5 Ways Department Stores Can Be More Efficient

Operations management for a large department store, especially for a chain of large department stores, can be quite a challenge. When you sell merchandise in many different product categories–such as sports, clothing, toys, furniture, household goods, and more–then keeping track of everything you must manage to remain efficient and profitable can be a nightmare. ChainDrive offers these five ways to improve your department store efficiency.

1. Centralize your database – Instead of having a separate database for every department, set up one central database for your department store. Managing a single database is much more efficient than trying to keep tabs on five, 10, or 15 different databases.
2. Set promotional rules intelligently – Chances are, you’ll have promotions in multiple departments at the same time. With a centralized way to manage all of your promotions from one place, you’ll be more efficient and profitable. You can manage each department’s promotions separately and simultaneously while establishing promotional rules that make sense for your department store chain.
3. Manage your customers better – You may have separate departments, but you likely have only one point of sale. Even if you have one or more departments with their own point-of-sale terminal, you’ll be more efficient if you can manage all of your customer relationships from one database. One reason is because your customers likely do not buy from just one department. Every department should have access to the same information on every customer.
4. Track employee commissions accurately – What happens if you have employees that work in several departments? Establish a way to track and monitor every employee’s commissions and bonuses no matter which department they work in.
5. Manage your inventory from end to end – Department stores have a lot of inventory, and they have a lot of different types of merchandise. You need to manage each vendor and each product well. You need to track each product from the time you order it to the time it leaves the store in your customer’s hand. That’s a very tall order. You need a solution that is robust enough to track and monitor all of your inventory in every department of your store.

Don’t leave department store efficiency to change. Get the right operations management solution right from the start.