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Chapter
Chapter
ChapterTitleTitleTitleEducation
Transform your
business with real-
time ease
By Ben Golder
retailcloud
he concept of real-time retail, which can pro-
vide real-time POS, product and consumer
data, is nothing new to entrepreneurial business
T owners. In a small amount of time, real-time
retail has evolved from being considered a handy ticket
booster – and a luxury resellers can pin onto systems –
to a tactic geared toward survival and longevity.
With the ever growing presence of well-informed
shoppers, it has become difficult for merchants to just
smile, suggest options to consumers and expect them to
buy something, especially when merchants often rely on
strangling return policies to protect profit.
Making the switch to real-time retail
Changing from traditional retail to real-time retail
systems can be done seamlessly. This applies to both
merchants and payment providers. Considering
the menial cost in time, energy and risk included in
making the leap – front-end and back-end – to real-time
retail, nothing should inhibit ISOs from offering this
opportunity to merchants.
Also, with the increasing number of modern and low-
margin payment options available, payment providers
must do their best to remain attractive to retailers while
improving their systems to increase profits, cut costs
and continue putting more retailers under their wings.
Switching to real-time retail allows a larger margin for
ISOs while also saving merchants money.
Tips for SMBs
Following are five tips to help payment providers and
small to midsize businesses (SMBs) remain competitive in
a changing retail environment:
1. Understand your audience
Over 50 percent of SMBs do not have a web presence
because they believe it's not what their customers
want. Businesses that believe customers would be
discontent with the convenience a web presence
provides risk losing business to competitors that are
more accommodating.
Help comes in many forms, and someone who
facilitates the checkout process for customers is
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more useful than someone who knows how to fold
customers' receipts to fit their wallets. It's important
to focus on what will bring customers back into the
store, which is what matters. Having a web presence
is one of the greatest aids a business can provide to
its consumers.
Furthermore, merchants need to be open to their
customers' concerns and requests, melding tailored
solutions into their business models and storefront
layouts to satisfy their customers' needs and keep
the name of the business relevant to them.
The majority of sales today happen before products
are purchased: the kindness, consistency, and
helpfulness of the salespeople; the layout of the
merchandise; and the efficiency of the payment
system used are all deal makers for most people
now that the Internet offers the ability to stock up on
trend items before they go viral and become either
overpriced or out of stock.
Not every store can be the same; there is never a "one
size fits all" when it comes to displaying products
and services designed to satisfy customers' needs,
but one can get close to fitting customers' desires
like a glove by finding ways to understand what the
customers want and implementing them into the
store's layout or procedures.
2. Always be available
When it comes to a store's survival, availability of
anything – be it support or products – is paramount.
A majority of people will walk out of a store that has
what they want if the salespeople are rigid, boring
and unwilling to facilitate customers' transactions.
This is true even if store clerks are well-informed
people who have the desire and flexibility to help
customers, but do not make this clear to shoppers
who enter the store.
It's best to interact in ways that comfort buyers
than to respond lackadaisically to people who are
entering stores and spending their valuable time,
energy and money searching for what they need. If
shoppers are not tended to properly, the likelihood
of them returning is close to zero.
3. Have a presence
Communities can be drawn together by common
interests, geography or a number of other criteria.
In those that are sizable enough to form a forum
or network, there will always be representatives to
answer questions and calm qualms people may have.
Businesses can participate in this type of helpful
interaction through many mediums such as mobile
web, regular web and through mobile applications.