Don’t let uncertain headlines give you the wrong impression, we are most certainly heading into a recession. With the IMF reducing their global GDP forecasts, there are tough times ahead. This can be a worrying time for business owners. But going through a recession doesn’t have to be as scary if you can prepare your business for it. Recession proofing your business today will make it much easier for you to ride out the storm ahead. This is Part 1 of TAKU’s series on recession-proofing your business.
What exactly is a recession?
A recession is a drop in economic growth in a country for at least two quarters (or 6 months) in a row. The drop in economic growth is calculated by GDP. Some people say that GDP does not truly represent the health of an economy. However, it is still a good indicator when to expect a slowdown. If you look at the graph below, you will see that Jan 2022 to June 2022 were the first periods of economic decline since the start of the pandemic.
This chart shows that the 2 quarters of 2022 have had drops in economic growth – officially making this a recession. (Source)
Knowing that your business will face a decline in sales or a lack of access to outside financing, we can begin by developing a game plan to recession proof your business.
Find ways to save money during a recession
More and more businesses will have cash troubles as the recession continues. So it is crucial that you consider ways your business can save money. Here are some tips regarding saving during a recession:
As a retailer you may be paying for services and products that are not essential to your business operations. It is important to take a look at the costs for your business and figure out which things you don’t absolutely need to keep your business running.
While you will want to review every single expense, it’s important to remember that the best way to stay profitable is to focus more on tools or services that help you sell more or save more money. This means, if you have to decide between buying a scale or running an ad campaign, you’re better off spending on digital marketing to keep sales up and possibly even grow market share when your competitors are pulling back.
One of the few good things during a recession is that demand will fall on things such as marketing spend. This can be good for your business as your competitors are spending less while it will cost you less to run ads.
At the same time, as demand for some services or products fall, when it’s time to renew a contract, make sure to try to negotiate for better rates or at least lower increases during these inflationary times.
Debt is often unavoidable when you’re running a business. But in these times of higher interest, all debts aren’t equal. Make sure that you’re familiar with the interest rates, fees and due dates associated with the debt you’re carrying. When paying down debt, always pay down higher interest debt such as credit card balances first to minimize the amount of interest you’re paying.
Investments are always necessary to maintain and grow businesses. But similar to what we’ve said about debt, all investments aren’t the same. The most important thing for any investment is to consider the return on investment. Return on investment refers to how long it will take for you to recover the cost of the investment. And usually ROI is best on purchases that help you optimize profitability by increasing sales or reducing your operational costs.
Pay monthly instead of upfront
Another thing to consider is whether or not what you’re looking to purchase is available on a monthly basis. This is particularly true with technology solutions. While it can appear to be cheaper to make a one-time purchase when buying software, the reality is that technology moves quickly and technology solutions that charge on a monthly basis offers a number of benefits:
Significantly lower upfront costs. In these inflationary and recessionary times, cashflow is king.
Constantly updated technology so that you always have access to new features that work with the latest devices. “Resilience” was a keyword during the pandemic. And a recession is just as uncertain for businesses. Having the ability to adapt your business with the latest, flexible technology might be key to your survival.
The ability to try technology to make sure it is right for your business. Most installed software cost the equivalent of several years of subscriptions. And if you’ve paid that much money upfront, you won’t be able to switch even if it’s not working out.
Use automation to reduce operational costs
Everybody has heard about the staffing shortage in the retail industry after the pandemic. With record high inflation, hiring staff is only getting more expensive. Where possible, consider using automation technology to reduce operational costs. For example, if you’re a busy store, solutions such as self-checkout kiosks are an easy way to lower operational costs while improving customer experience and sales by speeding up lineups.
Understand consumer needs
The businesses best able to thrive during a recession are those that are constantly aware of what their consumers are looking for. Even though overall demand will decline during a recession, there are product or service categories where demand may stay the same or even increase. This happened during the pandemic and it will happen again during a recession as shoppers change their buying habits.
Recession-proof products and services
The performance of some product types during a recession (Source)
The most recession-proof products are the types consumers will always need. Things such as food and energy will always be in demand. Normally speaking, businesses selling non-essential items will have a harder time. The interesting thing with the current recession is that there is also a trend of shoppers looking for ways to improve their lives after several years of pandemic restrictions.
The best example of this are products with “lipstick effect”. When shoppers do not have enough money to spend on big-ticket luxury items, many will find the cash to purchase small luxury items, such as expensive lipstick. So while it can be expected that shoppers will spend less overall on “discretionary” products, they will spend money on things that increase their standard of living, especially if they are good value for money. In Part 2 of our Recession-Proofing Your Business series we will take a deeper look into current retail product trends and how retailers are successfully marketing products during a recession.
