIS, buying online and picking up in store) and curbside pickup are extremely popular both with customers and retailers. Compared to home delivery, pickup can be more convenient for customers, as it enables them to get their purchases when they want, without having to wait for a courier at home. For retailers, in-store pickup offers plenty of benefits: it’s cheaper than delivery, it brings shoppers through the doors, and it can lead to bigger baskets. According to Forrester research, 30% to 40% of consumers using click and collect buy additional items when they get into the store. 3. Physical stores can reduce the cost of returns. Items bought in physical stores are less likely to be returned than products bought online. According to David Sobie, co-founder and CEO of Happy Returns, “shoppers return 5-10% of what they purchase in store but 15-40% of what they buy online.” Letting shoppers exchange or return in-store the items the bought online can also help reduce the cost of returns by removing shipping and transportation fees for the retailers. Consumers like it, too: according to NRF data, 80% of shoppers say they prefer to return products to a store than send it back. 4. High-quality, one-on-one customer service increases sales. Despite the popularity of online shopping, the human touch is still an important part of the retail experience. According to research for RetailEXPO, almost two out of three (64%) of shoppers say that knowledgeable sales associates make them more likely to visit a physical store, and three out of four (75%) of shoppers are likely to spend more after receiving high quality service from staff in-store.  5. The brand experience is still inherently physical. Retail is a highly competitive industry. While it can be hard to stand out online, a physical store gives you the chance to create an engaging brand experience. Showrooms and concept stores, for example, can enable retailers to immerse customers in their brand culture, creating lasting impressions. Designing an experience that has the right balance of safety, excitement and convenience is key – and can help differentiate your brand from the competition. 6. You can use stores as part of your supply chain. In omni-channel retail, logistic costs can spiral out of control, and erode margins significantly. Some retailers are realizing savings by using some or all of their physical stores as warehouses and fulfillment centers, to support and strengthen their supply chain. Transforming a store location in a so-called “dark store” can help reduce costs of inventory management and expand the reach across larger geographies by enabling faster, more effective distribution. 7. You get free market research on your customers’ preferences and habits. Fashion retailer ModCloth opened its first brick-and-mortar store after 13 years of selling online only. “We discovered small things, the details our customers love,” Matt Kaness, president and CEO at ModCloth, told USA Today. “They loved linings in dresses and skirts, and they loved pockets.” Although data collected from the online store can helps see trends, retailers can learn much about their customers just by watching them shop, interacting with the space and products. “From a market research standpoint, [a store] pays for itself. The amount of market research you gain just by observing people, it’s the equivalent of 100 focus groups,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, senior analyst with Forrester Research. 8. Physical stores bring greater traffic to your online store. Research from the International Council of Shopping Centers shows that when a retailer opens a new physical store location, traffic to their website increases by 37% the following quarter. According to L2’s report “Death of Pureplay Retail,” when retailers open new brick-and-mortar locations, the number of online mentions of the brand and online searches increase dramatically. This online buzz is accompanied by increased financial returns, L2 adds, making physical stores a good investment both in terms of popularity and profitability.   According to a survey from Harvard Business Review, shoppers who buy both online and in physical stores tend to spend more on average compared to those who interact with a business on only one channel. For retailers, this means that physical retail still has a central role to play in their business strategy. If you need help figuring out what tools you need to deliver fantastic omni-channel customer experiences, contact us. Our unified commerce solutions are world-renowned for connecting online with offline, and retailers with consumers. Note:  Blog reference : LS Retail Official Website

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Is outdated technology destroying your retail business? 9 red flags to look out for

