With a common point-of-sale system implemented throughout a retail group it is a important to have consistent data management practices. Here are some suggestions.

An RPM study of leading specialty retailers reveals five concepts that can be applied to any retail proposition.

Around this time of the year most businesses will have received their annual financial statements from their accountant. Ideally the store owner will receive some objective advice from their accountant that is based on analysis of benchmark results from similar businesses. Unfortunately many accountants’ reports are of little or no use for strategic planning, and seem to be focused only on meeting the requirements of the IRD.

Retailers need to find the balance between carrying a big range of products and carrying just a few best sellers. At one extreme shops become so cluttered that neither customers nor staff can find what they are looking for. At the other end of the spectrum, too few products might make customers think you are going out of business and they won’t spend as long in store browsing.

The most rewarding part of working in business is being able to see tangible results for your efforts. Not only is this important for business owners, but every study of employee satisfaction shows that getting feedback on results is one of the most motivating factors of any job.

Setting up the most appropriate categories and sub-categories in your point-of-sale (POS) computer system is one of the single, most important steps you should take to ensure that you get value out of your system.

By tapping into the wisdom of the crowd and receiving automatic alerts advising your store when significant “exceptions” occur you can open up hundreds of opportunities to improve customer satisfaction and make more money.

Many retailers struggle to put in place stock replenishment processes that work. The result can be very costly; out-of-stocks, missed buying discounts, and increased handling costs.

Rather than empowering staff to take the right action under any circumstances, rules have been introduced that prevent staff from using their initiative.

Just imagine if your store could improve from selling 1.5 items per customer (IPC) to 2.0 IPC. This would generate a 33% increase in sales from the same customers!

Studies show that “Not being able to find what they were looking for” is the leading cause of dissatisfaction when customers visit your store.

One of the most bewildering and frustrating habits of retailers is their reluctance to rid their stores of dead products, ranges and categories.

Everyone knows that The Warehouse is famous for low prices, and that Harvey Norman is famous for the best range of furniture and appliances.

With the right data, collected properly and grouped intelligently, specialty retailers can now optimise each category in their store so that it contributes to overall profitability.

Retailers can strengthen their unique position in the market by tightening their range of retail products.

Throughout the 1990's. the retail world was running scared from a burgeoning giant called "Wal-Mart." Everyone wanted to know what Wal-Mart was doing, how they were doing it, and why they were doing it.

RPM has identified the key principles of retail best-practice from a worldwide study of specialty retailers.

Use this decision tree to apply some science to the new product selection process.