Why Physical Stores Should Embrace Retail Management Software Without Any Delay

These days shopping means online shopping, precisely. With COVID-19 showing no signs of receding, customers have strictly resorted themselves to online shopping. That said, things are not entirely hopeless for traditional companies. Embracing technologies such as retail management software might help brick and mortar companies turntables for themselves.  

Issues generally faced by Physical Stores
Oftentimes, customers leave the physical stores dejected because of under stocked inventory. On the other hand, overstocked inventory becomes a pain in their neck. On top of that fact, they have to face hundreds of other issues such as irregularities in counting stocks, expired stock, faulty stock, and so on. And the worst part being that manual sales reports are not updated enough to give you all reports on such discrepancies. So retailers, in one sense, are clueless about the ongoing in their store, which in turn adds to the trouble of shoppers.

Enter Retail Management Software
The software comes equipped with tools such as POS, inventory management, CRM, reports, and analytics, all of which help retailers operate their business efficiently. 

Such a wide variety of tools makes retail management software a must for businesses to run their operations effortlessly and efficiently. The software could be used by a single retail store and even by a chain of stores. Plus, it can be used not just to track inventory, it can also be used for monitoring employee performance as well. Some retail management software can be used on smartphones, as well.

Benefits of Retail Management Software(RMS)
Faster checkout and billing with POS
Once the shopping is over, customers look forward to faster checkout. This is where RMS with POS integration helps out. The software comes combined with a new POS register, which ensures faster transactions and greater accuracy. One can add a product to the bill via a barcode scanner and on-screen buttons. The software is programmed to work in sync with different payment modes, which makes the lives of customers much more comfortable.

Real-time Inventory Management
Manual inventory management is tedious and time-consuming. On the other hand, inventory management via RSM can be carried out with inbuilt inventory management features. RSM’s inventory management features include:

• Real-time inventory data
• Tracks costs and profit margins on a per-product basis
• Under stock notification
• Notifies you when the products are automatically sold

Business Intelligence to Identify Top Selling Products
Retail Management Software’s business intelligence and analytics system can predict future sales and prevent losses in business by anticipating sales numbers. For example, you will need to gift wrap a 1000 cake boxes this Christmas for sale, something on these lines. This will ensure that you don’t overstock items and hence prevent losses because of overstocking.  

Business Analytics in the retail software system offers the following benefits.

• Target top-selling products, item categories
• Identifying the shopping trend in days, weeks, months and even in years.
• Identify first-time visitors and adding them to the database.
• Nailing down high and low performing employees and even offering them training assistance.

Sales Monitoring and Comparative Studies

Once the retail management system has been deployed you don’t have to maintain any manual records and bills for the same.

Retail management software can:

• Monitor sales revenue automatically and keep the records in the database
• Tracks real-time sales send notifications for inventory refills
• Comparative charts of transactions done in different periods

Employee Management
The organised and efficient workforce is the prerequisite for any retail store to run successfully. When done manually, hiring, training, performance tracking takes a hell lot of time. No more with Retail Management Software:

• Employee hours can be tracked automatically
• Streamline payroll process
• Flawless record keeping
• Training under performing employees

A few of the free and open-source retail management software that retail stores could try out include
BMS link
NCR
Arirms

iVend Retail

Ari
Ari is one-stop retail management software for all retail operations, from procurement to customer relationship management. It’s integrated with both accounting software and mail chimp, which takes care of both accounting and emailing automatically.

NCR
NCR retail management software is ideal for Department and Speciality Retail, Grocery, Drug and Mass Merchandise and Convenience and Fuel Retail. The software is currently being used in 141 countries.

ivend Retail
Omnichannel retail management software is designed for various sectors such as sporting goods, grocery, hospitality, building supplies, fashion, hardware, and more. Over 1500 customers spread in 85 countries have been using iVend, which includes top clienteles such as Basics, Evergreen, and more.

BMS Link
BMS or Business Management Software is a free cloud-based retail management software for small business owners working in the Blinds and Shades Industry. And both retailers and wholesalers can benefit from this software.

This brings us to the conclusion of this article. With brick-and-mortar operations almost coming to a halt in several countries, it’s time to embrace retail management software now more than ever.

Author Bio: I am Jennifer Warren, a Content Crafter with  GoodFirms , a research and review platform for service and software companies. The company provides a curated list of top mobile app development companies, top writing service companies among many others.