Preparing your business for the upcoming holiday/festive season!
Yes, MSMEs can now expand, grow and promote from where they are! With the festive season in India around the corner, the pandemic slowing down, the Kirana stores and the MSMEs play a crucial role to upgrade themselves, gearing up for promotions and marketing. It is habitual every year that there is a strong rise in the demand for the products during the festive seasons, which will drive strong sales growth and help the retailers come out of the losses.
When there is a strong seasonal demand, it is important to have sufficient stock to supply and sell to the customers. At the same time, it is equally important to prevent being left out with surplus stock that leads to product spoilage, especially for perishable goods, which impacts heavy losses. And hence, proper inventory management solutions come into the picture, which acts as the key to bringing out more sales by driving customer retention and acquisition.
It’s the right time for all the traders to strategize, strengthen their supply chain, and prepare well. Thankfully, technology can play a crucial role in gear-up the momentum for the festive season. Here are 8 tips that every retailer should implement this festive season, to grow their business!
8 Tips to get complete inventory control and have fabulous festive season sales
1. Forecasting the demands to have optimum stocks for sale:
Besides regular products, businesses have to plan on seasonal inventory to stay away from the last-minute hassles. There is a need for demand forecasting based on the sales of the previous season. It is also good to analyze the seasonal trends based on the performance of offers, sales last season, the popularity of the item, its profits gained, thus predicting the sales ahead of time. WhatsNow, a mobile real-time comprehensive reporting system, can drive faster decision-making, help plan in advance, purchase the right stock, and prevent spoilage due to surplus stock. Analyzing the seasonal trends based on the performance of the promotional offers of the previous season, the stores can set up a strategical plan and attract the customers and get them shopping more without affecting their revenue.
2. Deploy perpetual stock audit system well before purchase:
When there is a strong seasonal demand, it is good to have sufficient stock to supply and sell to the customers. At the same time, it is necessary to prevent surplus stock that leads to product spoilage more with perishable goods, which impacts heavy losses. Hence, inventory control is possible with a perpetual stock audit. With the real-time inventory management app GoSure StockTake, a business can evaluate when, where to invest, purchase the right products at the right time, at the right price, thus aiding in the right purchase decisions.
3. Make on-time, instant purchases anywhere anytime for uninterrupted sales:
Streamline purchase inwards with automated purchase order reconciliation and ensure every entry is recorded correctly. GoSure GRN app ensures accurate inwards at the actual arrival location of goods, approves the inwards from anywhere and completes the purchase process with 50% lesser staff. Also, ensure your products reach the rack faster without any discrepancy to have uninterrupted sales. On-time, accurate purchase inwards brings in complete control, especially during seasonal sales.
4. Refill stocks instantly and never lose a sale due to stock out:
With the festive season bringing in demand more than usual, it is crucial to refill stock on time by automatically analyzing the stock levels in the racks and shelves. Periodic refilling prevents customers from getting disappointed. Never miss out on a sale and thus increase the customer satisfaction levels. It’s time for businesses to realize the importance of auto-refill methods available today with the GoSure StockRefill app.
5. Sell more by adopting beneficial visual display methods:
To boost seasonal sales, retailers adopt different visual-display patterns. One such is the Gondola displays. They can act as an appealing display option for brands to promote their products. The stores can also promote the customer’s favourite festival essential combos by displaying them at prominent locations in the store. Businesses can also cross-sell/upsell by renting racks and collaborating with the brands to merchandise their products.
6. Introduce express checkouts for a fast and rush-free, safe, and smooth shopping experience:
Due to the rising competition, stores that can provide a simple, smooth, fast shopping experience can satisfy drive bring the consumers again, especially after the pandemic. Even during the busiest shopping season, the retailers can manage maximum footfalls without building uprush in the store. Introducing mobile billing with the SellQuick app helps in setting up an express checkout counter with absolutely zero investment in hardware. Deploying on-the-go billing systems enhances the shopping experience, instils confidence, and offers healthy/safe shopping.
7. Upgrade to serve customers omnichannel. Expand your radius, get customers from anywhere, any channel:
Pre-pandemic, consumers relied on the metro and tier1 cities for festive season shopping, whereas now online shopping has broken the barriers bringing the tier2/tier3 cities into the picture. With OrderEasy and GoDeliver apps for online ordering and delivery, small businesses in rural regions can get customers anywhere. With an effective POS having omnichannel support, stores can promote and compete effectively with online retailers. Integrating all the online ordering channels with backend ERP brings in a lot more control and accuracy. The main USP of the neighbourhood stores is their delivery time, with the delivery management app that gives them the edge over other competitors.
8. Ensure 100% accurate order processing with stock-picking solutions:
Manual order processing is not only time-consuming but involves supervision and is error-prone. Commonly, one in four orders that are delivered has a discrepancy. This results in an extra workload, causing the stores to redeliver, thus costing more time, effort, and money. GoSure StockPick, a designated solution for order picking adds efficiency, reduces supervision, halves the work time, and doubles the accuracy. This systematic approach helps in managing more orders per picker and helps gain more profits per order. Stores can get the orders ready on time for store pick up or home delivery and amaze their customers.
With the pandemic stressing the supply chain, retailers cannot keep up with demand by just over-stocking. It’s time for Kiranas and MSMEs to ride the wave this festive season by practising demand-planning, deploying perpetual inventory, thus getting better inventory control. These smart Kirana heroes have been the lifeline of Indian neighbourhoods. It’s time they used technology lifeline. Now or Never!
