Store manager plays an extremely important role in the business operation of the store. More than just making the operation go smoothly, proper store management needs to meet the most important factors.
So what are the factors that business owners need to pay attention to to ensure business efficiency and optimize work performance in the best way? Let's find out with Sapo right in the sharing below.
1. Merchandise management
1.1 Source of goods
Selecting and managing input sources is an extremely important factor in the store management process. Ineffective management of imported goods can completely cause problems of loss of inventory control, directly affecting the sales process of the store.
Therefore, in order to effectively manage new imports and inventories, business owners need to have smart management methods that are suitable for a multi-functional sales management software system.
Import and supplier management is extremely important
Not only is it the best place to store all transactions and orders, but this management method also helps business owners optimize work performance and minimize the risk of errors or problems that may occur in the process. business process.
Along with that, business owners also need to strictly control the sources of supply for each of their items. Because you will not know when your goods are damaged, out of stock or have other problems. In particular, this is also a factor that helps you evaluate the source of goods after the sale period to plan to change or continue to maintain imports with each supplier.
1.2 Inventory control
Depending on each item, the control of import and shipment time is an extremely important factor to ensure quality as well as have a plan to evaluate sales effectiveness, thereby making a business plan and handling inventory. Hard-to-sell warehouse better.
Regarding the management of goods and inventory, business owners need to have an appropriate management system to accurately control the amount of inventory and goods for sale in each specific category or classification.
Especially with a large number of products, diverse in categories, proper and scientific management or the use of smart management software is the most important factor to minimize the loss of goods and easily Easier to find goods when selling.
Proper inventory management helps to optimize human resources and effectively eliminate errors
Whether you are managing the store using traditional methods such as bookkeeping, excel or smart software, make sure you always clearly categorize the items on sale, newly imported, unsold inventory, etc. each specific item for easy management.
Many stores will maintain sales in both stores and social networks, this is easy to have problems with unknowing inventory, causing you to generate orders but no goods to sell. That's why an intelligent management system is often preferred in the current "tech sales" era.
See also: 15 effective ways to manage inventory in retail
1.3 Sales management
Sales management covers the process from order creation, order processing, to billing and shipping to your customers. Always have a proper order management system in place so as not to miss or cause serious problems in order placement.
Payment optimization is an effective way to improve customer experience
For order management, business owners need to control all customer information, purchase information, products or amounts and store it to ensure that there are no problems in the sales process. or after-sale customer care.
Optimizing payment is an extremely important factor to improve customer experience as well as ensure that there are no mistakes in the purchasing process. To manage the store effectively, optimizing the payment is something that you can't help but notice. That's why handy point-of-sale devices will support you and your employees in the most efficient way.
No more worrying about errors or loss of documents, invoices, a smart sales device or software can completely help you optimize the sales process and manage it most effectively.
1.4 Cargo transportation
Online business is no longer a strange thing for Vietnamese consumers. With increasing demand, catching up with the trend to increase the number of customers and increase revenue is extremely important for every business owner.
Shipping management is the key to keeping customers coming back to your store
Stemming from this need, optimizing in-store sales in combination with online sales, creating quick orders, shipping or taking care of customers is essential for customers to come back to you and attract more customers. A new customer.
Always keep an eye on shipping management to make sure your customers don't experience problems like lost orders, shipping errors, late receipts or even damage when they receive your items. This can completely cost you and create a bad impression in the eyes of your customers.
2. Employee Management
Employees are always an extremely important factor for every retail store. However, not all business owners understand that your management will determine the purchasing power, the rate of customer return as well as the operation of the store.
So what are the most important factors that business owners need to master to manage their stores, manage employees, train and optimize work performance?
2.1 Recruitment
Recruiting salespeople does not need to be too strict or too demanding. However, for a salesperson, you need to be very careful in evaluating their working attitude as well as their sales experience.
A good and promising salesperson will need to understand that the customer is the most important person and that is the people who pay them. So you can fully appreciate candidates with good sales attitude and mindset.
You can totally appreciate candidates with a sales mindset
2.2 Training and development roadmap
- Regular training
Without adequate training in the sales system, your employees can completely decline and cause stagnant problems. This can turn into a Domino effect as more experienced members fall into disrepair and new hires aren't exposed to good experienced people. That's why it's so important to attach importance to periodic training in store management.
Regular practical training for your employees
- Always create conditions for your employees
Letting employees self-evaluate the effectiveness of their calls or consultations will help them understand the good or bad points to improve.
Don't be so restrictive of your employees that they can't be like this, can't be like that. Try to give your employees access to issues related to their work, like inventory management, paperwork or money.
If you are worried about not being able to track employee activities, store management software can completely help you do that. With a general management system, sales management software allows business owners to decentralize details and manage employees and sales systems more easily than ever.
- Update the latest knowledge for employees
Product knowledge training for sales staff is an extremely important factor in retail store management. Because in a word, your staff cannot sell to customers without a little knowledge of the product.
Offering weekly and monthly training programs is also a way to help your employees update new products, features, uses or usage so that they can better advise customers.
2.3 Developing KPIs for employees
Depending on the business situation and the employee's work performance, the manager can provide appropriate job KPIs to ensure the responsiveness of employees. Because building KPIs for employees not only helps you optimize work efficiency, increase sales quickly, but also ensure the ability to motivate your employees.
