HOW TO GAIN ADVANTAGE FROM YOUR POS DATA

With all the day-to-day demands of running a store, the last thing retail business owners want to do is analyze crazy complicated reports. This explains why the data analytics capabilities of a POS are frequently underleveraged or altogether ignored. Whatever the industry, retailers need to know that the latest POS systems can streamline data into graphic dashboards and automated reports. The insights within these specialized and easy-to-understand reports can not only impact your management efficiency, but more importantly, they can guide your business critical decisions.

Informed decisions make more money

Even a single bad decision can turn out to be a big waste of money. Using stable retail metrics your business decisions can be rationalized with current and reliable analytics around:

Product Trends

Daily or weekly dashboards identify the hot products that customers are buying. Viewing these snapshots enables you make more accurate forecasts to better manage inventory, so you have exactly the right amounts on hand. On the flip side of what’s hot, you can also see what’s not. A modern POS can provide graphic reports with flexible customized views showing data on dead stock, which can then prompt a timely review of your pricing and reorder strategy to get the slow movers out the door.

Customer Behaviour

To be a successful business owner, you need to understand who your customers are, what they are buying, and how often. Your POS can analyze data to help you identify your shoppers and adapt your customer experience to reflect their preferences. Additionally, loyalty program features enable you to reward your returning customers, and keep them informed about new product arrivals and upcoming promotional events that may interest them. Drilling-down deeper into your customer data can even help you uncover which products are being returned or exchanged regularly and why—even how your customers prefer to be refunded. With data-supported information that explains the reasons why products are not performing as expected, you can make better informed purchasing decisions that could have significant impact on your revenue.

Employee Performance

Whether you are operating a medium-sized health food store, a small gift shop, or multiple clothing boutiques, your employees are a valuable asset that requires ongoing support. Employee data can help you recognize leadership abilities in your top performers and identify skill development opportunities in others. POS tools enable employee tracking on transactions and secured areas of your software. This allows you to look out for best practices that could be implemented throughout your team, and spot irregular activities, such as erroneous or suspicious transactions, that can be redressed immediately to avoid any further issues. Continued employee recognition and professional development can build an engaged and knowledgeable team that will support your customer experience and your business success.

Commercial Insights

With different commercial analytics reporting features, you can pin down the areas of your business that may need your attention. Easy-to-use reports enable you to run year-to-date result comparisons versus last year and customize how you view the data. Additionally automated and customized reporting can help you efficiently:

• Track the areas where your sales are increasing or decreasing for a specified time period
• Make timely pricing adjustments and stock inventory more accurately.
• Leverage short-term trend data and make proactive decisions that will avoid issues in the longer term.
• Set up sales trend analyses and track your progress toward your sales targets.
• Drill down to specific locations, categories or products to identify the elements that are preventing you from reaching your goals.

The reporting possibilities are extensive and with the right POS system, any retailer can become a data-driven business. The power of factual and timely analyses can give more confidence in your decisions because they are supported by your own data.