5 Ways Technology Can Improve Your Department Store

Technology has become an intrinsic part of our lives. Today, most businesses are built entirely around a specific technology platform. Department stores, while they’ve been around for decades, can employ some of the latest technology to improve their processes and customer shopping experiences.

Here are five ways to improve your department store and bring it into the 21st century with technology.

1. Centralize your database – If you have a department store that is operating as if each department is independent, you can streamline your retail operation by combining your databases into one centralized database. This will make product ordering, customer relationship management, and most of your operational routines more efficient.
2. Automatic product replenishment – Why count your inventory every month to see what you need to order when you can set your operations solution to trigger a new order when each product reaches a certain minimum count? You set the minimum and let the system establish a new product order.
3. Integrate accounting procedures with operations – When it comes time to pay your sales people, you want it be as easy as possible. Our integrated solution encompasses a commissions engine that allows you to capture each store personnel’s identity at the point of sale and pays them on the basis of your compensation framework. No matter how sophisticated your commissions structure is, you can integrate this into your accounting procedures and tie it into your point of sale. You can pay invoices, track purchase orders, and manage your leases all from one solution.
4. Make your point of sale mobile – Retailers that allow their employees to ring up sales from anywhere within the department store are streamlining their operations and increasing their revenues. This will save your employees time, make your customers happier, and make you more money.
5. Take your department store online – If you don’t already have an online presence, you’re already behind. More importantly, linking your web front end to back end operations so you can fulfill web orders, take payments online, and essentially run an online department store will go a long way to make your store a 21st century shopping Heaven.

Use technology to streamline your operations, make your department store more efficient, and increase your revenues while making customers happy. That’s what running a department store is all about.