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SHARE1THE GUIDE TO MASTERING MULTICHANNEL RETAIL

THE GUIDE TO MASTERING MULTICHANNEL RETAIL

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By Henry Morland

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You have a dream of running a retail business. You steel your nerve and take the plunge, source some fabulous

products and set up a store. And it turns out you are one of the lucky ones. Customers love what you have got to

offer and the orders roll in. It feels great. Money starts to flow and you are hiring your first few employees. Sure,

you’re busy but who isn’t when starting a business?

Then something strange happens. Your attention is increasingly pulled away from the products and relationships

that were your most important concerns when you were getting started. Mistakes start to creep in and you start

to experience a loss of control. Your time is spent juggling spreadsheets. You struggle to figure out how much

inventory you have sold on which channel and what your margins really are. All your hard work doesn’t seem to

be translating into profit. Indeed you aren’t even sure what profit you are making.

This guide aims to distil the combined experience of more than a thousand merchants currently running their

businesses on Brightpearl, to help you break this cycle. No matter whether you are in this situation right now or

whether you never ever want to get into it, this guide is for you.

Henry Morland

Chief Product Officer

Brightpearl

LET’S SET THE SCENEINTRODUCTION





With Brightpearl, you can safely offer the same inventory

across multiple selling channels, efficiently fulfil your

sales orders as they come in, manage your suppliers and

provide great customer service. On top of this, Brightpearl

automatically creates the relevant accounting entries

as you go about your day-to-day activities, meaning

real-time insight into the financial state of your business

without the need to re-key transactions.

Brightpearl is 100% in the cloud, so you can say goodbye

to costly servers and the need to maintain your own IT

systems. Instead, you and your team can access your

business from anywhere - the office, the warehouse, the

store, on the road or even at the beach - all you need is

an internet connection and a web browser.

WHAT IS BRIGHTPEARL? Brightpearl is the leading retail management software

designed specifically for ambitious, independent,

multichannel retailers and wholesalers.

INTRODUCTION





This advice falls broadly into three categories:

• Tips to help you to take control of your business

• Ideas for increasing efficiency across your operations

• Tricks to develop the insight you need to inform good decisions

We hope that this little manual can help you escape the hamster

wheel and re-discover the passion for that drove you to set up your

retail business in the first place and that got lost somewhere along

the journey because life got really exhausting.

This guide is designed to help you turn a busy retail or

wholesale operation into a successful, sustainable and

profitable business. It is packed with practical advice about

how to survive and thrive in the increasingly complex

multichannel retail environment.

Chapter 1 Using multichannel retail channels

Chapter 2 Using customer data to drive great service

Chapter 3 Running an efficient operation

Chapter 4 Merchandising for multichannel

Chapter 5 Building a wholesale business

Chapter 6 Focusing on profitability

Chapter 7 Getting your team building your business for you

WHAT’S IN THIS GUIDE

INTRODUCTION




THE SERIOUS MERCHANT’S GUIDE TO RETAIL

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C H A P T E R 1

USING MULTICHANNEL RETAIL CHANNELS

3 TA K E AWAY P O I N T S

Give your customers more opportunities to buy your products

Maximise your margins

Gain competitive advantage through great service





Selling through more than one channel immediately

creates complexity. At very low volumes you can pick

up and process your orders on each individual platform

using spreadsheets, but this very quickly becomes

unmanageable as orders for the same products

accumulate in different places.

The most valuable thing you can do to take control is to

create a central location for all your orders, and a unified

workflow for managing them through to delivery.

1. Integrate your sales channels with your order management

system and automate order download.

2. Set up a simple workflow which reflects your business practice.

Ensure everyone follows the workflow and that orders are

clearly flagged with where they are in the process. e.g. quote,

new order, paid, inventory allocated, picked, packed and

shipped.

3. Allow everyone to access this order data, but maintain control

by restricting who can make particular changes.

4. Flag any exceptions that arise and focus your valuable

management time on these.

CHAPTER 1

MANAGE ORDERS FROM MULTIPLE CHANNELS IN A SINGLE PLACE





Taking an order for an item you no longer have in stock

is expensive, both in terms of the missed opportunity

and the time and effort it takes to put it right. Equally it is

expensive to be carrying inventory that is not offered for

sale across all your selling channels.

1. Automate the updating of inventory levels so any change in the

current stock level is immediately reflected across all channels.

2. Ensure any bundle products reflect the inventory level of the

scarcest component part.