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Your retail management system is at the heart of your business efficiency. It keeps your operations smooth, connects all parts of your business, and helps you deliver services and experiences that meet and go beyond your customers’ expectations. Still, many retailers operate on legacy IT. Often, these patched-together systems can’t sync information properly, are hard and costly to maintain don’t allow retailers to deliver the services that consumers demand. Although many retailers are afraid of the investment required by a new system, outdated tech may be already costing them more than a complete technology overhaul. Are you, like many retailers, losing competitiveness because of your outdated software systems? We have compiled a list of the top red flags you should look out for. If two or more of these points hit home, it’s time for a technology overhaul. You can’t accept product returns across channels Today’s consumers browse and shop on multiple channels, and they expect to be able to return purchases the way they like, too. According to a study by Forrester Research, consumers demand simple and easy returns, and the ability to return items bought online to brick-and-mortar store locations. “There are a lot of people who don’t even bother returning [products] because it’s such a pain, and when they don’t bother returning, they just don’t shop with you again,” says Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester.  Ask yourself: Does my current technology enable me to offer customers the abilty to buy online and return in-store? You can’t offer click and collect or curbside pickup Click and collect – also known as BOPIS, for Buy Online and Pick up In Store – is one of the most sought-after services by consumers. Curbside pickup has been around for a few years, but it surged in popularity during the pandemic. Both options are expected to remain in high demand with shoppers, as they bridge the gap between ecommerce and physical retail, and are both highly convenient and – when needed – contactless. Click and collect also holds benefits for retailers, as it has been shown to lead to larger shopping baskets as customers add unplanned items when they go pick up their purchases.  Ask yourself: Am I missing out on both sales and upselling opportunities by keeping my e-commerce and physical locations disconnected? You regularly oversell items In many retail chains, each store location runs on its own database, and the eCommerce website runs on another platform altogether. When information is saved in separate places, if the systems do not communicate with each other in real time, there is a very high chance you might sell an item on your eCommerce website even if the product is actually out of stock. At that point, you’ll have to inform the customer you can’t deliver the item they bought – losing the sale, and perhaps, the customer’s trust.  Ask yourself: Do I have out-of-sync, siloed information? Is inventory information updated too seldom, causing a stale view of inventory and overselling? You don’t give customers visibility into the inventory Consumers are increasingly taking purposeful shopping trips. Today, two out of three consumers check if the item they are looking for is available before they head out to shop, the IBM Institute for Business Value reports. If you don’t give visibility into what products are available in your stores, customers may not make the trip to your store at all. Yet, only around one third of retailers give customers access to accurate product availability across store locations, and 45% offer no access to inventory at all, according to data by Sapio Research. It’s not just consumers that don’t get the visibility they need. Less than 15% of retailers give their store associates effective inventory visibility across channels, according to BRP research. This means that sales staff can’t, for example, tell customers whether an item they desire is in stock in another store location, or instantly offer a suitable replacement. Ask yourself: Do I force shoppers to make the trip in person to find out if a product is available in my stores? Can my sales associates help consumers, looking up product availability in other locations? You waste a lot of time on manual tasks You’d be surprised at how much time is spent on doing manually tasks that could be digitized. EKN reports that two out of three retail professionals are still forced to spend time completing physical paperwork during store visits! All these physical documents must then be analyzed and transcribed, manually – leading to further waste of time and risk of errors. Crocodile International, one of our customers, told us that their accounting staff used to spend many hours at the end of each month to manually verify inventory figures against sales orders. They were forced to because of legacy systems that didn’t communicate with each other. The delayed transaction postings also made them unable to know exactly how much stock was available at a given time.  Ask yourself: Am I wasting a lot of man-hours with manual entering and double-checking of data? You can’t recognize customers across channels Today, the average shopping journey can begin with a customer seeing a new item on your Facebook page. They might then check out the item in one of your store locations, and buy it later on your eCommerce site. To engage customers, you need to be able to identify and follow them across the various channels and touchpoints they use. You must then share this information across your enterprise, and use it to create personalized interactions. Unfortunately, this is near impossible to achieve if, like many retailers, you manage each channel – perhaps each store – as a separate entity. Some companies don’t even have an integrated customer database, and valuable customer information like sales per client, payments, loyalty points, is stored in separate systems which don’t communicate with each other. The result? Duplicate information, incomplete and inconsistent records, and no clear view of who each consumer is, what they like, etc. When you don’t know your customers, you cannot design meaningful loyalty programs and rewards, deliver personalized recommendations, or offer relevant promotions. Ask yourself: Can I connect my customers’ data and use it to create personalized interactions? Or is

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Case Study: Africa Lifestyle Choose LS Retail Software and Trident as Implementation Partner

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Africa Lifestyle Limited operates retail stores in malls and airports across Ghana, Nigeria, and several other African countries. The company carries products from popular international fashion brands such as Levi’s Jeans, as well as a wide variety of cosmetic lines including Bobbi Brown, Estee Laude’s M.A.C., and L’Oreal’s Maybelline. Africa Lifestyle Limited is dedicated to establishing a world class retail platform to deliver quality apparel, accessory, and beauty brands to customers across West Africa.  The business case  Before switching to LS Retail software, Africa Lifestyle Limited faced numerous challenges. The company was using a software solution that wasn’t suited for their scale and couldn’t keep up with the ever-changing demands of the fashion industry. The fashion business demands the ability to launch new collections and product ranges in short amounts of time. With their previous system, this became complicated at every step of the process: in product development, planning, production, supply chain and fulfillment. Africa Lifestyle Limited says limitations of the system included:  The solution  Africa Lifestyle Limited evaluated multiple solutions, but none of them encompassed of all their desired features like LS Retail software. Africa Lifestyle Limited manages its financials at their office in the UAE, while operations are managed from India and Africa, and consolidation happens at their offices in Africa. The company was drawn to LS Retail for both the system functionality in the fashion industry and the ability to manage its business remotely, from offices in different time zones, with everyone in the business working on up-to-date business information.   Trident Information Systems, an LS Retail partner with consolidated experience in LS Retail software solutions, worked with Africa Lifestyle Limited on the implementation. They communicated across the company’s three different time zones and effectively coordinated with all the locations’ teams for a successful deployment. The teamwork meant the system was up and running within 3.5 months.  The company decided to run the system in the cloud, as that would better support their international structure. They opted to host the solution on Microsoft Azure, a setup that has been serving them well.   Benefits  After moving to LS Retail software, day-to-day operations in Africa Lifestyle Limited are much easier.   Satisfied with their new system and mindful of the future of their industry, Africa Lifestyle Limited is currently reviewing additional technology such as AI-powered recommendations, as well as new ways to deliver better experiences online and across the channels with virtual product catalogues and click and collect.

