The retail businesses today, like every other business, are facing challenges of sustainability, asset management, retaining the trained and learned workforce, providing job security and other perks to the retained employees and managing overall competition in this industry. Sustainability is perhaps based on a number of factors, and not just one dimension. Inflation and purchasing power decline are also a big hitch for retail businesses, as consumers keep searching for more durable and less expensive substitutes.
As technology is advancing, so are the consumer preferences. From online shopping to choosing the same brand names persistently by customers, making a name in the retail business is becoming tenacious with every passing day. Natural disasters and wars have disrupted the supply chains globally. Economic uncertainty is prevalent almost everywhere, with no or little predictive information about what comes next, and this is why consumers move to cheap alternatives for sustaining livelihood and overcoming food shortages in households.
Some tips and tricks that can help retailers improve and provide sustainability to their businesses are as under:
1. Stepping into Social Marketing:
The most needed strategy in the world of globalisation today is social media marketing. If a retail business is not excelling online, chances are it might shut down in the upcoming years. The reason is, customers are eager to choose retailers who provide doorstep and delivery facilities, instead of going to a grocery store and buying for themselves. Waiting in queues for billing, choosing products and services through shelves, and transportation hassles, all are turn offs for today’s busy customer. Hence online shopping platforms earn much more profits than retail stores even if some of the products and services are not up to the mark, suggests a research of 2023.
2. Digitization of Sales and Revenues:
Only those retail chains are likely to thrive which have already shifted sales, revenues, balance sheets and other financial matters towards digitization. Digital services and IT tools not only speed up the whole retail cycle, but also eliminate man made problems and human errors along the way. From calculating product bills with hands and manual calculators, majority retails have now shifted to bar code systems keeping a keen check on inventory used, needed, discarded and unused respectively. This is just one of the many benefits digital marketing and strategic moves can provide to the retail industry for longer sustainability in the market. Giants in the retail industry like Walmart, Amazon and Target have integrated IT and AI tools from the grass root up to the pinnacle of operations pyramid. This has revamped the overall customer experience leading to positive customer feedback and retention accordingly.
3. Customization of Products and Services:
Gone are the days when customers had to choose from a limited set of available products and services. With only a handful of names in the retail stores, customers were likely to shop for the same products every time. However, the times have changed and so have customers’ expectations. Today every consumer looks forward to desired customization according to needs, geography, races, genders and ethnicities. Income and purchasing power are two basic drivers contributing to majority customizations. From clothing to purchasing a car, changes are desired by customers of every niche now.
4. Incorporating Innovation Fearlessly:
Moving forward from traditional retail experience to a digital one, innovation is now the requirement of almost every customer base across the world. Innovation has enabled retailers to make targeted offers to customers, proposing the right product for the right consumer. Businesses who involved innovation without any hesitation have thrived far ahead than old fashioned businesses. An example is the transformation of television, from a physical creation to a digital one: from a simple tube based wooden box to a sleek panel based LCD, giants like SONY and TCL have made their ways through the years. Retailers are now focused on attractive ways to welcome customers into the stores, and being forced to buy through promotions and subscriptions.
5. Upgradation of Management Information System:
MIS or management information system has a lot to offer to the retailing industry today. In fact, the market that has extracted the most advantage out of MIS integration is the retail market. The flow of information and data is streamlined along the retail product and service cycle efficiently through an MIS. However, incorporation of MIS alone is not enough, its timely and apt updating and renewal is the key to success many retailers are still struggling with. The software used for data and information management come with licences of respective expiry dates, and software over or under used can add up to additional costs for the business. To keep a track of software used and integrated, license management is now adopted by many retailers worldwide, with some having it outsourced, while others managing on their own. Through this, software is regularly updated with fresh licences, or disposed-of when licences expire. As software with expired licence might not only work inefficiently but also pose security threats to business’s valuable information.
6. Training and Development of Workforce:
With every new technology introduced, it is mandatory for the hired workforce to be accustomed to it, and use it diligently. Without timely training, technologies might malfunction or even prove to be extra expensive for the business. Retailers should focus on investing in workforce training, coaching and mentoring as it would add to the sustainability of the brand name in the long run. Industrial trends are compulsory to be read, understood and complied with when it comes to business, and a properly focused employee training would make sure every employee is contributing towards the retail’s profit in the right direction.
Although not achievable in a single day or month, sustainability can be attained with gradual improvements made in the business cycle of a retail business. The tips discussed above, if acted upon strategically, would definitely render fruitful results for the retail business worldwide over the years.
