As the world grapples with the impact of COVID-19, there will be a new norm for retailers in NZ and around the globe as we move towards reopening. The impact has been catastrophic for retailers, and now they are tasked with delivering while cutting costs and resources.
What should I be doing now?
This is the best time to look at ways to improve productivity and make changes in your business ... to generate more output for the same or fewer resources. Affordable technology solutions can assist us where we have inefficient processes in place. The key in choosing a technology that will give you the desired outcome is that it must be easy to use, affordable, have the ability to grow and flex with the business and will generate more output for the same resources or less.
Promotional cycle mania
One of the most time consuming and inefficient tasks in many retailers is the promotional cycle. This is disturbing, as it is one of the more important tasks in any retail business. Yet, 9 times out of 10 when we go into a retailer it is this process that has the most people working inefficiently and ineffectively. It is a vicious cycle of teams going around and around in circles as they never fixed the last broken piece in the chain on the last cycle, so they find themselves coming up against the same issues over and over again.
Does your retail business suffer from these symptoms?
multiple promotional spreadsheets the size of Africa
constantly chasing up imagery or art from suppliers
chasing the product/merchandise team for missing information
errors in your promotions that continue to reoccur
complaints from stores that they are throwing away multiple pieces of print as it doesn't fit
have stores that regularly have the wrong promotional material being displayed
low level of compliance at store level
an increasing gap in the relationship between stores and Support Office
Depending on your role in the organisation you might only hear bits of this but continually wonder “what the hell are all those people doing and why can’t they be more agile and efficient?”
A simple solution
RetailO2 searches the world to find the best tech solutions to help Kiwi retailers achieve efficiencies in their business. We generally focus on cloud-based systems that don't require IT to implement. We found a tech solution that is simple, easy and cost-effective for retail businesses of any size to improve productivity on one of their most important tasks and overcome what we deem as promotional cycle mania.
Retail Management System (RMS) is a smart, efficient, cloud-based solution that empowers businesses to manage and deploy in-store marketing campaigns, launch products, gain compliance and communicate quickly and accurately. It is trusted by retailers here in NZ and worldwide to deliver efficiencies and productivity while reducing the time and errors involved in your promotional process. It allows your Support Office and Store Teams to:
Take the guesswork out of campaign planning with a blueprint of all the stores in your network and deliver an optimised, accurate, faster pictorial marketing and product campaign.
Save on print and payroll hours by removing any guesswork from the promotional cycle. With RMS each store only receives what they can actually display instore, cutting down on wastage and taking the guesswork out of where an item needs to be displayed in their store.
Deliver on vendor requirements with execution and compliance reports including photos from your stores when required.
Open the lines of communication between stores and Support Office and build on this important relationship.
Optimise your team and remove all repetitive inefficient, low-value work in this important process by allowing RMS to do all these tasks for you ... without human error or frustration.
There has never been a more critical time to ensure your business has robust processes in place; that you can deliver on staff efficiencies; deliver cost savings; optimise co-op opportunities in the network; and have visibility of promotional compliance at store level, in every store.
RMS connects your Support Office to your stores in a manageable way and allows your teams to be working on the same goals easily by overlaying a simple defined process that works for your business. Promotional cycles and product launches become a breeze.
Join other NZ and global businesses who have implemented this easy to use, affordable cloud-based solution, and enjoy increased productivity, reduced operational costs and an enhanced, consistent brand experience for your customers across all of your stores.
Learn more here RMS or contact gina@retailo2.co.nz for further information.
Gina Brugh is Co-founder and Process Implementation and Design Manager for RetailO2
RetailO2 is a division of RetailX with the sole focus of working alongside retail businesses to review their “go to market” systems related to marketing operations, merchandise, experience and the customer. RetailO2 helps businesses optimise their process and systems design through automation and process streamlining. Gina has a natural curiosity and is known for asking the questions other people aren’t game to. Through the structure of data and a clear business performance outcome Gina and RetailO2 look under rocks to uncover nuggets of opportunity and pockets of excellence to make your business work better and connect with shoppers more efficiently. #RMS #merchandising #productivity #retail #retailx #makingretailhappen #promotionalprogramme #promotionalcycle #Rtech #businessefficiency #gotomarket