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Deliver faster, better service with self-checkout technology

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Self-checkout technology may be nothing new – but it’s hot news in retail. The global retail self-checkout market is expected to grow 10.3% year over year until 2024, Loss Prevention Media recently reported. The ideal technology for busy consumers This predicted growth isn’t surprising, if you consider some of the biggest consumer trends. 1. DIY Do-it-yourself has become the norm for today’s consumers. From self-scanning one’s bags at the airport, to booking massages, treatments and medical appointments online, to self-management of personal finances on phone apps, the tendency to DIY has spread to most facets of life. Across ages, genders and geographies, there seems to be a shared preference for figuring things out on one’s own. Not only: many would rather interact with machines than with people. A recent consumer survey by SOTI found that as many as 66% of shoppers prefer using self-service technology over having to ask a salesperson. McDonald’s recently decided to implement self-serve kiosks, machines where people can order their meal using a screen, in all its 14,000 U.S. locations. The QSR giant tested these machines in selected restaurants, and noticed that sales were consistently higher at the machines than at the manned tills. The reason? Apparently, people are more likely to supersize their portions when a (non-judgmental) machine, rather than a staff member, is taking the order. 2. Rushed lives Today’s consumers lead busy lives, and have no time to waste. They are used to getting what they want (from information to communications to products) instantly, with a click. And when they shop in-store, they expect to do it at their own pace. They may wish to take their time picking out items – but once they are done, they want to speed through checkout, and be on their way. According to a survey by Box Technologies and Intel in the UK, 90% of shoppers actively avoid stores with long queues. 70% even said they might not go back to a store with long lines! As self-checkout terminals tend to be more compact than traditional tills, shifting to this technology means retailers can replace one manned till with multiple self-checkouts. It’s a smart way to reduce lines without having to increase the retail space. “Even if shoppers can take longer to scan products than staff members, the retailers who have implemented this technology by LS Retail have been experiencing shorter lines, and seeing more transactions per hour per square meter,” says Hilmar Vilhjalmsson, Product Owner for the self-checkout systems at LS Retail. 3. Smaller hypermarket baskets Remember the days of the big Saturday shopping trip with the family? Forget them. They are gone. Across the globe, consumers drop by at the supermarket multiple times per week, and buy just a few items at a time. According to global research done by Dunnhumby, today more than 60% of hypermarket baskets contain six or fewer items. The tendency is visible across the globe: small basket visits in hypermarkets are predicted to increase 3% year over year in Asia, 7.5% in Europe, and 11% in Latin America. Smaller baskets are ideal for self-checkout machines, as these have been shown to deliver the highest time savings when baskets of 10 items or less. 4. Increasing cost of labor According to Wells Fargo, the three industries that are most affected by rising labor costs are healthcare, finance, and retail. To maintain a healthy revenue without increasing prices – which is not advisable in the era of Amazon – alternative solutions are needed. That’s where self-checkout machines come in. In a traditional setup, you need one employee per till, but with self-serve machines, one staff member can monitor several tills at once. That’s not all. With manned checkouts, one staff member must be at or by the till even if there are no customers – waiting, in case someone shows up. With self-checkouts in place, there’s no need to waste your employees’ time. He or she can use the off-peak hours to receive products, restock the shelves, or advise customers. And if anyone needs to check out quickly, the machine is always active. Overcoming misconceptions If self-serve machines fit so well with today’s consumer and market trends, why has their uptake been so slow? In the past few years, many retailers have expressed misgivings on self-service technology. Some of the most common concerns include: High cost of hardware. High cost and low usability of software. Shrinkage control. Different factors, from scanning the wrong product, to missing an item, to intentional theft, can lead to lost inventory. It has been argued (although inconclusively) that shrinkage is more frequent in self-checkout lanes. Concerns over user acceptance. Some retailers worry that their customers won’t want to use machines, because they are too complicated, or simply because they’d rather have an employee serve them and take care of their needs. Although these have, indeed, been challenges in the past, those times are now behind us. 1. Slashed hardware costs Until a few years ago, self-checkout required special hardware, which meant a high upfront investment. Today, this cost can easily be minimized. For example, one of the most expensive pieces of the hardware is the cash-handling part. The question is, do you need to implement self-checkout machines that also accept cash? Ten years ago, six out of ten transactions were cash. Today it’s three in ten, and the number is still decreasing, Forbes reports. A self-checkout till that only accepts card payments, paired with manned tills that take all sorts of payments, can be a cost-effective solution.If you don’t sell grocery, and therefore don’t need scales at the till, you have even more options for saving on hardware. For example, some IKEA stores in the Nordic and Baltic countries set up effective, low-cost self-checkout registers using a standard computer screen, a barcode scanner and a receipt printer, and IKEA furniture. That’s all! No special hardware – and actually, no special software, which takes us to our next point. 2. No extra software expenses (if you select the right system) The checkout system used in these IKEA stores doesn’t have a specific interface. As a matter of fact, it is not designed for self-service. The customers check out using

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