5 Things You Should be Doing in January
It's the start of a New Year. Time for new resolutions and the promise of good habits to carry through the year. But what can you, and your team, be doing now to get your business off to the best start possible?
1. GOOD ROUTINE FOR NEW STOCK
With new stock arriving soon into the shop, make sure you're inputting product information correctly. Incorrect stock creation will lead to you losing track of products, and false reporting.
The best way to ensure product data is input correctly is to use XCODES, our live, online database of over 500,000 products from over 100 leading brands. XCODES feeds into your XPOS system, and lets you create stock items accurately, and lightning fast! XCODES helps you to avoid product duplication, or misspelling, that can so often occur with manual stock creation.
2. STOCK MAINTENANCE
A January "Spring-clean" will give XPOS a good detox, and there are 2 useful exercises you can do to clear the decks for another year of sales.
Firstly, make sure your stock levels are correct. We'd normally recommend a "small and often" approach, with a stocktake every week. So, if you're not doing that, now's the time to start. Use the Stock Take button in the Products section of XPOS to help correct those 0 (zero) or negative stock levels.
You can also use the XAPP app on your smartphone to speed it all up! Not tried it? Find out more here and call our support team to set it up.
January is also a great time to delete old stock off the system: By that, we mean stock that hasn't moved for a long time. Use the search and filters to see what hasn't sold for 18 months, or search for products where the stock level is zero (0). You can select products in bulk, and just tap "Delete Tagged Products" to hide the away.
3. DAILY SYSTEM BACK UPS
A backup a day keeps the headaches away!!
Most XPOS users* receive an automatic backup of their system everyday at midnight. All you have to do is leave your XPOS software ON overnight and it will do the backup for you. Easy!
However if you like to shut everything down at night, make sure you press the Internet Backup button when you close down to ensure you have an entire copy of your database on our secure servers. It should only take a few minutes (depending on your internet speed), but could save you time, money and a big headache in the event of a hardware failure, or burglary.
4. GET TO (REALLY) KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS
Make 2018 the year you build a real profile of your customers. Start adding customer information to EVERY sale, and you'll soon reap the benefits. The more detailed the picture you can build of your customer, the more useful your reports will be ... and the better your buying decisions.
XPOS is the perfect business management tool to help you collate any information about your customers: by capturing customer names at the point of sale, you'll be armed with the knowledge of what your customer really want.
Top Tips:
- Always ask for a customer name
- When you make a sale, make sure you use the Customer Selector button to put their name against the sale - whether they're paying with cash or card.
- Call Crossover Support to get the "Capture Customer Name" feature switched on. This will encourage your staff to put a name in, even if they forget!
- Run regular customer/sales reports in XPOS to see WHO your good customers are for better buying decisions in 2018
- Always inform the customer why you're collecting the information and what it will be used for. Most people will appreciate the reasons behind it.
This approach really works. One example is a XPOS customer who works at a typical Members Club, and had always purchased and sold based on what the Members wanted. After a year of capturing 100% of sales against a customer name, he discovered that 55% of sales were actually against Visitors! This hasn't just changed what he buys for the shop, but also what he charges.
5. GET RID OF EXCESS STOCK
Apart from taking up space in the stockroom or the shop, excess stock ties up capital that you could otherwise be re-investing. It doesn't have to be a headache and January is a great time of year for golf shops to clear unsold items to make way for new arrivals.
With the cold January weather, the golf clubs quieter than normal, now is the perfect time to get your house in order and plan for a successful year of retail. Get in touch with our support team 01454 418395 or visit The Hub for regular FAQ's and our popular How To Guides.
Get the ball rolling now!
* XPOS users who pay for our support package receive automatic internet backups.