TAKU Holiday Hours 2023

TAKU Holiday Hours 2023

Thank you for your continued support this past year. We’re all looking forward to growing together with you in 2024 with many new features rolling out in the new year!

We wish all of our customers and employees a well-deserved break. Stay safe🎄🙌

Our holiday hours of operation 🕔 will be as follows:

Easter Tips to Increase Your Retail Sales

Easter Tips to Increase Your Retail Sales

Easter is right around the corner and shoppers are looking forward to celebrating safely with their friends and family. As a result, retail owners can expect to see an increase in sales.

The NRF’s annual Easter survey indicates that there is a lot of momentum going into the Spring. This momentum is reflected in consumer spending as shoppers are expected spend an average of $192.01 each.

National Retail Federation's chart on planned Easter celebrations for 2023
Bar graph showing the percentages of people planning to to participate in each of the various celebrations this Easter. Source: NRF

Below, we’ve prepared some tips to help you gear up for the Easter holiday weekend and make the most of this year’s consumer spending habits.

1. Offer Discounts and Promotions

While not every shopper plans to celebrate, plenty of them will still be on the lookout for Easter related sales. In fact, 29% of shoppers are planning to shop just to take advantage of Easter sales.

To tempt more shoppers to buy from your store, consider discounting your best selling items. You can even set up a dedicated landing page or section on your website/e-commerce site so shoppers can easily browse through sale or seasonal items.

For example, Indigo set up an Easter landing page encouraging consumers to shop for gifts from their Easter merchandise.

Indigo's Easter gift section on their website
Take a look at Indigo’s Easter collection

2. Reposition Your Products for Easter

Don’t sell chocolate or Easter related products? That’s okay – you don’t have to sell Easter merchandise to benefit from the holiday.

You can always position your products for Easter by finding a unique angle. For example, The Body Shop encouraged customers to celebrate the holiday by treating their loved ones and themselves with their nature inspired products.

The Body Shop's Easter angle on their website

Bath and Body Works did something similar with their slogan “Gifts For Every Bunny (And Basket)”.

3. Launch Retargeting Campaigns

It may be a good idea to attract old visitors back to your website with Easter offers and promotions. You can do so with Facebook retargeting ads.

By setting up your Facebook pixel on your website or ecommerce store, you can present different offers based on shoppers’ interaction with your site. The idea is to retarget past users based on their buying intent (e.g. visitors who added to their cart vs shoppers that initiated checkout).

If you are using TAKU eCommerce, click here to find out how to set up your Facebook pixel on your ecommerce site.

Retargeting Ads

While pandemic related restrictions and lockdowns are easing in some regions, many consumers still prefer popular fulfillment options such as buy online pick-up in-store (BOPIS), local delivery, and shipping.

You can encourage shoppers to purchase their Easter gifts safely by highlighting some of these fulfillment options on your website. For example, Indigo’s home page calls attention to the fact that shoppers can purchase their Easter items safely with a BOPIS option.

5. Launch a Giveaway on Social Media

Running an Easter-themed social media giveaway does not have to difficult or expensive. There are various ways to promote your giveaways, for instance, one cost-effective idea is to run a giveaway where the participants are asked to tag a friend or family member in the comment sections to enter. This can encourage the engagement with your audience and can also help reach new audience, and spread the news of your giveaway and brand.

Or you could do something directly related to Easter by asking your followers to do a virtual scavenger hunt. Your followers would have to go on your feed or website for example, and find clues to enter the giveaway. Alternatively, you can ask your followers to guess how many eggs are in a basket. you can also apply this to some of your products (e.g. making followers guess the weight of chocolate, the amount of beads in a necklace etc.).

Consider boosting your social media giveaway to widen your reach and increase the number of participants.


We hope you found these tips helpful! For more helpful retail tips, you can subscribe to our blog. Happy Easter and happy selling!

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8 Retail Recruitment Ideas

8 Retail Recruitment Ideas

Holiday season is pretty much upon us, which means your stores are busy. Many retailers hire temporary employees around this time of year to help out with increased in store traffic. The problem is that it is very hard to find frontline staff right now. We’ve talked about the current labor shortage before as it’s something retailers around the world are struggling with.

This holiday season is going to be tough if you need extra help but can’t find any. Whether you want to hire long-term or short-term employees, here are some retail recruitment tactics designed to help you attract more help.

Job postings with eye-catching graphics

Just like any other type of ad, making something that catches people’s attention is the way to go. What better way to catch people’s attention than with something eye-catching, out of the ordinary, and light-hearted.

McDonalds 'students wanted' recruitment poster
(Source)

Take a look at this famous McDonald’s recruitment ad. It lets people know in a simple way that you don’t need experience, and that they expect you to make mistakes as well. This makes it let intimidating to those who would consider applying for their first jobs.

Show ads in creative places

Increase retail recruitment opportunities by finding creative ways to let people know you’re hiring. There’s always the standard ‘posters throughout your store’, but you can also get a bit more creative with it.