Trim your inventory
As mentioned, lower sales lead to more unsold stock on shelves. When you’re carrying more inventory, you will need to deal with more theft, damage, obsolescence, and increased storage costs. You will need to get on top of this by:
Purchasing products your customers are more likely to buy. Do this by staying on top of any changes in your shopper buying patterns. This means tracking your top sellers on a weekly or monthly basis to see. For example, buying products more likely to have the lipstick effect such as home spa kits is always a smart move during a recession.
Stocking less seasonal products unless you are sure that they will sell. The selling time for seasonable products is more limited vs. products that can be sold year-round.
Have a good relationship with your suppliers to optimize your purchasing lead time. As a retailer, it’s important to have products in stock when shoppers want to buy them. But you don’t want to stock too early or too late to avoid locking in your cashflow or not having products to sell. As the supply chain problems during the pandemic start to improve, make sure you’re working with your suppliers to receive products when you need them. Depending on their own situation, good suppliers will try to work with you, especially during a recession, as their business depends on your own success.
Consider your existing operations. Are there ways you could add new sales channels or add products to generate new revenue? A few ideas you could consider include:
Adding more recession-proof products
Distributing to other retailers if you make your own products
Starting an online store under a different brand to sell only discounted or clearance items
The important thing to remember here is that additional revenue streams are incremental sales. As long you’re not adding a lot of extra overhead costs, they generally have the lowest marginal cost as you would not have made those sales anyways.
Partnerships and alliances with other businesses can help strengthen your business. You can reach out to other businesses and see how you can help each other during a recession. Partnerships can help make your offerings more attractive to customers. For example if you sell homemade soaps, you could reach out to a local business to start selling from their store or sell kits together with them. This way you have more products to sell and/or another way to reach new customers cost-effectively.
Take the time to really deepen your bond with your customers. Focus on providing excellent customer service to improve loyalty. Obviously this is an important strategy during all economic conditions, but during a recession it can really help you keep your business afloat. Studies have shown that shoppers have continued to support local businesses more even after pandemic restrictions ended. When customers are loyal to you they will continue to shop with you despite hardships.
There will be tough times ahead for all types of businesses. But this does not mean it is all doom and gloom. Smart entrepreneurs will look for ways to make their business more resilient by optimizing their operations, pivoting based on consumer needs, and even finding ways to grow. You should take some time and evaluate your business’ position. If you are able to make good decisions during this time you may just come out of this recession better than before.
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Modern POS systems are packed with great features that help retailers sell products more easily. While cloud-based features have gotten closer to older point-of-sale systems, many basic cloud POS today still can’t handle selling in fractional quantities.
This is a feature that many cloud POS systems don’t build into their core features, leaving it to others to build add-on plugins. While it’s great to have extra options through plugins, these extra costs can really add-up. At the same time, when something doesn’t work, it’s hard to know which software caused the issue.
Food products are commonly sold by fractional quantities
For this reason, more retailers are looking to use all-in-one cloud POS systems with built-in core functions such as selling in fractional quantities,
What are fractional quantities?
Bulk Barn, an a popular Canadian retailer that sells in fractional quantities (Source)
Fractional quantities (or decimal quantities) are used by retailers that sell products that are sold in different amounts to each customer. For example, if you sell cheese by weight or DIY fabric by length. Products like this are sold in bulk, not pre-packaged. The final weight or length needed is only known when a shopper is buying in-store or online. As such, the price of these products are set to a unit of measure (e.g. $ per lb or foot) and the final selling price is only calculated during checkout.
What kind of products are best for fractional quantities?
Fabrics are a great example of a product sold in fractional quantities (Source)
Here are some examples of products that require fractional quantities:
Bread and bakery products
Meat, seafood, or produce
Ingredients such as spices, flour, sugar, oils, etc.
Raw materials for construction, assembly or production
Supplements, beauty supplies or candy
Landscaping or garden materials
Fabric or stationary sold by size
Any item sold in bulk
Services that are charged by the hour
and many more
How do I sell fractional quantities?
Tomatoes being sold by weight
If you need to sell in fractional quantities, you will need to make sure that your POS system supports inventory quantities and sell prices to the decimal place required.
Besides being able to handle fractional quantities (e.g. 0.75 lbs) and prices (e.g. $2.765), if you sell high value bulk products, you need to be able to sell in smaller units for accuracy. For example, if you sell expensive products such as gold or saffron. With these, it is common to sell to the 4th decimal (e.g. 2.7683 grams of gold) as very small quantities can cost a lot.
