How To Maximize The Department Store Potential
For the busy person, department stores have a huge advantage: they can combine many types of needed items into one shopping trip. In one shot, housewares, clothing, and more can all go into the cart and out the door. That’s pretty appealing to a busy person. But department stores can become even more appealing by maximizing the potential of both customers and staff.
The Incentive of Customer Loyalty Programs
A recent article in Philly.com takes a look at the way data and loyalty fuel rewards programs. Frank Badillo, director of research at MacroSavvy.com, has been tracking the effectiveness of loyalty programs for over a decade. He says that the success of loyalty cards depends on some key factors for the retailer:
- the ability to leverage shopper information
- the ability to target rewards that yield the best returns in sales & profits
How can retailers have this ability? By utilizing software capable of capturing shopper information and using that data to market directly to customers, varying those messages by department and customer preference. ChainDrive’s extensive CRM and inventory system has this functionality. Its advanced promotional rules manager can also automatically detect if a customer is eligible for a special offer and apply it at the point of sale. Customers are rewarded and they come back for more rewards in future shopping trips.
The Incentive of Accurate Sales Commissions
People respond to rewards, and staff personnel are people, too. The way retailers reward staff — sales commissions — depends upon accuracy to be effective. Who doesn’t get discouraged when a hard-won sale is attributed to someone else?
ChainDrive’s Integrated Retail Management software for department stores has an innovative split-commission capability. This allows retailers to accurately divide sales commissions when multiple employees and departments are part of a single transaction. The one-stop shopping advantage of department stores doesn’t turn into a nightmare remuneration process for staff relying on commission allotment.
Rewarding both staff and customers maximizes the department store potential.