Running a retail business can be stressful. Not only do you have to manage employees, you also have to keep track of stock, do marketing, and for many retailers, run an online shop. This is why so many retailers are now harnessing the power of software to help streamline their daily processes. Take a look at 5 vital software systems for retail businesses.
Employee Management
A retail outlet is nothing without its staff, so it’s important to stay on top of your employees shifts. By utilising a timesheet app to manage your team, you will be able to manage all your staff digitally via your computer or tablet. Timesheet software helps business owners and managers make sure that staff are in the right place at the right time. This greatly minimises the number of manual hours you’ll need to put in to run your business.
eCommerce Software
Online shopping has truly taken off. 1.8 billion people shop online each year. As a retail outlet, it is absolutely vital that you have an online presence. eCommerce software can provide easy-to-use website builders for creating online stores. One of the biggest advantages of eCommerce is that it keeps your store open 24/7 to consumers all over the world. E-commerce software also offers your online customers a quality shopping experience, allowing them to quickly place orders and pay using a variety of methods.
Inventory Control Software
Anyone who runs a retail outlet knows how stressful and time consuming it is to manually handle inventory. Thankfully, inventory control software can handle all aspects of managing your inventory. Some of these aspects include managing, tracking and organising product sales. Inventory management software often utilises barcodes, wireless tracking technology and RFID to support inventory control, freeing up managers and staff to do other tasks.
Point Of Sale Software
Point of sale systems for retail outlets offer speedy checkout processes and can even notice and analyse sales tendencies. Other perks of POS software include generating sales reports, trend prediction and invoice and order management. Most POS systems in 2020 are cloud based, meaning that you can access your data remotely.
Enterprise Retail Planning Software
Enterprise retail planning software integrates all data and related processes across a retail organisation. ERP software allows you to collect, store, manage and interpret data acquired from different departments and business activities in one place. ERP software also helps to optimise business productivity and workflow, generates sales reports and helps to increase efficiency by modernising your inventory management. It’s a mega tool that can also handle your warehouse operations, customer loyalty programmes and pricing and discount management. One of the downsides of ERP software is that it can be too expensive for some small business owners.
The world of retail has truly been transformed with the introduction of new software options. We hope that this article has given you some valuable insight into 5 of the most vital software systems for retail businesses.
“The opinions expressed by BizWitty Contributors are their own, not those of BizCover and should not be relied upon in place of appropriate professional advice. Please read our full disclaimer."