For sales systems such as cosmetics or clothing, etc., many store managers will set KPIs as total revenue and sales per month for each employee. From there, build a salary policy suitable for each of its employees.
KPIs need to be specific and measurable, not too low but not too overwhelming so that employees can try and adjust their work to achieve the best results.
3. Financial management
For business owners, controlling financial metrics is essential to ensure that you can accurately gauge your store's performance. So what are the factors that business owners need to pay attention to to manage their finances and store management most effectively?
3.1 Profit – Loss Assessment
To assess a store's profit and loss, it's clear that costs, sales, and profits are metrics that business owners need to master.
Profit = Revenue – Cost
Revenue is calculated as all revenues earned in the course of business such as sales, service provision, .... Expenses are fixed costs and expenses incurred in the business process such as rental costs, staff salaries, store operating costs, taxes and other expenses, etc.
Always control the financial to evaluate the business performance of the store
After taking the revenue from taking away all the expenses, you will have the exact profit for your business period. If the profit is less than 0, it means you are in a loss business and what you need to do is cut an unnecessary expense as well as promote the business to increase revenue most effectively.
If the profit is zero, this is your breakeven point. If this number comes up early in the grand opening, this is easily understandable. However, if this situation happens often and lasts for many months, you need to review your income and expenditure to improve business efficiency and come up with a better plan for your business.
And if the profit is greater than 0, this is obviously a good sign that your business is profitable and you can continue to grow your business, manage the store better every day.
See more: The most effective way to manage revenue and expenditure for the store
3.2 Debt management
Liabilities of a business store are understood as receivables or payables from customers or suppliers. To control these amounts, business owners need to ensure the ability to store all relevant documents to ensure smooth payment and debt collection.
Avoid too much outstanding debt, try to regularly control, classify and handle receivables and payables to promptly detect problem amounts or arising risks.
For partners that are near due or past due, smart sales management software will help you control and remind your partners. This will ensure that the debt does not fall into a bad situation or loss when the customer "accidentally" forgets that you have no documents to prove this debt.
3.3 Cash flow management
Cash flow control in business is understood as the control of all invoices and documents on transactions arising in a day, month, period or at any time.
This will help you to control the entire cash flow in and out of the store. From there determine revenue and expenditure sources to adjust the most appropriate business plan.
4. Customer Management
Many people think that customer management is not an important factor. However, in reality, customer management plays a very important role for a business store. Because in fact, bringing new customers to the store is not easy, but getting old customers to return for your products and services is not difficult.
Satisfying and taking care of customers regularly is not difficult
And the business performance of these customers is extremely good. If your products are good, service quality is good and customer care is effective, the rate of customers returning to you is not low. This will be the main source of revenue for your store.
Never underestimate after-sales customer care. This can completely help customers remember as well as appreciate your service. And it won't be strange if they come back to you one day.
See also: After-sales customer care process
5. The most effective ways to manage your store
5.1 Store management by book
With traditional business-style stores such as grocery stores, grocery stores, store owners still manage sales by book.
Recording has an advantage that it will make managers able to remember longer the amount of goods and related data when they have recorded it in the book. And to manage the store effectively, you should refresh your management book by dividing columns and clearly dividing orders for each day.
There should be clear markings for each different item, so it's easier to control the quantity. Take notes as systematically and in detail as possible. Sum up the results at the end of each day for a more detailed and faster month-end report.
Recruiting staff with experience in warehouse management
Read more: Improve warehouse management efficiency by 300% thanks to the best sales management software available today
5.2 Installing remote store surveillance cameras
Currently, most large and small business stores invest in a camera system to manage sales. This not only makes it easy to manage other access, fraud, theft and fraudulent behavior of salespeople. If your store is unfortunately robbed, the recorded images will also make the investigation process easier.
5.3 Merchandise management using excel
Sales management by excel is a step to simplify machine operations in goods management. Since its inception, excel has always proved itself to be one of the advanced tools to help shop owners and small businesses not spend as much time and effort in keeping records as before.
Sales management in excel is a way to manage retail stores with management operations for inventory - export and import, each management operation brings different efficiency and benefits. The shop owner will know the exact amount of goods that he should limit importing, and at the same time know the quantity of goods that the store is missing if he does a good job of inventory management in excel.
Similarly, excel will help you manage and statistics the total number of goods delivered and the total number of imported goods quickly. Shop owners can check at any time to see how fast their stores are selling.
Sales management in excel helps to adjust goods and prevent loss in business when ensuring very high accuracy up to over 90%.
5.4 Using software to manage stores
Currently, with the development of information technology, sales management has become easier and faster with the application of machinery and equipment in the business process. We have a vending machine, a barcode printer for each product for easy management or a simple sales management software for the business process.
Grocery software, retail store management is efficiently integrated with a simple, easy-to-use interface that enables any business store.
From managing goods, managing inventory quickly, reporting at any time so we can see how the business results are going, what products are selling, where are the best selling products? products that need to be consumed before the end of the season.
In addition, sales management by sales of each employee gives you the results of evaluating their effectiveness. Remote management on mobile devices will give you business results even when you are not at the store. And machines can't cheat. This is the optimal efficiency of integrated technology in business processes.
Sales management software will give you the best experience in the business process, as well as help you manage your store effectively. Sapo gives you a free 7-day trial to comfortably test the sales management features available on Sapo. Why not sign up today!
Free experience of sales management software Sapo POS