3. Allocate inventory to orders as they come in, and ensure that the

allocation triggers an update to all channels.

4. Make sure newly delivered inventory immediately triggers

updates to the channels to maximise the opportunity for sales.

KEEP YOUR INVENTORY LEVELS SYNCHRONIZED

CHAPTER 1

Finding products out of stock is the number one issue that has caused our polled consumers to have a negative shopping experience...




With a system that interlinks our website, eBay, Amazon, warehousing and accounts… there’s no

double selling, our inventory levels are always up-to-date, we even have the time to speak to our

customers just to see how they are doing.

Tweet this!

Lee Adams, Spy Camera CCTV

CHAPTER 1

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CHAPTER 1

OPTIMIZE THE CHANNELS THAT WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESSMarketplaces are intensely competitive. Just being there

is not enough. Your products need to be visible and

attractive to buyers, and that takes work.

Online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay have invested

massively in search technologies to promote the best

rated products and suppliers. You need to understand

how these mechanisms work and optimize what you do

in the light of this understanding.

1. Avoid stock outs. Cancelled sales kill your ranking.

2. Offer the right delivery options, keep your promises and keep the

customer informed – shipping is about managing expectations

more than it is about raw speed.

3. Build seller ratings with speedy communications and great

customer service.

4. Ask for reviews from your customers to bolster future demand. Download infographic

KNOW YOUR MARKETPLACEDOWNLOAD AN INFOGRAPHIC COMPARING THE AMAZON AND EBAY MARKETPLACES.




http://pages.brightpearl.com/rs/135-BBD-722/images/Guide16-INFOGRAPHIC-ebay-vs-Amazon.pdf


CHAPTER 1

Your customers don’t distinguish between your online

operation and your physical stores and nor should you.

Modern multichannel retailers are breaking down the

barriers between online and offline journeys.

1. Give store staff visibility of stock across the enterprise, and

allow them to take orders for delivery.

2. Allow your in-store staff to see the purchase history for all

customers, even those who purchased online.

3. Offer a click and collect service, so customers can pick up in

store goods purchased online.

4. Allow customers to return goods in store that they have

purchased online.

5. Wherever possible, identify your in store customers, so that their

on- and off-line activities are combined.

DON’T FORGET BRICK AND MORTAR





When business is spread across multiple channels, managing all

its elements --orders, inventory, shipments and more -- can be

risky and very time consuming.

Choosing an integrated multichannel retail system like

Brightpearl saves you time and prevents errors, ultimately

providing the control and confidence you need to thrive, no

matter how many channels you sell on.

A single view of all orders from multiple channels

View and manage all your data in real-time

Smooth-running, automated shipping process

THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO REACH MORE CUSTOMERS WITH BRIGHTPEARL

Save time and try Brightpearl free for 30 days

SHAMELESS PROM

O!

CHAPTER 1




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C H A P T E R 2

USE RETAIL ANALYTICS TO DRIVE GREAT SERVICEMaking repeat sales to existing customers drives profitability by building revenue without the associated cost of acquisition.


Maintain a trusted view of each customer’s activity

Segment your existing customer base

Target profitable prospects





BUILD A SINGLE VIEW OF THE CUSTOMER, AND LOG ACTIVITY AGAINST EACH RECORD

CHAPTER 2

Customers engage through different channels at different

times. The more you understand past behaviour the better

your chance of delivering great service and building a

profitable future.

1. Log every customer interaction, be it a marketing campaign, a

telephone conversation, an order placed or a product returned.

2. Help your team deliver great service by ensuring anyone dealing with

the customer can see the full history of your relationship with them.

3. Incentivize your team to up sell and they will look for opportunities to

do so.

4. Know your customers and time your communications for maximum

impact. If someone loves the latest thing, let them know when it’s

coming in.





Customer relationships very often develop along

predictable lines, even if the actual stories are very

specific to your business. A jeweller, for instance, who

sells an engagement ring can reasonably expect that

there will be a wedding ring or two to follow and, with a

following wind, a predictable pattern of anniversaries to

follow.

Understanding where customers are in their

relationship with you will ensure you are making the

right overtures at the right time.

SEGMENT AND ANALYZE YOUR CUSTOMER BASE

CHAPTER 2

1. Use the data you log to segment your customer base. Analyze

order history, and build segments around lifecycle categories.

2. Analyze marketing responses. See which campaigns have

appealed to which segments in the past and try to replicate

best practice.

