5 mistakes that are pulling your store down

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

When the business is not developing, there are two ways: blame the suppliers, employees, customers, the crisis, or see what non-obvious but critical mistakes you made in management. Today we will figure out why your retail store is not performing well and what to do to fix it.

In Russia, the annual retail turnover is over 27 trillion rubles. Retail is a traditional business. And many store owners do not even know how modern solutions help to increase profits, and therefore lose a lot of advantages. Think about what mistakes are preventing your business from growing.

You are not using new equipment

The most obvious example is a mobile terminal that accepts cards for payment. A couple of years ago, customers asked at the checkout if they could pay by card. And if there was no such opportunity, they took out cash. Now they don't ask the question, they just hold out the card.

Oddly enough, cash-only stores still exist. As a rule, not for long. First, they lose customers with cards. Secondly, they receive a blow to their reputation.

The second example is old equipment, for which you can be fined. In accordance with the amendments to the federal law "On the use of cash registers in the implementation of cash payments and (or) payments using payment cards" by 2018, almost all sellers and individual entrepreneurs must purchase cash equipment that will transmit information to the tax office through the Internet.

In both cases, everything is decided by purchasing new equipment. To buy a cash register with a good POS system, you need to shell out a rather large sum. But now there are products that allow you to use a fiscal registrar, bank terminal and even scales in combination with a tablet or laptop. These are cloud cash registers. You get all the features found in a complex machine, but for less money.

Such software solutions are also being developed in Russia. is a retail management system. It has a cash program, tools for controlling turnover, marketing and analytics. Using the system, you can create an online showcase, integrate it with Yandex. Market and launch a mobile application for customers. VirtualPos checkout helps you comply with the law: it automatically sends checks to the Federal Tax Service, so you don't face fines.

You don't need any special knowledge to get started with VirtualPos. The seller draws up and prints a receipt, and the program helps him choose the right product, look for analogues and calculate change.

The bonus when working with the cashier is additional sales. When the cashier enters the name of the product into the program, the system suggests what else to offer the customer.

You are not using store management software

In retail, the management system and logistics are important. You need to know exactly how much you spend on the maintenance of the warehouse, promptly deliver goods to the store, and conduct constant accounting. Management systems are especially needed if you have serious development plans. Imagine that you have decided to open a few more stores. If you do not have a single database and management program, then you will either have to hire additional specialists and put up with the constant mess in documents and reports, or implement an expensive and complex system, spending a lot of money and time. It is not a certainty that the software will work correctly.

Exit again in cloud systems.

VirtualPos conducts cash transactions, manages a warehouse, maintains loyalty programs and collects statistics.

How it works: the cashier sells the product and enters the customer data into the program. The goods are written off at the warehouse, the data on the sale is sent to the analytics. Information about the client gets into the database and is now available at all cash desks of the network. The system knows what promotions you are currently running. The next time a customer makes a purchase, if the customer has a discount, the checkout program will prompt the seller to do so.

At any time, you can say to the nearest penny how much money is in the checkout and how many goods are on store shelves. It is convenient to manage such a virtual warehouse, because the information is available to everyone: cashiers at retail outlets, administrators, and visitors to the online storefront.

You are not planning a turnover

You do not plan because you do not know what and how you are selling. That is, by eye, you can, of course, figure out what they buy in the fall and what in the summer. Surely you have several tables with products and prices in programs like Excel or even in notebooks. But few people carry out a serious calculation. The tables contain dead data. To analyze them, you need to spend a lot of time and effort, which, as always, is not enough.

This problem grows out of a reluctance to use new management and accounting methods, which we have already mentioned above. Of course, it is more convenient to plan sales when you have visual statistics and analytics, when you know for sure which products are the most popular, on which day of the week the influx of buyers is stronger, and in which outlets there are more visitors.

Again, we run into the need to use a store management system, in which all this data on real sales will be presented automatically.

VirtualPos is a cloud-based system. Sales information is stored on a server and is available online anywhere in the world.

Using analytics, VirtualPos makes it easy to plan orders for suppliers, reducing turnaround times. The goods are not in stock and the turnover is growing.

The service collects data from each checkout in your stores, processes them and sums up the results. Charts and ratings show:

• what products are selling better than others;
• at what hours and days the number of sales increases;
• which of the buyers is a regular customer.

You are not using loyalty programs

Loyalty systems are gaining traction because they benefit both buyers and sellers. The business interacts with regular customers, and the buyer receives interesting offers. Although, as a result, the loyalty program increases the size of the average check, they refuse it at the stage of implementation. This is because, as a rule, it takes a long time and is expensive to implement. We need a client base, software, plastic cards.

If you have a cloud-based management system, then additional costs for organizing a loyalty program will not be required. In VirtualPos, when a product is sold, customer data is entered into the system at the checkout. They are automatically entered into the customer base and are available at all cash desks of the network. The marketer analyzes information about the purchases of each customer, organizes new promotions and makes personalized offers.

At the same time, you don't even need to spend money on issuing a plastic card for the program. Instead of a piece of plastic, use the Ku! Mobile Privileges . We have already written about how this is done and what advantages it gives to buyers and sellers.

You are not looking for new sales channels

Until recently, the winners were companies that have multiple sales channels. For example, an online store and a retail network are loosely connected to each other: they had different warehouses, separate accounting, and their own referral services. This is called multichannel: in fact, you have several business areas, albeit similar ones. Now, this is not enough to withstand the competition. The winners are those who switched to omnichannel.

Omnichannel is a format of interaction in which the client himself chooses where and how it is convenient for him to buy. For example, he searches for a certain product, looking at your online storefront, sees in which store the desired item is being sold, and goes shopping to personally check whether the find suits him. Or vice versa: the buyer liked something in the store, but he decided to postpone the purchase and makes an order from home, focusing on data from the Internet.

does two things at once:

1. Opens up new sales channels. The system will create a virtual storefront, integrate it with Yandex. Market, and allow the buyer to use the store's mobile application.
2. Provides omnichannel. You have one database, one command center, so all channels are combined into one powerful business.

The management system really opens up new opportunities and helps to earn money, especially if it contains the most effective tools for the development of trade.

VirtualPos offers a lot:

1. A simple and inexpensive cash register program.
2. Convenient product accounting system.
3. A large number of marketing tools.
4. Automatic analytics.
5. New sales channels.

At the same time, the tariffs are not high. The basic package (cash program and product management) will cost 500 rubles per month. If you are not sure if this is enough for you, try the free version. For two weeks, you can study the benefits of the system absolutely free. And after testing the possibilities, decide which tariff you need.