Posting ads in public spaces
  • Place “We’re Hiring” signs on washroom stalls and doors.
  • Put ads on your product packaging. You can place stickers with QR codes linking to job applications, or simply have a message telling customers that you’re hiring. This way you can even attract the ideal type of employee: someone who enjoys your brand.
  • Email/text marketing campaigns. If you email or text customers with promotions or newsletters, you can always add in a little section telling them you are recruiting new employees.
Job postings in newsletters

Don’t forget tried-and-true storefront placement to easily grab street traffic attention.

Look at flat fee recruitment tools

Consider using technology to hire your retail staff more easily. Platforms such as SWOB use technology make it a lot easier for you to hire store staff as they interact with local talent 24/7 with easy-to-use mobile apps that young workers enjoy using. Many of them have affordable, flat fee options for small businesses for a certain number of positions.

Be clear in your job postings

Marketing graduate job posting
(Source)

Connect with your readers and think about who your ideal candidate is. For example, if your ideal candidate is a high schooler who will work part-time on weekends, write more casually and maybe even mention the benefits of working part-time on weekends. At the end of the day, you need to relate to readers to get them interested in working at your store.

Screen for personality vs. experience

High energy staff

In a tight labor market, it’s even harder to hire based on experience or skills. But that may not be the best approach as it restricts your talent pool. Students, new grads or seniors without any retail experience are a great resource if you’re able to put in the time to train them.

The importance here, is focusing on the personality, energy or enthusiasm of the candidate. You can always train a person to use a point-of-sale system or how to run an inventory count. But you can’t easily change a person’s work ethic or attitude. If anything, hiring “green” employees can have the silver lining of being more trainable – there will be less bad habits to untrain.

Check competitive posts

Google search results for "retail jobs"

Today’s labor market requires you to be competitive. After all, your job posts are a reflection of your business and what you offer as an employer. Before you post anything, make sure you know what your competitors are offering. This includes everything from benefits, and imagery to the keywords used in your job posts.

Including keywords is a method used to improve SEO (search engine optimization) which determines whether your content shows up in search results online. By including a lot of relevant and local keywords in your job posting, it will be more easily found on search engines such as Google by local candidates in your area. So when you post your job opening, be sure to add phrases or words that are location-based such as mentioning where your store is located or which area you are trying to recruit from.

Post to your Google My Business profile

Don’t forget to post your job openings on your Google My Business profile as well. Not only is this free and will improve your SEO, it will show up in front of people who are already interested in your business since the majority of people check store hours before they visit a store.

Community job fairs

Convention center full of people for a job fair
(Source)

Going to places where potential applicants already are is a great and smart way to promote your position openings. The best part? Many community job fairs are often free for you to attend.

Look online for event listings or reach out to local establishments such as:

  • Universities/colleges
  • High schools
  • Vocational schools
  • Local chambers of commerce
  • Community and business development centers

Many of these organizations offer free booths to encourage local businesses to hire their students or residents. This is especially true for physical retail stores that are key to keeping local communities vibrant.


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ACE Joins TAKU

ACE Joins TAKU

We can finally share the big news with everyone. We are pleased to officially announce that our sister company ACE POS Solutions Ltd. is now part of TAKU Canada Ltd.

In these inflationary times, this will help us with our ongoing efforts to keep admin costs down and to improve our service to you.

So what does this mean for you? There are four things of note:

  1. We have combined forces to provide you with better support. The leaders will continue to operate and manage TAKU Canada Ltd. with a team that is 100% based in Canada.
  2. We are not merging our two software platforms, TAKU and ACE. Each product line will focus on the continued development of its core products, and our customers will have a choice of solutions based on business fit.
  3. By merging our teams together, we can offer better migration assistance between platforms.
  4. Your billing from us stays the same, but the email on the invoices will change to billing@takulabs.io, and we will be offering more self-service options to make it more convenient for you.

We will be improving our websites along with revamped social media. Stay tuned for more freebies and special offers!

Retail Glossary
Loss Leader Pricing in Retail

Loss Leader Pricing in Retail

Originally published on December 10, 2019.

What is Loss Leader Pricing?

Loss leaders in retail are items or merchandise that are offered either at a significant discount, at minimum profit margin, or sometimes even below cost to entice shoppers to make a purchase.

This pricing strategy has been used by many big box retailers and discount stores to encourage impulse buys and has been met with great success.

Simply put, the intention behind this marketing tactic is to bring shoppers in-store and once they’re there, encourage purchases of higher margin items to make up for the profit lost on loss leaders.

Examples of Loss Leader Pricing

You have probably encountered loss leader pricing more often than you would think while shopping. Can you think of a sale that seemed too good to be true? Your local grocery store may have been selling eggs at a steep discount or your favorite clothing brand may have sent you an email advertising their sweaters at a ridiculously low price point. 

These deals may have you thinking “there’s no way that the retailer is making any money on these items”. And in most cases, you’re right! Let’s take a look at some common examples of loss leader pricing in retail. 

