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The vacation season is without doubt one of the busiest—if not the busiest—time for companies. Maintaining with vacation retail traits can fall by the wayside as managers, homeowners and gross sales associates deal with getting by way of the day-to-day bustle.
Sadly, this leaves companies weak. Being too busy to maintain up with what’s altering and the way information is trending means you may’t make the agile choices throughout the season. Which means being unprepared for any surprises and unable to evaluate how correct pre-holiday forecasting is.
What retailers want is information automation—tailor-made insights robotically working at set intervals to maintain you on prime of vacation retail traits with much less admin time.
On this article, we’ll go over which stories you ought to be watching, and the way typically, to maintain on prime of your vacation season—and how one can make your POS run them for you.
Take management of your information—and all the things else—with Lightspeed.
See how our platform can change the way you handle stock and all the things else.
The good thing about scheduling stories throughout the vacation season (and past)
You don’t want us to inform you {that a} good efficiency throughout the vacation season is crucial. Vacation gross sales could make or break companies. Will you begin the following 12 months with an excessive amount of surplus stock and sad clients, or clear cabinets and delighted loyal regulars?
And also you’re most likely already maintaining a tally of gross sales totals all through the season. You don’t want us to inform you to do this, both.
We’re right here to argue that different information factors are simply as vital, and that they need to be watched intently as properly. However we all know it’s a busy season, and also you don’t have time to run stories and carry on prime of the trivia.
That’s why you need to schedule stories to do it for you.
Handbook processes are an enormous ache level for professionals, in any case, and reporting falls into the 50% of work processes that can be automated if in case you have the correct expertise accessible.
Lightspeed Advanced Reporting is one such instrument. It frees retailers as much as focus much less on working analytics and extra on performing on it by automating a lot of the method. It collects information from stories—tailor-made to your online business—and delivers it to you in your chosen timeframe. Which means as a substitute of you or your workers spending hours tweaking stories, inspecting the info and speaking it with stakeholders, all new options in Superior Reporting can deal with it for you.
Information to observe weekly throughout vacation gross sales
Your corporation is probably going already watching gross sales totals recurrently throughout the holidays.
With that income information in hand, you might have an honest view of the way you’re doing. However you may additional enrich your understanding by watching different, extra granular items of knowledge on a weekly foundation: how your gross sales are trending hourly, and what number of gross sales are discounted by location.
Watch your stock for merchandise just lately out of inventory with gross sales
You possibly can forecast completely with all sorts of qualitative and quantitative data, order further inventory forward of time and clear your cabinets for anticipated finest sellers… and nonetheless get hit with surprising inventory outs.
A listing report particularly for gross sales on out of inventory merchandise—a just lately out of inventory with gross sales report—helps you establish and make a plan for these potential gaps. It’ll return gross sales information on merchandise that hit zero stock just lately.
By monitoring this information intently, you may catch shock hits or gaps in your stock throughout each location and top off sooner relatively than later. Your gross sales associates will be capable of suggest sizzling merchandise with confidence, as properly, by seeing what’s flying off the cabinets quicker than all the things else.
Schedule a weekly report for gross sales by hour of the day
This sort of report tracks your gross sales information at the next degree of element than finish of day figures.
By watching this information weekly, your managers can see instantly if your online business wants to regulate schedules and even opening hours. They’ll have extra time to regulate shifts.
A constructive expertise with a gross sales affiliate can increase customer satisfaction by up to 73%, so ensuring there are at all times sufficient workers on the ground for busy hours is vital to a profitable vacation season.
Vacation retail traits to observe bi-weekly
The earlier stories contained information finest acted on weekly, so you can also make tweaks to your technique earlier than any damaging impacts are felt.
Compared, these are vacation retail traits you may verify on each different week and usually nonetheless have time to optimize your vacation technique based mostly on the insights.
