It’s not just a shop! Using staff for multichannel sales and fulfillment
A real opportunity to increase staff productivity
If the shop has a website or catalogue as well, there is a real opportunity to increase staff productivity. The nature of selling in a shop is it is quite reactive, people have to be on hand for those times customers require service.
The good news is the nature of fulfilling remote customer orders from the web or mail order is much less time bound than dealing with shop customers who require instant attention. Fulfilling remote orders can usually be done over the space of half a day, and this means when there is a quiet time in the shop, staff can be fulfilling other orders. Retailers who own shops are in a great position to deliver high quality services for web and mail order because all the resources are there in the shop, and using them can significantly improve productivity, which in turn improves profits.
On another angle to this, if the business sells online, how about getting your staff to start a blog? They can write short pieces to share views on new products that come in, producing ‘latest trends’ lists. Blogs can be informal and opinionated. They are a great way of getting additional interest in your website and building reputation which in turn can improve search engine listings. This activity gets your staff promoting your business in an informal, modern way. Ok, so it’s not for everyone, but some might really enjoy it.
