Importance of Real-Time Data in Retail
Let’s say you’re a store manager and you’ve set up an elaborate window display for a flash sale. You’ve planned everything down to the minute, from banners to bags. The crowd is trickling in and business seems to be picking up. Sort of.
But when the day’s sales reports come in, it turns out the numbers aren’t what you expected. This is a very real scenario where real-time data could have made all the difference. Retail as an industry is an extremely fast-moving machine.
Consumer tastes, buying habits, and market trends change rapidly - often without warning. And let’s face it, relying solely on historical data for daily retail decisions just doesn’t cut it anymore. Retailers need to be able to take quick action to make sure their business stays afloat, especially in these times of high inflation.
I think real-time data can help businesses make more informed decisions, but not always. There are some retail operations that can afford to rely on historical data or make do with their existing practices until something goes wrong and they have to change things. For others, being able to access key performance metrics at any given time can reveal valuable insights into customer preferences, behaviour, and patterns of interaction - all things that boost overall performance and profits. Real-time data also helps retailers keep tabs on inventory levels so they know exactly what’s working and what isn’t based on current demand patterns and how people respond to marketing efforts across different channels.
This way, store managers and business owners can optimise their stock levels for maximum profits instead of letting products pile up or worrying about running out during peak season.
Key Metrics to Monitor Store Performance
I Suppose treading water in retail can be an expensive exercise. You can be working like a Trojan, doing all the things you think need to be done and yet your metrics might be telling a different story. More or less. One that you might not want to hear.
But best hear it sooner than later so you can course correct. It’s not always easy being honest about how your store is performing. It’s kind of like admitting that you are financially over-committed and that eventually you will have to call your bank manager. No one likes to feel like they are probably not doing well.
But how do we know if we are doing okay or failing. That’s where those key metrics come in. This is the proof, or the pudding, depending on your performance. There are key points of data that give us the insight we need into whether or not our business is hitting the mark with our customers.
Sales per square foot allows us to work out how well a store is using its space to achieve financial goals. The way I see it, measuring the conversion rate lets us know if we are turning foot traffic into sales - which also shows how effective the team is slightly at closing deals with people already on site. While average transaction value is important, average basket size tells you how well you cross-sell or upsell products - these two together can give valuable insight into what type of products should be bundled together in future sales approaches.
And then there’s revenue per employee - measuring efficiency and output for each employee so we get a fair idea of who’s performing well and who needs a kick up the butt. Sort of. These indicators play a vital role in influencing business decisions regarding staffing, merchandise placement and sales techniques.
Not only does this provide a clear view of day-to-day activities but it helps with long-term growth strategies too, helping managers track progress against targets while adapting their approach based on real-time information rather than guesswork alone.
Dashboard 1: Sales Performance Overview
I know it’s tempting to hold up a print-out of your store’s numbers, squint at the rows and columns, and feel vaguely victorious when it all totals up. And then you get home and think, “Hang on a minute…wasn’t the green dress on the third rail a best-seller last week. Why does it say zero now.
” The humble dashboard is here to help. More or less. It seems like this dashboard is about clarity and immediacy.
It keeps real-time sales data front and centre for everyone involved in making this retail ship sail, because you’re not always going to have time to dig for context or search for insights when an influencer comes into your store wearing that red jacket that was hanging by the counter till yesterday (and is apparently sold out today). So, if you want to see how well you’re doing today vs how well you did last year, or last quarter, or just this morning, you’d turn to this dashboard. Similarly, if you want to plan for tomorrow (and figure out if there’s going to be a tomorrow), you’d look at your sales performance in isolation.
That said, this dashboard is no island unto itself - it goes hand in hand with a couple of others further down this list - but in terms of direct numbers and an overall summary of your finances on a daily basis, this is the one stop shop. And it’s also helpful that it can provide direct metrics like sales by store location or salesperson so as a manager or someone in charge of overseeing multiple locations, nothing goes amiss. This dashboard can also provide information on targets met/unmet or visual cues that indicate spikes in sales and trends so if there is some unusual activity (or even anticipated activity), it doesn’t slip through the cracks before you notice it. When I was working with an ethnic clothing boutique back home - before dashboards were commonplace and smartphones were ubiquitous - we had months where it would take us 30 days to figure out where things were lagging behind by when ideally we should have been making changes after day 5.
But with all this relevant information now consolidated into one central view - especially if customised with store specific details - nothing gets missed.
