How to Achieve Excellence in Retail Store Operations

Despite recent challenges, physical stores have a promising future. Today, it’s crucial for retailers to optimize and streamline their operations by adopting best practices and leveraging cutting-edge technology to achieve operational excellence.

Retail operations cover all activities essential to running a store smoothly. This includes managing staff, designing store layouts, handling cash flow, controlling inventory, setting prices, running promotions, and more.

Excellence in operations involves gaining a lasting competitive advantage by optimizing retail activities. In essence, it’s about outperforming competitors in organizing, optimizing, and integrating the diverse tasks required to run a store efficiently.

Digitalize Time-Consuming Internal Tasks

While many major retailers have embraced technological benefits, new innovations continue to emerge, enhancing efficiency and quality even further. NFC payment systems, for example, expedite checkout processes and reduce queue times—vital in today’s fast-paced retail environment.

Similarly, RFID technology provides substantial benefits. Decathlon, for instance, uses Orisha Retail chains POS in over 1,000 stores globally, incorporating RFID technology in 85% of its products. This allows them to track items across the supply chain, from factory to local stores. Once in-store, RFID readers enable employees to complete inventory checks five times faster than traditional methods.

Automate Key Processes

Many retailers use multiple programs for specific tasks, leading to poor system communication and hindering full process integration. Transitioning to a unified system for inventory control, employee shifts, invoicing, POS transactions, and financial management can greatly enhance efficiency, minimize errors, and reduce costs by streamlining and automating these processes.

Personalize the Customer Experience

Successful retailers focus on creating personalized, high-value interactions with customers. Understanding their preferences and needs is the first step. While it’s easier to collect this data online, physical stores face a greater challenge. Nevertheless, personalizing the in-store experience is vital for customer loyalty and repeat visits. For more insights, read our CEO Marco de Vries’ article on personalization in fashion retail.

Ensure Seamless Integration Between the Physical and Digital Worlds

Omnichannel retailing strives to offer customers a seamless shopping experience across all channels. This is especially important for order preparation and delivery. If a customer buys online and opts for in-store pickup (Click and Collect), is the process smooth? Can they easily return the item in-store? Can an item bought in one store be returned to another? Can customers access inventory information from any channel? To support these scenarios, retailers must excel in inventory management, particularly in stores, as this is crucial for a unified commerce strategy. Modern store software with POS components, alongside flexible warehouse management (WMS) and order management systems (OMS), supports this objective.

Optimize Assortments and Inventory Levels

Stores don’t profit from simply stocking products; inventory must sell. When introducing new products, retailers should ask: How many units will sell? Will this product generate profits? The main goal is to optimize inventory. Ordering processes should be tied to determining the optimal order quantity, integrated with sales forecasting, to prevent overstocking. A robust inventory management platform automates these processes, enhancing efficiency and reducing costs associated with excess inventory.

Optimize In-Store Staff

Retailers depend on in-store staff for numerous tasks: helping customers, preparing and delivering orders, managing new arrivals, organizing merchandise, and conducting inventory checks. An automated scheduling tool can optimize peak activity times, ensuring the right balance for maximum staff productivity.