5 ways to scale your business with retail technology

by | Jul 24, 2019 | Business Growth, Industry

Understanding how to scale a retail business into your next phase of growth is daunting and can take considerable effort. This means wearing many hats to get things done, especially if you’re looking to tackle retail stores and also scale your online business. Whether businesses are small startups or retail giants, like Amazon, the adage, “innovate or die” remains accurate.

Here are five things to consider as you scale a retail business, without compromising quality or expenses:

Omnichannel is now the standard (its a MUST to scale your online business)

It’s vital to create a cohesive and seamless experience for your customers. Excellence across all channels is now considered table stakes, but businesses are struggling with how to accomplish these multi-channel objectives while remaining profitable.

If you have a storefront and an online presence, does your in-store inventory match your available online inventory? Consider incorporating an online marketplace into your strategy to broaden your sales channels and keep up with the competition.

Consistently excellent user experiences are required to scale a retail business

Are there pain points or bottlenecks for shoppers on your website? What things are preventing them from completing their purchase?  Do you need to diversify your payment options or simplify your shopping cart?

Figure out these sticking points for your customer and fix them. A thorough review may give you insights into these struggles. These are a few eCommerce questions to ponder when looking at the data.

Develop an inventory optimization strategy that leverages retail technology

How optimized is your inventory system? Do you have one in place? Established businesses with a healthy bottom line can afford to overstock critical items. However, for a small business, any wasted money or time is a killer.

Modern inventory software comes with sales analytics recorded in real-time. With a sound inventory system, you can know precisely what you have in stock at all times, and track sales trends as they happen. As you cross the line from small to growing business, it’s time to consider implementing an inventory management software.

Stay niche, staying small scale can work to your benefit

Successful entrepreneurs beat the competition because they can deliver a unique customer experience by doing one thing really well before they considered scaling up to seize bigger opportunities.

Incorporate email and social media campaigns, loyalty programs, and other incentives to motivate returning customers, especially when thinking about how to scale your online business. Return customers are often the best evangelists for your business.

Wrap in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) as you grow

In order to scale a retail business, you need to automate your orders, invoices, advanced ship notice, and other documents keep things flowing smoothly between you and your trading partners. This process automation also improves the accuracy of your documentation, meaning fewer errors, less manual review of orders, and faster payment times for you.

We’ve helped retailers and suppliers of all sizes in enabling their first EDI system, integrate it into their eCommerce store and start new methods of fulfillment and eCommerce sales to scale your online business. We also specialize in helping smaller companies grow so they can keep up with the demands of bigger trading partners.

To learn more about how to manage and scale your business growth efficiently, or to learn how to use EDI with your retail trading partners, speak to one of our EDI specialists.

Find the correct EDI solution for your business.

Find the correct EDI solution for your business.

Get more insights on full-service EDI by downloading our white paper.

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5 ways to scale your business with retail technology

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