Dashboard 2: Customer Footfall and Engagement
You're standing near the front of your shop watching the world go by, and every now and then, a person walks in and out. In between there are these moments of, 'Is this enough. Do we have enough people walking into the store.
' It's a question that I find gets asked more often than not. Counting footfall sounds like an easy task but can be rather complicated if you really think about it. You have someone at the front door, someone at the back door, someone at your other entrances.
But how do you know you're counting right. And do those numbers translate to actual money in your till. What do you do when someone walks in, does a lap and then walks out again. There's a simple solution to this that can also tell you quite a bit about the health of your store and that's accurate footfall tracking and engagement monitoring.
This is very much the first step towards figuring out if your store is going to stay open for another day or end up being shut down by some higher-up who isn't invested in keeping it open. If you can tie these numbers to what your store does on different days of the week and even different seasons or campaigns, you can actually start running those campaigns that much more effectively. I think that's sort of why retail has been able to adapt to what's happening around us.
They know what works in-store because they've had all this data at their fingertips for so long now. And having that dashboard in place makes for a pretty good case when you're sitting in those management reviews trying to justify why you're still open when all the other stores around you have shut down. It looks like something worth investing in then for sure.
Dashboard 3: Inventory Management Insights
Strikes Me As we’ve all been there - staring at a row of neon-coloured shirts and wondering whether the latest trends have left us behind, or whether we’ve completely misjudged the market. Inventory is one of those make-or-break aspects of retail that can slip under your radar, with disastrous consequences for your bottom line. I once left a shipment of peasant blouses in storage for a year, only to discover that they’d gone out of trend and into a very expensive landfill heap. If only I had access to some sort of inventory management insight dashboard.
An inventory management insight dashboard gives you an overview of all your products across different channels, what’s selling and what isn’t, and what people are kind of searching for (that you may not have). It sounds fairly simple when you put it like that, but there’s quite a lot more to it - for example, you could track return rates so you know which pieces are allegedly popular with your customers but have quality issues or don’t fit properly. You could also forecast demand for future seasons and optimise your markdown and sales schedules with data from the past year.
One thing many people don’t consider is that an inventory dashboard can also help you identify items that are going out-of-stock quickly, so you can re-stock them before anyone notices and avoid those awkward conversations about whether those ultra-cool limited edition sunglasses are going to make a comeback. This can help you understand what draws in people through the door or to your website so you can stock similar items and maintain the buzz around your store. As any experienced retailer will tell you, inventory management can be a powerful tool for tracking your health at a glance - especially if you run several stores or outlets.
An inventory dashboard can help you figure out where certain items are comparatively selling out quicker than others, so you can move products around to match demand. More importantly though, it lets you keep your finger on the pulse so that come tax season - or when someone asks how things are going - you don’t have to scramble around for last-minute numbers.
Dashboard 4: Employee Performance and Productivity
I think we’ve all had one of those moments. You arrive at your store, bags under your eyes, a coffee in one hand and a phone pinging on the other — only to find everyone lazing around despite the din outside. And you wonder, “What’s going on here.
” Those long summer afternoons with the little to no customers are almost never what we call slow days (and truthfully, everybody has them). But there’s only so many times you can let those slip by.
What’s harder to manage is nearly always when employees are not performing as well as they should be or previously did; or, if it just seems like some employees have more edge over others. Not everybody finds it easy to talk about performance for fear of demotivating their team or lowering morale. But, skirting around it is a dangerous game — and I’d rather get things over with than deal with the last minute stress of being short-staffed because someone wasn’t happy with how you brought up their performance review (or let go of them entirely).
I’m starting to think there really isn’t any way around addressing issues like these head on. Having real-time insights into employee performance is one way to catch slips before they become fatal problems. Dashboards that track KPIs, sales per employee and absenteeism have been quite useful — especially if you’re managing several stores at once.
Their dashboard helped us figure out who was slacking off and gave us insight into which employees needed more support in which areas; retail can be an unforgiving world sometimes. It’s not just about making sure that everyone is productive but rather ensuring that productivity comes from a place where managers nurture their team and provide training for all so there’s consistency in performance. More or less. Surely, there’s got to be another reason why employees aren’t hitting their targets apart from simply being lazy — but without something visual backing you up, knowing what’s going awry isn’t going to come easy (and neither will keeping it together when things do go downhill).
Some tools even offer sentiment analysis so you know how team members feel about the company and can take steps accordingly to keep everyone healthy, happy and engaged throughout the year.