How to Qualify a System for My Store Needs

How to Qualify a System for My Store Needs
9/17/2013

First and foremost, you need to identify the needs of your store, particularly any unique needs you have. Here are the very important questions to ask yourself when looking to find a system. They  will help you determine how robust of a system you will need and what features would be the most beneficial to your business. Most consultants and sales people use these questions to gauge what types of  features are a need and what features are important to you but aren't a must for your business. However just because they aren't a need doesn't mean they won't  save you time and money. Knowing the answers to these questions about your store will allow you to eliminate systems that aren't a good fit for your business, allowing you to invest your time wisely in researching and evaluating what each system has to offer you and your business. So when you do purchase a system it won't just get you a leg up on your competition, it will grow with you and your business.

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1. What Types of items do you sell?  This is important, you need to know how you plan to use the system in your stores. Do you use barcodes or do you sell things by price per unit weight?
2. Does your store sell combo items or bundles? If it primarily does sell bundles you are going to want a system that can handle the way you are discounting the merchandise and how you are tracking your inventory.
3. How many store locations do you have? This question can be the cause of a lot of  problems for your business in the future. As a consultant, I see a lot of retailers who go with the first system they find or the cheapest without doing enough research of their own.  Now that their business has grown and the system wasn't robust enough to grow with them they feel stuck. This is why you want a system that is capable of handling a multi site store. The key word you want a scalible system.
5. How many customers do you service in an hour? Asking this question  allows you to not just know how many check out stations you need. This also measures the amount of time your process takes to service the customer and find relative information about the customer wants and needs.
6. How many check out stations do you have in each location? Knowing this is nessary to understand traffic flow in the store. You want a system that can handle the flow and deliver excellent  service to the customers. Having more then one station will  increase sales and allow you to sell quicker and  give better service to your customers.
7. Do you sell one high dollar ticket item or do you sell lots of small price ticket items that amount to a high total? Knowing what types of sales you do matters because ringing one big item is easier to track as far as inventory but how a system sells it is a totally different function than selling small items. With big items there are usually serial numbers involved. which is very different then scanning barcodes and skus.
8. How many transactions a day does your business do? knowing how many transactions you complete will allow you to know how quick and efficient your solution needs to be to handle the crowds in your store.  Lets say you get a rush and your system isn't fast enough to handle the crowd. I know of some systems that can't do simple things, such as let's say you have 15 of the same item. Usually, one would think you could just scan one sku and type in 15. Well that isn't always the case, with some systems you have to scan each item, which can take you forever and will cost you customers.
9. How is your store receiving items currently and tracking sales? what type of system are you using to import your inventory into your store? How long does it take to stock all the inventory? Do you know what is being sold or how much is walking out the door?  Having a system with features that track inventory and sales will allow you to see where your product is going.
11. How are you determining what needs to be restocked and what doesn't? How are you following trends in your store. This is how you order and track inventory by what sells just because you run out of something you have you really have to ask yourself how long has this item been there before you cleared out of it.  Knowing which items are selling well and which ones are not is very important on turning over inventory to profit.
12. If these numbers that you find are low or you would like them to be boosted you might want to have these two features that could give your store a boost in these areas. Here are two features that a system could help your store boost these numbers. The first feature is email marketing it will help you develop a targeted email campaigns to target your customers’ needs and desires which will help you drive sales. The other feature is of course customer loyalty programs These are creatively design programs to reward your best customers with discounts and other incentives while encouraging them to shop regularly in your store both of these features are integrated in most system but are always a must have for any great business.

This way you can can weed through the hundreds of systems out there and look at the top three to five qualified systems more closely. I do strongly stress doing the Needs Analysis found here. It will allow you to have a better idea of the features you are looking for in a system and allow you to find the best solution for you and your business. After all it doesn't hurt to be prepared.