1) Grocery Store Staples 

Grocery store staples such as milk, meat, and eggs work really well as loss leaders. Because they are regularly bought commodities, discounts and low prices are sure to attract shoppers. These items are strategically placed at the back of the grocery store to promote impulse purchases. Because shoppers have to walk to the very back of the store to purchase these staple goods, it is likely that they will be enticed to purchase other items as well. 

milk as a loss leader

2) Printers 

Printers are also commonly used as loss leaders to encourage shoppers to purchase complementary items like ink and printer paper. While printers are often sold at or below cost, the price of ink is extremely high. Loss leader pricing is used to get shoppers to purchase the printer, and create the demand for ink which again, is relatively expensive. 

printers as loss leaders

3) Gaming Consoles 

While the price of gaming consoles may seem high, they are actually sold at or below cost. For example, Microsoft Xbox gaming consoles are strategically sold below cost to encourage consumers to buy higher margin video games.

gaming consoles as loss leaders

The Pros and Cons of Loss Leaders

Advantages:

1) Sell Slow Moving Inventory

If you have a slow moving or overstocked inventory item, choosing to price it as a loss leader can help you move it faster. This will result in more shelf space, less inventory, and an increase in cash flow. 

2) Promote Complementary Items

Strategically choosing your loss leaders can help you increase sales of other items in your store. For example, let’s say you’re looking to increase the sale of a certain brand of women’s razor blades. In this case, you would price the associated razor as a loss leader. Once consumers buy the razor that complements those razor blades, they’ll have to come back to purchase the blades as well (which you can choose to sell at a higher margin). 

Disadvantages:

1) May Hurt Your Brand Perception

Drastically discounting items can affect how consumers view your brand. Many shoppers associate lower prices with poor product quality. And overusing loss leader pricing can give consumers the wrong perception of your retail store. Remember people want high quality merchandise at good price points, not garbage.

2) You can Lose Money

There is risk associated with loss leader pricing – which is why you must closely monitor sales of complementary products and of the loss leaders themselves. There is a chance that customers will only purchase the loss leader itself in high quantities. Meaning lower or no sales of complementary, high margin items which results in less profit for your store overall.


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How To Plan For Pre, Peak, and Post-Holiday Shopping

How To Plan For Pre, Peak, and Post-Holiday Shopping

Originally published on September 20th, 2021.

October to December marks the peak shopping season for retail stores. It’s a time when many retailers plan for an increase in shoppers. As the world moves out of the global pandemic, retailers need to be ready for customers with new shopping behaviors.

Pre-Holiday

According to a Google study, 70% won’t consider purchasing something without seeing it online: whether it is an ad, browsing through a website, social media, or email newsletter. This means that retailers need to start ramping up on their online efforts early: whether it is sending weekly newsletters or updating social media on a regular basis, “online storefronts” are more important than ever to shoppers.

Think With Google, 2021

People often flip between discovery (window-shopping) and shopping (looking for products mainly based on functions or features) until they are ready to make a purchasing decision. Of the two, discovery is more emotional and can often override the rational thinking behind shopping. Which is why online “pre-shopping” discovery is so important to the entire shopping process now.

A Statista survey showed that up to 50% of people are planning to do their holiday shopping in-stores. This means that retailers need to be ready to showcase new merchandise and discounts online to shoppers even before they make it to the stores.

Retailers need to gather more customer reviews so that they appear higher than their competitors on Google searches. Read more on how to get more customer reviews here.

Peak-Holiday

In 2020, up to 79% of people left their holiday shopping until one-week before Christmas. This is good news for retailers because they are able to push their efforts to the very last minute. The same study showed that 64% of shoppers planned to shop in-stores. After more than a year of restrictions, people are eager to get out. This is great for physical stores that are able to target shoppers when they’re nearby.

Convenience plays a huge role in purchasing decisions today. “Now near me” searches have grown 100% worldwide. Options for store-managed e-commerce have also increased a lot. Because some shoppers will always leave holiday shopping until the last minute, local stores have a major advantage. After all, everybody has experienced shipping delays given the increase in online shopping. Instead, more local shoppers are searching for ways to buy online and pickup in store (BOPIS) to avoid delays.

The key to successfully offering store pickup for online orders is inventory accuracy. This means using store operations software that offers real-time stock information in-store and online. One way to make sure that your store appears online is to use Google’s free product listings and Local Inventory Ads (LIA). Learn more about how to increase foot traffic to stores with Google here.

For last minute shoppers, retailers can offer store pickup. Not only does this avoid delivery delays, it helps encourage shoppers to purchase extra items when they come to the store for their orders. Make sure that your order pickup area is well-merchandised with suitable impulse products. And consider switching to an order pickup system that will allow staff to checkout customers. There’s nothing worse than losing sales from a in-store shopper just because a customer doesn’t want to line up again to pay.

Post-Holiday

13% of all retail purchases end up being returned. This means that retailers could be juggling huge losses in January. In the US, 1.75 million packages were returned in January 2021, and that does not include returns in store!

Keeping the return process simple and painless is key. It is especially important for retailers to create an easy process as 89% shoppers who have difficult return experiences will not shop at the same store again.

As the holiday frenzy winds down, retailers should cycle back to the pre-holiday selling tactics and tips to gear themselves up for another selling season. Read more about our off-season marketing strategies here.


Want to know more about Post-COVID merchandising?

post covid merchandising checklist