Leveraging tech to maximise efficiency and unlock new sales
With staff shortages, rising operational costs, and a potential tightening of retail spending, 2023 is all about increasing agility and building resilience.
With staff shortages, rising operational costs, and a potential tightening of retail spending, 2023 is all about increasing agility and building resilience.
Two ways to bolster your business in the current climate are by leveraging tech to maximise efficiency and create new revenue streams. We dive deeper into these tactics below.
Simple steps to increase efficiency
The first step to increasing operational efficiency is to zoom out and look at which tasks are taking the most time away from more important projects.
For example, Jarrad Brownfield, Square’s Retail Product Marketing Manager in Australia often hears from business owners complaining about the same operational pain points. These include “how challenging it can be keeping track and on top of stock counts across their business” and “still needing to rely on spreadsheets to some degree to reconcile,” he says.
Once you’ve identified the biggest time-drainers in your day, week or month, the next step is to consider and implement software solutions specifically designed to automate and streamline these tasks.
Automation tools, especially those that integrate with each other, help improve visibility while reducing error and the time it takes to complete administrative duties, sometimes significantly. Take Square for Retail’s mobile-friendly cycle and full counting tool, for instance, which allows multiple employees to contribute to a stocktaking session at one time.
By streamlining and simplifying everyday operations, the right tools can liberate business owners to focus on bigger-picture strategies for growth and improving customer experience.
Testing the water with new revenue streams
The most common questions Brownfield gets from SMBs are:
- How they can get started selling online, and
- What they should be doing to build an online shopping experience that will attract new customers and grow their sales.
“What I say to them is this: it’s never too late to get started selling online,” he says. “We see a lot of our smaller retail partners test the water and begin by selling some of their more popular items online, and then steadily increase their catalogue as their online store begins to grow.”
An important step here is to make sure your online experience feels like your brand aesthetically, he adds, as this helps build trust and loyalty. That could mean including photos of your physical space and implementing a similar colour scheme online.
“And make sure your online store isn’t just a catalogue, but is a shopping destination,” Brownfield says. “Engage your customers online by providing free shipping for online orders over a certain dollar value, and set up first-time purchase or online-only deals.”
A future-forward approach to marketing
Setting your business up for long-term success means consistently delivering value to your customers so they keep coming back and grow into brand advocates, Brownfield says. Here he explains the three touchpoints of a solid future-forward marketing strategy:
- Know your market. All good marketing strategies start with a deep understanding of your customer base and the type of audience that’s attracted to your brand, products, and mission—including where and how they like to shop. For example, Brownfield notes that for brands targeting Gen Z, the power of social media and social selling cannot be understated: “We learned from our Future of Retail report that 53% of Australians—approximately 10.4 million adults—have used social media platforms to shop online,” he says. “On top of this, 60% of Gen Z believe online algorithms help them see more of what matters.”
- Incentivise new buyers. Think buy-one-get-one-free deals, discounts for first-time purchases, free gifts or product samples, and sweepstakes or contests where you gain entry by making purchases.
- Reward and retain. To retain customers, you’re going to have to continue to reward and delight them. “For that to be successful, you need to remove barriers,” Brownfield says. “Make it frictionless and simple to have customers opt-in to receive updates on the brand or hear about promotions.” (In-store can be challenging for marketing sign-ups, he adds, so Square recently launched a quick and easy marketing sign-up function directly from the countertop.)
With the economy on shaky ground, it’s more important than ever that retailers are supported by good tech systems. By increasing agility and productivity, and by helping you nurture leads and better service your customers, the right tools can unlock the true value of your business.
