How to Incease Sales With a Company-Wide Clean-Up
Posted by Debra Neville
Is your business at risk of being yellow-taped
as a disorganization crime scene?
A once-a-year spring clean-up will drive sales. Having clutter around your POS system, on the sales floor and in your back room (near your inventory management software system area) will cost you time. It may even cost you sales.
Imagine this: your customers are in line and you're looking for a product on the sales floor or in the back room. Your POS system won't allow you to pause a sale; customers wait because you're unorganized. The POS system area is cluttered, the back room is a disaster and you have to walk around the unorganized messes to get to where you need to be. That too, is unorganized. In the meantime, the customers are mentally tapping their fingers (and muttering under their breath, "Gimme a break, I've got more important things to do than stand for a few extra minutes in line."
WHAT TO DO?
WHERE TO START?
According to Julie Morgenstern, author of "Organizing From the Inside Out," set aside one day a year as a 'clean-up day,' Yes, you're taking some key staff off line, but your unorganized retail life is costing money. Below are her five steps to getting and staying organized:
1. Prepare in advance. Make a list of the supplies you'll need for this project and have them on hand: bins, labels, trash bags etc. No Home Depot or Staple runs to interrupt the pace.
2. Select a leader to guide staff. This person is well respected and is decisive.
3. Determine the guidelines of what stays and what goes. Your staff shouldn't and can't make this decision themselves. You and your leader should write the guidelines; your leader shares those guidelines.
4. Reevaluate the space for efficient work flow. What do you do in the back room that needs a better work flow? Gift wrapping? Ordering? Receiving merchandise? Tagging? Make sure everything you need to complete a task is laid out in the order you need it with little movement so there is economy of space and movement.
5. Label areas to help staff stay organized. Clutter-free space sustains order.
It's everyone's responsibility to help maintain order by putting things back where they belong. The author thinks that you're really setting them up for their next use. By keeping your business organized and clutter-free, your employees will have more time to spend with their customers, building relationships (customer-loyalty building) and increasing sales.
Our point of sale software systems (we have four in our portfolio) inherently force you to order your business. You can pause a sale, all past customer receipts are archived, you can determine if an item is in stock from your retail POS systems screens, and plenty more. Fill out the form by clicking on the link and I'll call you today to determine how we might help you organize your retail life with a top-notch POS software. I might even call you in the next 15 minutes.
