Five Reasons for Implementing Merchandising Software

It has always been considered that setting up merchandising audits is expensive and requires significant efforts. Companies spend much money performing merchandising audits across a wide range of retail locations. But their efforts often break down due to considerable amount of store data to be analyzed.

Today due to the new mobile technologies gathering and analyzing retail data have become much more effective. Using a merchandising software solution, a manager can set up an automated merchandising audit in less than 20 minutes, and analyze all the information from points of sale live, as there as merchandisers perform audits. Empowered with a merchandising mobile app, your merchandisers are able to perform all merchandising-related tasks using just their tablets and smartphones, with no need of visiting the office to get the schedule and report back.

The new way of merchandising auditing organization provides faster data workflow and reduces time for decision-making, improving the bottom-line. If your company is not already using a merchandising software solution, consider the opportunities to start. Below you can find the list of reasons why implement merchandising software.

1. Simplify scheduling. Traditional scheduling is a time-consuming and burdensome process for supervisors. It usually involves creating a list of store visits, filling out paper task forms for merchandisers, or using general-purpose calendar application. Using merchandising software a supervisor can easily organize the schedule of visits for every merchandiser individually, or in bulk, for any period of time.
2. Automate notification. Generally merchandisers receive the appointment schedule during a visit to the office, or via an email, or a phone call, and after they perform tasks they have to report back to the office. When using merchandising software all the visits and tasks are instantly displayed in tablets and smartphones of merchandisers due to automatic synchronization. Merchandisers can view all the information about each point-of-sale, including location, contacts, history of visits, documents attached and notes made by their managers. Merchandisers can always optimize their day route at the click of a button to make sure they have the shortest path between locations and they don’t have to waste time visiting the office.   
3. Get live retail visit confirmation. As a rule merchandisers notify supervisors of the fact of arrival at a store by a phone call, a SMS, or marking the time of arrival in a paper report. When using a merchandising software solution merchandisers are being monitored on the map in real time. Field team managers can see their routes, the arrival time, and time spent at each point-of-sale.
4. Streamline data workflow. Merchandisers usually collect store data completing paper forms, which are then to be transferred to the office for manual data reentry to the corporate database. Merchandising software allows automated retail data entry on a tablet or a smartphone. All the data collected at stores is automatically transferred to corporate database and is available for integration with company’s back-end system, export or analysis. Mobile forms allow collecting data very quickly and accurate, eliminating paperwork and minimizing mistakes.
5. Shorten the reporting process. Managers often don’t have time and enthusiasm to analyze big amount of data from all the stores. With merchandising software all the data collected at points-of-sale is instantly available for analysis. Use Google API and BigQuery access to your data to get ultimate custom reports and dashboards in seconds. Apply sophisticated filters to get the exact information you need. The reports can be easily exported to corporate database.

Today the option of in-house merchandising audits is more affordable than ever: you can get your merchandising software completely free to start merchandising automation free of charge at no risk.