Monitor particular person gross sales affiliate efficiency
Whereas a gross sales by the hour report helps your managers optimize shifts, a person gross sales affiliate efficiency report helps alert them to any gaps in coaching or gross sales techniques. It additionally helps them discover superstars who’re main the pack on targets. With this information, they’ll:
- Arm gross sales associates with new unique reductions
- Overview coaching earlier than shifts as wanted
- Schedule excessive performers throughout busy hours
- Pair excessive performers and low performers so gross sales associates can be taught from instance
By the point the vacation season is in full swing, your managers ought to have completed any seasonal coaching for gross sales associates, which is why you’re most likely good to have them verify this information each different week.
Watch your common sale worth by gross sales channel
What shops and channels are you selling your vacation gross sales on? How is your ecommerce web site faring in comparison with your bodily shops?
By scheduling a bi-weekly report on gross sales damaged down by channel (accessible with Superior Reporting from Lightspeed), you may reply these questions with confidence.
After you have this information in hand, you can also make tweaks to verify one gross sales channel isn’t falling behind the others. Some final minute modifications you possibly can make embody:
- A promotion for one channel solely: ecommerce gross sales gradual in comparison with in-store numbers? Ship out an e mail with a reduction code at no cost transport to excite web shoppers.
- Stock transfers: if one thing is promoting properly in a single location however much less so in one other, transfer stock round between shops so the provision meets the demand.
- Rewards for posting opinions on-line: there’s nothing fairly like phrase of mouth—one ballot discovered that 92% of respondents trusted it greater than some other sort of selling . Harness that energy by rewarding customers for posting opinions on social media and rising the thrill round your retailer.
- Reengagement promotions: entice customers again to the shop (on-line or off) by way of reductions they’ll use earlier than the vacation ends. You possibly can automate the required segmenting and communications with a advertising and marketing instrument like Advanced Marketing.
Insights to regulate month-to-month (and retrospectively) throughout the holidays
Whereas the weekly and bi-weekly insights show you how to make minute modifications all through the season, these vacation traits paint extra of an image of the longer term as a substitute of serving to you react to the current.
By maintaining a tally of this information throughout and shortly after the vacation season, you may formulate a plan for the brand new 12 months and have a base of insights to construct on for the following vacation season.
Calculate your promote by way of charge
Sell through rate is the measure of how a lot stock you promote (and how briskly) in comparison with how a lot you purchased from a producer. It’s key for maintaining a tally of your efficiency on an enormous image degree.
You’ll wish to run a report in your promote by way of charge, probably sorted additional by outlet for location-by-location information, all through the vacation season and afterwards throughout your year-end evaluation.
Insights about your promote by way of charge all through the vacations will show you how to:
- Consider the accuracy of your forecasting
- Modify any instant ordering plans (for much less or extra)
- Inform your advertising and marketing crew of any learnings about promotions for subsequent season
- Pinpoint any strengths or weaknesses between places that have to be addressed over the brand new 12 months
Consider your stock for dusty inventory
Dusty stock—inventory that hasn’t bought in a set period of time, usually three or six months—holds you again. You’ll wish to schedule a report so you may consider what you might have as soon as the vacation season is finished.
If merchandise didn’t transfer throughout the vacation season, they’ll be no good to you going ahead. Utilizing this information, you may pinpoint what you’ll want to liquidate to start out the brand new 12 months off recent.
To cope with dusty stock earlier than you do your annual physical inventory count, take into account:
- Promoting lifeless inventory to a liquidator
- Utilizing dusty inventory as loyalty rewards for distinguished vacation customers
- Transferring stock between places—what’s dusty in a single location could also be promoting in one other
- Adjusting your retailer layouts to carry extra prominence to easily-overlooked merchandise
- Bundling dusty inventory with finest sellers
Sustain with vacation retail traits effortlessly with Lightspeed
Within the extremely aggressive world of retail, particularly throughout the holidays, information is king.
Having concrete numbers on traits and efficiency empowers you to make choices with confidence. Automating that information frees you as much as focus in your technique as a substitute of losing time compiling stories.
The newly expanded Lightspeed Superior Reporting may very well be simply what your online business must be actually data-driven.
Already a Lightspeed person? Attain out to your account supervisor to hitch the Lightspeed Superior Reporting Insights beta, or click here for more information.
Don’t have Lightspeed but? Let’s get launched. Click here to watch a demo and see what we’re all about.
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