While selling in bulk is a common retail feature, many basic cloud systems don’t handle it to the required decimal and will automatically apply rounding. This is where modern cloud systems such as TAKU come in. They are designed to allow retailers to accurately set prices and track stock quantities so that they can make more money.
In the current world of retail, having an online catalog is essential. Customers are spending so much of their time on the internet, being able to reach them online is now crucial. Yet many merchants still rely on physical print catalogs. While this is still a great strategy, there’s no reason not to add a digital catalog on top of that.
Times are different now, physical marketing materials should be an add-on, not your main strategy. After all, online ones are much easier for consumers to access since most people always have their phones on them, and they can provide a lot more information. Not to mention, they are much easier and cheaper to keep up-to-date.
TAKU client Ruffins Tillsonburg is able to display their products on Google thanks to our Google SWIS integration.
5 reasons you should have an online catalog
We understand that many brick & mortar stores may not have the resources or technical skills to set up an e-commerce store. However, it’s very important for all physical stores to at least start an online catalog for shoppers.
Here are 5 main reasons why you should:
1 – Shoppers buy more when they know what products you carry
Google’s research indicates that shoppers avoid stores when they do not know what’s available inside the store. After all, the majority of shoppers do research online today before heading out and stock availability helps shoppers decide which store to go to. Making it easy for shoppers to see what you have available on your shelves today drives more foot traffic to your physical store, which then increases your sales since impulse buys and upselling increase basket size.
You’ll be able to attract more new customers if your products are showcased online. People who are learning about your business for the first time will be able to better understand what you offer, even before they step foot in your store. If you use a modern system such as TAKU, your POS will automatically update your product showcase on Google so that nearby shoppers see real-time stock levels that adjust in real-time even as you sell.
Having stock levels update automatically is a key difference with a digital product showcase vs. traditional print catalogs as shoppers today expect stock information to be accurate whether they buy in-store or online.
Digital catalogs are great since they are so easy to share. In the age of social media people are always sharing things with others. Where a physical catalog requires someone to actually hand their friend the catalog (which may be out-of-date), a digital one can be shared around the world in a few clicks. It’s easy to see why this is a good thing, the more people that see your catalog – the more potential sales you could get. Similarly, shoppers are more likely to consider retailers recommended by their friends or contacts.
4 – Digital catalogs offer 24/7 customer assistance
Having a digital catalog reduces the amount of time spent answering general questions. If you have a product showcase, your shoppers will have 24/7 access to photos and product descriptions. This eliminates the need to have employees repeatedly answering the same questions. This also relieves some of the burden on your sales team as they will spend less time answering explaining product details and more time selling. This will in turn improve your overall customer service.
It’s best to think of an online catalog as a marketing investment. There is a cost to set it up in the beginning, but once it’s up and running, it provides free sales assistance and will quickly pay itself off.
5 – It will help you understand your customers better
Since an online catalog will be on your digital channels, you will be able to collect data that will be useful for digital marketing. The collected data will help you gain better insights into your customers and even answer a few questions along the way. Analyzing data collected from your digital catalog could help you answer questions such as:
Which of my products have the most views online?
Are people aware of my business? Are they interested?
How many people are making purchases based off of my catalog?
Do I need to change the products I am carrying?
How can I get more people to sign up for my email list?
Do my customers research products before purchasing?
Overall, a digital catalog helps to enhance your customer service. It allows shoppers to conveniently check what is available, find out information regarding products, and even share with other potential customers.
With an online catalog you will be able to reach more shoppers with less effort. It will also allow you to save money over time compared to physical catalogs. It is an investment which will quickly pay for itself. As a retailer you should consider adding or improving the digital catalog for your store. Happy retailing!
Want to start displaying your products online? TAKU’s Google SWIS integration allows your to showcase your inventory on Google in real time! To learn more click on the banner below.
The self-checkout kiosk showcasing TAKU, Samsung & Moneris technology
TAKU Canada Ltd. is excited to announce a new self-checkout system in Canada together with Samsung Electronics and Moneris Solutions Corporation. This all-in-one kiosk is designed to help merchants across Canada sell more, even while significantly lowering labour costs.
We know how difficult it is to hire, train and keep staff today. Our new self-checkout solution is designed to solve the problem of labour shortages without increasing the technical complexity that merchants often face when they sell in-store and online.
The sleek and modern design of Samsung’s hardware pairs perfectly with TAKU Retail’s clean and easy-to-use screens. Combined together with Moneris payment solutions, the TAKU Retail platform helps merchants offer in-store, online and self-checkout, all under a single login. No more logging into separate systems and checking multiple reports.