3. Target offers appropriately to maximize returns: offer discounts

to the price sensitive and new products to those who have

been attracted by similar things in the past.

4. Don’t be afraid to exclude customers from marketing campaigns

who have sky-high return rates, or who otherwise drain your

resources.





MAXIMIZE THE LIFETIME VALUE OF THE CUSTOMERS YOU ACQUIREUnderstand the cost of acquiring a new customer and

balance this against their lifetime value. Focus your

acquisition strategy on building lifetime value.

CHAPTER 2

1. Build a picture of the lifetime value of customers.

2. Analyze what your most valuable customers have in

common. Where were they acquired? What was their

first purchase?

3. Focus your acquisition efforts on replicating your best

existing customers.

4. Nurture your customers to build their lifetime value.

CRITICALPeople who used to be loyal customers but have long lapsed. Find out why they

have gone away. O�er them real Incentive to return.

LOSTThis your nurture bank. Stay in touch with them and try to identify which ones can

be brought back into the fold.

TOPRegular Customers who have shopped

recently. These are your best advocates. Understand what is driving them, reward

their loyalty and request recommendations

NEWNew customers testing your o�ering.

bring them back quickly to build familiarity and loyalty. Work to turn them

into loyal customers.

Download Customer Segmentation Example

EXAMPLE OF HOW CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION CAN DRIVE APPROPRIATE COMMUNICATIONS.




http://pages.brightpearl.com/rs/135-BBD-722/images/Customer-segmentation-example.pdf

With over 2,000 customers it’s hard to keep track of them all, but Brightpearl stores all the customer data you need to know. I can see what my customers are buying and when, which makes it a lot easier to follow up with them after a

sale. Customer feedback and satisfaction is a big part of why I started Peachy Belts so having this functionality is really

powerful and essential to my business.

www.peachybelts.co.uk

Tweet this!

CHAPTER 2

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C H A P T E R 3

RUNNING AN EFFICIENT OPERATIONOnce the orders start to roll in, the challenge becomes how to cope with the increased volume whilst maintaining levels of customer service and profit margins.


Maintain a centralized view of all your inventory

Streamline your pick, pack, ship process

Minimize mistakes by managing by exception




Whether in stores, at the distribution centre, with the manufacturer or in returns, locating all the

inventory means you are better able to source the order from the most convenient, cost-effective

location for the customer.

CHAPTER 3

Andrew Starkey Head of e-logistics at IMRG

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When the orders start to roll in, you need to get the goods into the hands of your customers

with the minimum of fuss and effort. You cannot possibly build an efficient process if you do not

know what you are holding and/or where it is.

MAINTAIN A CENTRALIZED VIEW OF YOUR INVENTORY, WHAT YOU HAVE AND WHERE IT IS

CHAPTER 3

1. Simplify your workflows by specifying

which orders are filed from which

warehouse.

2. Don’t forget your physical stores.

Maximize your opportunity to sell by

ensuring store staff have visibility of stock

in the warehouse and vice versa.

3. When you send stock out for sale in a

pop-up shop, move this stock into a new

virtual warehouse. That way you track it in

the same way as all other locations.





Most retail businesses over-stock. Reducing the value of

the goods you have in your warehouse puts more cash

in your bank account, but it increases the risk of stock

outs. The way to mitigate this risk is to know what is on

its way and when.

1. Take control of your supply chain by making use of purchase

orders.

2. Establish a single trusted source of the truth and keep it up to

date. Spreadsheets are brilliant tools, but a shared data store

mitigates the risk of basing important decisions on out of date

information.

3. Maintain an up-to-date picture of inventory, sales and product

on order. Use it to make intelligent decisions about what to

order and when.

4. Make sure new products are available for sale the moment they

arrive (if not before). If it’s in your warehouse, and not for sale it’s

costing you money.

LOOK INTO THE FUTURECHAPTER 3





As your business grows, so does your payroll.

Minimizing unnecessary labour costs can have a huge

impact on the bottom line of a business. A great place

to look for these efficiencies is in the warehouse, where

well thought out processes can maximize efficiency and

minimize human error and shrinkage.

1. Create warehouse locations and organize your warehouse for

optimum picking efficiency.

2. Use pick lists to collect batches of orders, then pack them at a

centralized packing station.

3. Integrate your order management system with your chosen

shippers and you will never have to rekey an address again.

But remember, shipping is a highly competitive market, rates

change and customer service levels vary between suppliers, so

be careful not to get locked in.

