How Department Stores Can Stay Relevant
How do department stores work and stay relevant? The department store was originally a destination of choice, giving shoppers the latest in trends and technology. Because retail has been changing so rapidly, legacy forms of retail like the department store have struggled to stay relevant to the consumers of today. This doesn’t have to be a struggle because the legacies of the department store include new ways to handle information, connect with customers, and plan for the future. Staying alive as a department store is still about data handling, understanding customers, and flexible strategies. Today, these things just look different because of the technology used to do it.
Optimize Data Handling
At one time, the big department stores would amaze out-of-towners by sending orders from one floor of the store to the next in a network of pressurized tubes and canisters. Today’s customers aren’t impressed by escalators and other old-school technology but they are impressed when the salesperson in front of them can look up an item, place a hold, transfer it to the store for pickup or even have it delivered to their home during one conversation. Not even having to go back to the service desk? That’s impressive.
Understand Your Customers
The better your customer relationship management is, the more equipped you are to understand what your customers are really going to buy. Because ChainDrive utilizes a centralized database, every customer’s information is all in one place: their buying history, their preferences for contact, any interactions with your team that are noteworthy, and more. You are able to filter and analyze with increased accuracy and know your customers well. This gives you insight when making decisions about actions you are considering.
Strategize With Flexibility
A well-known strategist once said that all battle plans change when they come into contact with the enemy. This is because a group of people can be unpredictable since each person makes individual choices. In battle, each side does have a group goal but in retail, this is not true. Individual shoppers sometimes act as a group but often do not. So the retailer has to be very flexible with strategies and prepared to change when a decision isn’t working out as planned.
How do department stores work with ChainDrive, which has software specifically designed for Department Stores that enables the tradition of being a destination of choice to continue. You can stay relevant, optimize data handling, understand your customer, and strategize with flexibility because you have ChainDrive department store software.