Do I need a Retail Software Solution?

Hello,

Through today’s blog we will we will be sharing discussing the need of software solution for a retail store, and would like to share the awareness among retailers on a question “Do I need a Retail Software Solution? Which often confuses them to make a decision to get software for their store or not.

Before we jump into the real discussion let us understand the basic need for a software solution that is why we need software?

The answer is Software solutions are required where repeated work, complex calculations, accurate information etc is involved and has to be done most accurately with minimal chances of error and yes at minimum cost involved.

So from the brief explanation above one thing is clear that software are essential for businesses, but why for my business, as I am into retail business, and have been doing this business for ages perfectly without using any software solution.

Let us take a typical example of Grocery store to understand the need for retail software.

A typical grocery store involves following transactions and calculations to be managed:-

• Barcode:- Standard barcodes on company products, and other products which don’t have barcodes but needs to be manage and maintained

• Inventory management: - Most important is to manage the inventory which includes terminologies like current stock, out of stock, in stock, in transit, expiry stock etc.

• Accounts management: - Accounts needs to be managed for sold items (now a day’s sell happens on cash, credit, debit cards) and purchases from various supplier which are distributors to different products.

• Billing:- Very crucial for any business, in grocery retail of a departmental store billing involves, discounts, promotions, loyalty points management, schemes and various other offers shared by the companies.

We believe that the above mentioned points are enough to understand the need for a retail store software. Let us discuss each one in a bit detail and compare both the sides that is with software and without software.

• Barcodes:- If a retail store is not using a software solution then whether it’s a standard product having barcodes imprinted or a local product with no barcode, it’s all the same, and the main challenge is to document things like the entry or Purchase date of the product, Expiry date of the product, Batch no., the product is purchased from which vendor etc, and if the store is using a software solution then all these things will be recorded and will be maintained in the software, with alert mechanism which will be helpful in case of have expired stock in inventory, and the software also helps in generating the barcode for local products which then can be managed and maintained the same way as standard products.

• Inventory management: - Without software solution inventory management in a grocery store is a troublesome task. Managing of expiry, breakage, return, old products manually involve error which will lead to losses. Apart from it a retail store also needs to manage near expiry goods. With software in place, inventory will be managed with accuracy.

• Billing and Accounting: - Managing manually involves challenges like calculation on, various promotional offers, applying schemes, adjusting customer loyalty, offering discounts and managing taxes on different products, and accounting for transaction which involves sale on cash and card and purchases on cheque, DD, and handling a credit cycle. All this will be managed by the software solution; and not only that but also manages the credit days for different vendors, and shows the alert once the days exceed the credit limit.

Conclusion:-

Hope you have got insights of how a software solution manages all the complex tasks and works towards excellence. This is not only quick bust save a lot on time, money and energy. The initial cost for software may seems like a Cost, but this investment has higher long term returns.

Hope you liked the post, please share your comments.


RetailGraph Team

SoftWorld (India) Pvt. Ltd.
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