4. Don’t be afraid to outsource. Many mid-sized merchants

find it is more cost effective to outsource some or all of their

warehousing and ecommerce fulfilment to specialist third party

logistics suppliers.

STREAMLINE YOUR PRINT, PICK, PACK, SHIP PROCESS

CHAPTER 3





Is your ability to analyze your business operations

confounded by endless listings and reports? Are you

letting customers down or missing out on new markets

because your operations are at full capacity? Smart and

savvy retailers are using software to get their operations

under control.

Drive cost efficient replenishment and administration

Provide exceptional customer service with the right processes in place

Easily scale operations and meet fluctuating operational requirements

across multiple channels

THE MOST SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES USE SOFTWARE LIKE BRIGHTPEARL TO MANAGE THEIR OPERATIONS

Try Brightpearl free for 30 days

SHAMELESS PROM

O!

CHAPTER 3





Having the multi-warehouse functionality has helped me immensely. Most of my stock is managed externally but some will also sit with me, my freelancers or with the manufacturer.

Being able to mark us as separate warehouse facilities means I can keep track of all of my stock all of the time.

www.evolvebeauty.co.uk

Tweet this!

CHAPTER 3

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C H A P T E R 4

MERCHANDISING FOR MULTICHANNEL RETAILGood merchandising means emptying your shelves of slow moving stock and reinvesting the money in fast moving products with good margins.


Build a product hierarchy and use it to analyze your sales

Set your pricing in the light of fully landed costs

Invest in stock that moves





You may know your individual products inside out, but

to put together a great range, you need to know what

categories sell. What brands? What styles? Say you

are running a bike shop, are you selling men’s bikes

or women’s? Road bikes or mountain bikes? The right

insight will allow you to spend your valuable cash on the

right products.

1. Build a product hierarchy and assign each and every product a

place in it.

2. Identify best sellers and worst sellers at each level, and don’t

forget to factor returns into these calculations.

3. Analyze your sales against this hierarchy. Use this analysis to

drive your merchandising decisions.

UNDERSTAND YOUR PRODUCT HIERARCHY

CHAPTER 4

5%25%

62%46%

86%





If you ask an accountant to assess two merchant

businesses, one key measure is the rate at which they

turn their inventory. Sure, there are huge variations

depending on the goods you sell, but the fact remains

that if you buy the right goods, you can sell them faster,

and release the cash more quickly to buy more.

1. Identify slow moving products and clear them out. Mark down

the price if you have to, just do what you can to release the cash

that is tied up in these products and reinvest it in fast moving

lines, categories and brands.

2. Where customer expectations permit, fill orders on demand by

placing back-to-back orders with your vendors.

3. Take this a step further by having your vendors drop-ship orders

directly to your customers.

FOCUS YOUR INVESTMENT IN PRODUCTS WHICH SELL THROUGH

CHAPTER 4

www.brightpearl.com

White paper

How Fashion Brands Can Optimize Inventory Season to Season

Download Whitepaper

CHECK OUT THE BRIGHTPEARL WHITE PAPER: “HOW FASHION BRANDS CAN OPTIMIZE

INVENTORY SEASON TO SEASON.”




http://pages.brightpearl.com/rs/135-BBD-722/images/Guide16-How-Fashion-Brands-Can-Optimize-Inventory-Season-to-Season.pdf


Pricing is hard. Drop your prices and you sell more

but make less margin. Raise your prices and often the

opposite happens. Striking the right balance is art as well

as science. But one thing is for sure, without data you

are in the dark. To optimize your prices you must know

your margins.

1. Ensure you understand the true margin associated with each

product by allocating full landed cost, including shipping costs,

taxes, insurance, storage, etc. You need to allocate all the costs

of the stock including: cost to ship, taxes, insurance, storage

costs, etc..

2. Attribute costs by channel, to ensure you are not robbing

Peter to pay Paul.

3. Know your marketplace. What do your competitors charge?

Does it differ online? On marketplaces or in store?

4. Understand the value proposition, what your customers are

buying and what they are willing to pay.

5. Track and analyze your markdown rate - are you giving too

much money away?

6. Tune your pricing to your audience.

GET YOUR PRICING RIGHTCHAPTER 4

$10.99




Previously we were using a mishmash of software… If an item sold on eBay we would have to manually go through

and change the inventory levels in store and on the website. We began to lose track very quickly, the administration was a

little bit overwhelming.

www.thetriathlonshop.co.uk

Tweet this!