TAKU Canada and its sister company ACE POS has been perfecting retail commerce for over 45 years. The experience gained through nearly 5 decades is how we have built the best self-checkout system on the Canadian market to reduce lineups.
Sign up today to start selling more with less staff.
Many people think that shipping out an order is the same as ‘fulfilling it’. In reality fulfilling an order means much more than shipping a package out. In retail, the term “fulfillment” refers to everything a retailer does from the moment a customer places an order. While many think that order fulfillment means shipping out online order from a warehouse (this is likely because of Amazon fulfillments centers), this is actually only one of many ways to get orders to a customer.
For example, retailers with existing physical stores can also fulfill online sales by packing online orders for in-store pickup. In comparison, in-store pickup is generally a lot cheaper than shipping online orders out from a warehouse as you don’t need to pay for packing materials or shipping fees.
As we’ve mentioned – fulfilling orders includes the process of receiving an order then getting it to the customer. It can also include supply chain tasks such as inventory management, quality control and customer support as part of order fulfillment.
The term “order fulfillment” tends to sound complex and seems only suitable for very large businesses. In reality, fulfillment is something businesses have been doing for decades now. In the past, customers often made orders through phone calls, fax machines, or even coming into the store. Stores would prepare these orders for pickup or ship out. In other words, stores had to “fulfill” these orders.
The difference today is that most order fulfillment is for ecommerce and that most retailers have a catalog of their products online because shoppers expect to be able to see what products a store carries. This is why it is so important to have an online catalog that shows off all your merchandise. While an online store is great, having any product showcase (e.g. Google’s free See What’s In Store feature) helps nearby stores be found online. And a modern omnichannel retail system makes it easy and fast to display POS products online in a few clicks.
While there are many different steps in order fulfillment, the main ones are:
Purchasing goods from suppliers
Receiving goods that are purchased
Storing purchased goods until they are sold
Picking and packing goods when they are sold
Getting goods to customers
Most physical stores are familiar with steps 1 to 4. However, since the pandemic, the way many brick & mortar retailers are handling step 5 has changed. While merchants relied a lot on shippers and last-mile delivery services (e.g. DoorDash) in the beginning of the pandemic, as the cost of packaging materials and fuel surcharges has increased, more physical stores are looking at in-store fulfillment options today. For example, with BOPIS orders (buy online pickup in-store), ‘shipping out’ is replaced with customer self-pickup or in-store fulfillment.
It helps you compete with bigger ecommerce companies as you can give your local audience a custom and personalized experience during pickup
It’s faster for nearby shoppers to get their orders
It helps you get rid of shipping costs to send products out or return products
It helps you make bigger sales since shoppers often buy additional items during pickup
It lowers return costs as orders picked up in store have lower return rates
Some challenges around in-store fulfillment
In-store fulfillment isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. There are some challenges you need to be aware of if you are going to be fulfilling orders from in-store. Here are some roadblocks you may face:
The need to change the store layout to make it faster for pickup shoppers
The need for better back office processes to allow for quick picking and packing once an order is received
Linking data between store POS systems and online stores
Many POS systems do not offer the tools needed to track everything you need for in-store fulfillment. Modern omnichannel POS systems such as TAKU make order fulfillment a breeze. They make it possible for you to:
Manage all of your in-store and online inventory in one place
Sell any inventory in your POS online with just a few clicks
Always know exactly how much available inventory stock you have with real-time on-hand quantity
Automatically showcase products and real-time stock availability in Google searches, Facebook Shop or Instagram Shop
These are just a couple of the benefits retail stores will gain from using a modern cloud-based system today. Click here to learn more about how TAKU can help you save money and sell more today.
Confused by some words in the retail industry? Read up on the essential retail terms and their definitions with our Retail Glossary here!
The metaverse is a term you’ve most likely noticed being tossed around on the internet in the last year or so. Many predict that the metaverse is the future of the internet. At the moment it is used primarily for entertainment purposes. While the metaverse may seem like a gimmick right now, it will become so much more than that. In the long term, the metaverse has the potential to transform the shopping experience, and create a more engaging and immersive experience for consumers.
You’ve probably heard that Facebook’s parent company changed its name to Meta. Facebook rebranded with the hopes of leading the metaverse’s development. But what is ‘the metaverse’? The term metaverse refers to a shift in how we interact with the digital world‘ The metaverse is the idea that there will be digital worlds that exist alongside the real world.
