The most beautiful time of year will soon be upon us. Everyone from young children to grandparents enjoys the holiday season, not only for the gifts but also for the food. For retailers, this means they need to gear up for a busy time of year as more and more people make their way to their stores in search of Thanksgiving items. Unfortunately, with the festive season right around the corner, this creates several Thanksgiving retail problems that you must conquer to serve your customers properly.
Overview
Managing Orders
Thanksgiving means the number of people who order via eCommerce websites and physical shops will rise sharply. As a result, you’ll end up with more customer orders than usual, and it will be challenging to manage them all.
Therefore, you need a system that will help you manage your orders right from the first stage. In this way, it will be easier for you to ship the items quickly when they’re ready.
Inventory Management
Just like managing orders, managing inventory is one of Thanksgiving retail problems for retailers. The main reason for this is that many customers visit the store and browse the shelves to see what’s available.
If retailers do not manage inventory properly such as insufficient items available for customers to purchase or running out of stock early. The reasons will lead to revenue losses, and the customers will be disappointed.
Therefore, you will need an inventory management system that will help you monitor the stock levels of all your products. This system should give you a complete inventory management solution that enables you to track sales, handle returns, and view previous transactions.
ConnectPOS provides solutions to help you manage your inventory before, during, and after the holiday season.
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Store Set-up
As mentioned earlier, Thanksgiving means more customer traffic in your store. However, stores often fail to plan ahead for this increase in traffic and don’t accommodate their customers properly.
Due to this, you need to set up your store so you can serve your customers better. To do this effectively, you must ensure that your store is well-organized and it provides ample space for your customers to shop.
For instance, you might want to place all the turkeys and other food items near the checkout line on one end of the store. Meanwhile, move clothes and other non-food products to another area of the store so you can create more space for a long line at the checkout.
Competition
Retailers want to get as much business as they can from shoppers, especially during Thanksgiving, that is why it is very competitive. More stores than ever are trying to compete with companies for customers’ wallets. To do so, they advertise new product lines and services.
Therefore, your business must keep up with all changes to survive in this tough economy. You can give special offers or free samples to make your customers more likely to buy those items. In addition, you can also ask some of your loyal customers for feedback on how they feel about your store and if they’re having quality problems.
Parking
If you own a store, the parking lot becomes another Thanksgiving retail problem for you to solve. Your customers can feel discouraged after they spend half an hour in the crowded parking lot looking for a space to park.
To avoid this, you need to reserve some space near your store so that customers can easily find a place to park. You may want to set up some signs that indicate “Parking for Customer Only” or “Valet Parking” in your lot. Otherwise, you can provide shuttle service for your customers to take them to your store without packing one more car in the parking lot.
Conclusion
Many Thanksgiving retail problems that stores experience stem from not correctly understanding how to plan for increased traffic. Preparation and planning are the keys for you to success when it comes to managing these seasonal fluctuations. The ConnectPOS system has an easy-to-use, step-by-step dashboard that allows store managers to track inventory levels and sales all in one place. Try it for free now!