CHAPTER 4

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Look at wholesale on its own terms

Manage your customer relationships

Land and expand


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C H A P T E R 5

BUILD A WHOLESALE BUSINESSThe traditional separation between retail and wholesale is breaking down, with ambitious independent merchants increasingly combining the two. Success depends upon tracking and optimizing each according to its own criteria.





Margins may be smaller on wholesale orders, but the

lifetime value of a customer is typically much higher.

This is just one of many respects in which the metrics you

use to manage a wholesale business differ from those

that are appropriate to a retail business. The fact is, to

effectively track and optimize your wholesale business,

you need to be able to look at it separately.

1. Flag your wholesale customers and orders so that you can

report against them.

2. Assign costs to the relevant business stream, and don’t forget to

include your internal costs: salaries, rent and so on.

3. Build separate P&Ls for each business stream.

4. Establish relevant performance indicators and report your

wholesale business against them.

SEPARATE YOUR DATACHAPTER 5





Great customer service is, if anything, even more

important when you are dealing with the trade. If they are

to maximize the lifetime value of each and every account,

your account managers need to know your customers,

their needs, their history and their business cycles.

KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERSCHAPTER 5

1. Log every interaction with each individual in your customer’s

organization and make this data available across your team.

2. Keep track of your customers’ business cycles, their goals and

their buying windows.

3. Understand your customer’s processes and make their lives

easy wherever you can.

4. Manage your customers’ expectations. They are themselves

making commitments so will value clarity and predictability in

their suppliers.





Trade customers, like retail customers, will come to

you initially for a particular product. The challenge, as

you develop the relationship is to encourage them to

purchase across your range.

1. Learn about your customer’s business. See what sells well and

identify appropriate products to offer them.

2. Don’t assume your retailers know your business. Show them

what you have got.

3. Learn from your customers and replicate best practice. Help

your retailers to succeed by keeping them aware of which

products are your best sellers.

4. Measure your success. If you know what a profitable customer

looks like then you are in a much better place to replicate them.

CROSS-SELL AND UPSELLCHAPTER 5





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C H A P T E R 6

PROFITABILITY AND CASH MANAGEMENTNo matter what else is going on, if you run out of cash, the music stops. To maximize your chances to make the most of any situation, you need to know, at any moment, how much money you have, what is due in and what you have committed to pay out.


Use purchase orders to understand future outgoings

Assign costs by channel to protect margins

Target your team on profitability





It may seem at first like a bureaucratic overhead, but the

use of POs is one of the most important disciplines that

you can introduce to a retail or wholesale business.

Purchase orders give you a view of what goods you have

ordered, which is invaluable data when evaluating how

to spend your money. They are also a vital piece of the

puzzle when evaluating supplier performance.

1. Build purchase orders in your and regularly review what you

have on order and when it is due to arrive.

2. Ensure inventory that is on PO is visible to operations to ensure

you don’t accidentally place multiple orders for the same

product.

3. Book in stock against each purchase order.

4. Report against your purchase orders to analyze your vendor’s

performance. Use vendors who deliver the right goods at the

expected time.

PURCHASE ORDERSCHAPTER 6





It takes effort to optimize a sales channel, effort that

could equally be expended elsewhere. By associating

the cost of doing business through a particular channel

with the orders it generates, you can decide whether

that commitment is justified.

1. Account for goods movement on a first in first out (FIFO) basis.

That means your margin reporting remains true even as your

vendors change their prices.

2. Get a true picture of your cost of sales by associating a

transaction with all relevant costs including, marketplace fees,

forex charges and the cost of processing orders.

3. Assign expenses at the channel level, including the costs

of preparing your listing data, translating descriptions, and

optimizing for search efficiency.

4. Use all this data to understand your profitability by channel.

Focus your valuable time where the margins are.

USE RETAIL ANALYTICS TO MAXIMIZE CHANNEL PROFITABILITY

CHAPTER 6





To give yourself the best possible chance of achieving

your goals you need to specify exactly what you are

trying to achieve, communicate this to your team, and

build incentives around them.

1. Build a set of management accounts, identify key performance

indicators - the numbers which tell you how well you are

shaping up to your objectives - and regularly measure your

business performance against them.

2. Keep your books up to date. The sooner you can see something

changing the sooner you can react.

3. Manage by exception. If there is a number which doesn’t

look right, investigate. Quickly!

BUILD INCENTIVES AROUND PROFITABILITY

CHAPTER 6





Accurate data and software tools which can help you interpret

your data are important for savvy retailers to glean real insight

into business operations and to stay competitive. A business that

turns their data into useful, actionable knowledge is expected to

make decisions five times faster than its competition.