These digital worlds (where many will work and play) will be the next step in internet use. There have already been a number of concerts and events taking place in the digital space. While it’s still early days for the metaverse, retailers should get involved earlier, because the cost of entry is lower today.
During the early days of the internet, many businesses were quick to dismiss the idea of shoppers buying online. But the first businesses who started online stores ended up with a major advantage versus their competitors. So the question remains, how can retailers take advantage of the metaverse?
You can own a digital space for your business just like you can own a physical space for your brick and mortar store. A digital space allows you to interact with your customer and introduce them to your products.
When saying digital space you may be confusing it with an online website or ecommerce store. In this situation a digital space is a 3D environment on the metaverse where companies can actually create virtual stores. The virtual stores actually allow users to interact with product and see them in a 3D space. Whereas on an ecommerce store the consumer would only be able to see pictures and videos of the product.
The metaverse would allow you to create a new shopping experience for your customers. Forever 21 used the platform *Roblox to allow shoppers to create their own versions of digital Forever 21 stores. In these user-created stores, digital versions of existing merchandise were sold. The products were then actually delivered to the buyers’ real-life homes.
*For those unaware, Roblox is an online gaming platform which allows users to create their own virtual worlds/games. Similar to YouTube, where users create content for others to watch – in Roblox users create games for others to play.
Simply rehashing your existing store on the digital front will not be a successful way to deliver this new shopping experience. Sky Canaves, a senior analyst at Insider Intelligence says that there is no need to be stuck between 4 walls in the metaverse, she continues that metaverse shopping can be so much more experiential. Imagine shopping for a car and being able to drive the car around in the Italian countryside all from your home. This is the type of experience merchants will want to foster for their metaverse customers.
Merchandising’s new boundaries
Metaverse shopping will help push merchandising to new limits. Showcasing your products in the digital world will allow for new and exciting ways for customers to see your offerings. Similarly to the car example in the last paragraph, companies can allow consumers to test merchandise in the virtual world. Besides the virtual world, retailers can leverage the new technology associated with the metaverse to show off their merchandise. Back in 2017, Ikea introduced their app Ikea Placewhich allows customers to use their iPhone cameras to see what Ikea furniture would look like in their own homes before committing to a purchase. This use of AR (augmented reality) has become commonplace for many retailers.
How some companies envisioned early metaverse shopping (source)
The beauty of the metaverse is that unlike a traditional brick & mortar store, a retailer’s merchandising is not confined to the physical space available inside the store. Shopping on the metaverse allows retailers to showcase an unlimited amount of products in a limitless space. For example a hardware store could showcase every single type of cabinet, flooring tile, or whatever other product they have in a virtually infinitely sized warehouse. Furthermore searching for these products on a digital store will be much easier than a physical store. Users could hypothetically type in what they are searching for and have the product magically appear in front of them so they can inspect it before purchasing. For a better idea of what this could look like, check out companies’ early visions of metaverse shopping.
Marketing with the metaverse
25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse to work, shop, attend school, socialize or consume entertainment by 2026. This provides a great opportunity for brands to get their foot in the door and build brand awareness with many people. We mentioned previously how Forever 21 is using Roblox to get an entry into metaverse shopping, well this does not only allow them to sell online in a new way but also to get their name out there to a whole new market. Let’s face it, it will be the younger generations who wholeheartedly adopt the metaverse. So metaverse shopping offers an opportunity to connect with a whole new audience.
Other marketing opporturnities
Besides building brand awareness, companies can hold other sorts of promotions in the metaverse. Brands can host special events in the metaverse such as classes, conferences, and workshops. For promoting the film ‘In the Heights’ Warner Brothers held a large block party on the Roblox platform. This made for an accessible way for consumers to partake in a promotional event.
Retailer can even start offering promotional exclusives on the metaverse. For example you could pair the sale of a shoe at a shoe store with a digital version of the shoe for an online game like Fortnite. In fact Nike has already filed patents to begin selling digital versions of their products.
A company who wants to succeed in the metaverse will be paying attention to the different ways big brands are interacting with it already. Take the lessons from the big players and see what you can change in your approach. We understand, the metaverse is still young and nothing is concrete yet. But by paying attention to what is going on in the digital space you may come up with the next big idea which will influence everyone else. There is some investment and technical know how needed to get involved in the digital world. Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled as the metaverse will continue to grow. The new digital front will provide a bunch of new opportunities. You don’t want to end up like the brands who dismissed the internet back in the 90s.
With TAKU Retail you can create an all inclusive and integrated omnichannel strategy that will get you ready to move your physical store to an online platform. Find out how TAKU Retail can help you achieve a seamless and successful omnichannel system for your business below!