Manage cross border trade with landed costs and

multicurrency features in Brightpearl

Keep your accounting records up to date in real time. Review your

profit and loss statements on a daily basis.

Make informed decisions to make your business grow more

THE MOST PROFITABLE WAY TO MANAGE YOUR BUSINESS IS WITH BRIGHTPEARL

Earn more and try Brightpearl free for 30 days

SHAMELESS PROM

O!

CHAPTER 6





C H A P T E R 7

GET YOUR TEAM BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS FOR YOU


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When your business is small, you know what products you have in stock and what is on order; you see what is selling and what isn’t; you know how much money you have to spend. In a larger business, this simply isn’t possible. An organised and focused team can be the difference between success and failure.


Use purchase orders to understand future outgoings

Assign costs by channel to protect margins

Target your team on profitability





Think about the business you want to become, and map

out in detail what it might look like. What are the roles and

responsibilities of the people involved? What are their key

skills and characteristics? Clear ideas will help you hire

the right people and clear responsibilities will help them

succeed.

1. Talk to others in your sector, even your competitors. People love

to talk and you will be amazed at what you can learn.

2. Map out an org chart and plan the roles that you will add as your

business grows.

3. Define a role before you fill it, and what qualities an ideal

candidate might have. Not only will it help you hire wisely but also

the clarity will help them succeed.

4. Set some simple KPI’s for each role so that you and the individual

know what success looks like.

PLAN FOR SUCCESSCHAPTER 7

Download Chart

DOWNLOAD A TYPICAL ORG CHART FOR AN INDEPENDENT MULTICHANNEL

RETAIL / WHOLESALE MERCHANT




http://pages.brightpearl.com/rs/135-BBD-722/images/typical-retail-org-structure.pdf


“Singing from the same hymn sheet”... “on the same page” The driving

force behind these clichés (and plenty more besides) is the importance

of teamwork. As the leader of a team, your success depends upon

the combined energies of the people around you. Get them working

together and you can move mountains.

STAY IN TUNECHAPTER 7

1. Be explicit about what you are setting out to achieve.

Sell it to your team and they will sell it to the world.

2. Ensure everyone is working with the same facts by

establishing single trusted sources for all your key data.

3. Use technology to give people access to tools and

information. Clearly there is some data that is sensitive,

but the more people can see and understand what their

colleagues are doing the easier it is for them to collaborate.





DEFINE YOUR WORKFLOWSCHAPTER 7

When your business is small, workflows are simply what you do,

and you very quickly work out the most efficient ways of getting

the business of the day squared away.

Add a few more people into the mix and inefficiencies and

mistakes easily creep in which can erode margins and change

the dynamics of your business. Get it right, on the other hand,

and you can create a culture of ongoing improvement.

1. Make your workflows explicit. Train your team to work within them.

2. Identify objective measures to assess how well they are working. If you

have a pick, pack, ship process, how many orders are you processing in

a day? What are your error rates? How much stock is lost or broken?

3. Review your workflows regularly, listen to feedback and iterate. If you are

measuring the right things, you will quickly see if you are improving.





MANAGE BY EXCEPTIONCHAPTER 7

Whether that is giving special treatment to your most

valued customer, or identifying potentially fraudulent

orders on your website, the fact is that a few exceptional

cases can have a disproportionate impact on the

profitability of the business as a whole.

If you can identify the exceptions, you can deploy your

most intelligent and effective people to deal with them,

and that is interesting and motivating work.

1. Define what counts as an exceptional opportunity. Is the person

walking into your flower shop looking for a single rose for their

sweetheart or organising a wedding for 200?

2. Define what counts as an exceptional threat. Does that delivery

address look complete, or is there a chance that the package

will be returned?

3. Work out the features that identify the exceptions that matter,

and flag them straight away. Use technology to automate this if

you can.

4. Identify appropriate responses and empower the right people to

act on them.

5. Streamline your workflows around the unexceptional. Use

technology and automate as much as you can.




The ability to collaborate over the internet means I don’t have to waste money hiring out office space, or on travel and I save time by no longer having to share my system. Overall this equates to my company being more green

and cost-effective.

www.evolvebeauty.co.uk

Tweet this!

CHAPTER 7

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THANKSIf you need more help why not contact our Customer Service team. We can help you scope out your needs for a retail management system. You can also trial Brightpearl for [email protected]




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