4 ways POS software reduces employee thefts

Employee thefts can occur in any retail store. It is defined as any form of misuse or theft of items by employees in an organization. Generally, in a retail store, employees steal cash or store products.

One way to prevent employee theft and fraud is by recruiting honest staff members. But when interviewing potential employees, you can never know about their honesty. So, the more beneficial solution is having a technology system to spot the transaction when employee theft occurs or prevent it altogether.

A solid POS ERP software solution can record your financial transactions and track them. It can close all the loopholes or gaps that such fraudulent employees exploit and use for their benefits. The POS software can prevent employee theft in the following ways:

POS software can track cash and set accessibility for transactions

The most common method of employee theft is embezzling cash. The cash is available in the store, and employees may just steal it from there. But you can prevent such activities using POS software.

With the POS software, you can restrict employees’ access to the cash drawer based on roles and responsibilities. Like only the owner or store manager can open the cash drawer. Or there is no way to open the cash drawer if there is no reported transaction.

The POS software allows you to track when an employee puts in ‘no sale’, ‘cash paid out’, or ‘void’. You can even restrict the accessibility of employees to void any sale. Such restrictions and security hierarchy settings can check your employees’ fraudulent activities.

POS software can supervise transactions

POS software gives you complete visibility of your operations. You can track your inventory, suppliers, and customers to better manage and control your operations. It can also scrutinize the activities of the cashier to keep the financial transactions in check.

You can monitor when a cashier:
• Makes manual changes in the time-in and time-out of employees
• Removes any product or item from orders
• Changes the price of a product
• Violates the security
• Voids out a purchase

By tracking these activities, you will know when anything wrong occurs in the store. Thus, you can prevent such fraudulent activities and chances of employee theft. The POS software makes preventive measures possible.

POS software enables digital payment methods

Cash is one of the biggest means by which employees commit theft. If you reduce cash transactions, the chances of theft or fraud reduce. This is possible by integrating digital payment systems into your POS software.

With integrated payment gateways, you can track every transaction of incoming and outgoing money. The knowledge of integrated payment systems in the ERP software demotivates employees to steal money. Also, you can make your customers happy because they do not have to carry cash for shopping.

Thus, integrated digital payment methods act as a deterrent to employee theft activities.

POS software sends alerts of discrepancies in the discount application

Some retail businesses offer discounts to employees on retail items. It is a common strategy of retailers to increase sales and benefit their employees. But sometimes employees take unfair advantage of these discounts. They use such discount offers for their family, friends, or even preferred customers.

POS software can track such occurrences. It sends an alert of discount abuse to the manager handling the POS. The POS software also lets you review the discounts and its historical application to check for any cases of abuse.

For such a solid POS software with these features, you must implement Websys ERP software. It streamlines your retail operations and helps you prevent employee theft cases. You can improve your retail store’s productivity, know your customers better, and improve sales.

ERP software: Accounting and financial management benefits for apparel stores

Accounting is a crucial business function for any apparel store. You have daily customer transactions to account for. You even have to make payments to suppliers for the clothing products. Then there are expenses towards utilities, which need accounting and management.

With so many accounting transactions, you must have an effective ERP system to handle them all. The ERP software solution must manage all your accounting and financial requirements. It must be capable of dealing with the following activities:

Accept and make payments

Your ERP software enables you to accept payments from your customers. You can account for every bill under different categories and track it. The ERP software can send alerts when an invoice is generated, and payment is due.

The ERP solution helps apparel stores to facilitate payments to their suppliers. You can create separate accounts for each supplier and add the amount to each. You can even create alerts for the due dates of payments.

Thus, the ERP software automates the reconciliation of your customer sales and vendor payments. You can also integrate the ERP system with many digital payment platforms and mobile wallets. Such integrations give several payment options to customers, adding to their ease and comfort.

Control the cash flow

Continuous cash flow is a must in any business. If it is not possible, businesses face obstacles to getting the work done, affecting productivity. You cannot let your growth suffer because of improper or inaccurate cash flow management.

With ERP software, you can ensure efficient cash management. Since the ERP has integrated payment gateways, your customers enjoy smooth payment process. Even you can clear your suppliers’ payments conveniently and on time.

Thus, the ERP software solution accurately records all your payments and receipts. You can track them and know your monthly cash inflows and outflows. It helps you manage and control your cash flow and know about your account balance.

Manage budgeting and cost allocation

The ERP software solutions enable you to develop your monthly or yearly budgets. You can estimate your requirements and categorize them under different expenses. The solution also enables the allocation of budget to different costs. You can estimate the costs of labor, utilities, transportation, procurement, etc.

With accurate estimates and budgets, you can manage the inflow and outflow of cash. You have an accurate idea of where you are going over the budget and where you have saved money. It allows you to cut costs where required and allocate more to critical areas.

Smooth data management

Your POS software enters customer data along with payment details. The accounting and finance department makes data entries for every financial transaction. The ERP software makes the data available to all departments with accessibility permissions.

Thus, the accounting and finance department can manage the data well and generate insights. The software keeps the data secure. You can make changes in it, update, and manage it to control the financial information of your processes.

Automated accounting operations help you focus on your core processes, leading to growth. Also, the automated accounting operations ensure proper, accurate, and timely money management. You can even analyze data, generate insights, and create reports.

With accurate and timely accounting information on your ERP software, you are aware of your company’s financial situation. It also allows you to stay compliant with necessary financial regulations.

Role of Websys

Websys’ ERP software has all these features and functionalities for you. It lets you have complete visibility of your finances to make quick, accurate decisions. While Websys’ ERP software manages your accounting operations, you can focus on your primary business. Thus, it helps you achieve efficiencies and higher productivity.

5 strategies for supermarkets to retain customers for better ROI

For any retail store, acquiring new customers is essential. But you cannot ignore the existing customers. You have already spent money on acquiring them; retaining them would increase your sales significantly.

Having loyal customers for supermarkets and grocery stores generates recurring revenues, leading to a greater ROI. But you must keep them satisfied and engage with them often to retain them. You can incorporate the following key strategies for customer retention:

Incorporate loyalty programs

Anything that makes your customers feel special leads to loyalty. That is why you must create in-store loyalty programs to incentivize them. You can plan programs, such as:

• Earn points on every purchase. Use the collected points to get discounts on products.
• When you introduce a new brand in your store, give them samples for trial and ask for feedback.
• Reward them with points on every feedback or mention on social media by your customers.
• Send them emails on your membership benefits to remind them of loyalty perks.
When customers get such special, unique treatment, they return to your store often.

It has a single central database

Earlier, companies stored data in Excel sheets or physical papers. It increased your workload when required to gather and reconcile data across different business functions. Collecting data from different sources took more time with increased possibilities of errors.

With the ERP software, things are more manageable. A single, central database exists to store data from all departments and business functions. Thus, you are not required to make new sheets for different departments; just take the updated data from the database to process them further. It helps every team to work on updated, real-time, and accurate data.

Create community experiences

If customers get experiences they cannot find in other grocery stores, they will prefer you over others. You must create such unique experiences for them to retain them. When they get invited to such events, they feel a part of the inner circle and hence, shop often from your store.

Some of such community experiences include:
• You can organize festival celebrations in your store with a theme party, music, some free food samples, etc.
• You can also organize a local community cooking competition to attract them to your store and participate in such events.
• You can organize music or dance shows to encourage and support local artists and invite your customers.

Reward them for referrals

Word-of-mouth publicity is one of the best strategies to market your company. But it happens only if your customers are satisfied with you. You can please your customers with good products and services.

But another way is to reward them for every referral they make to others. You can reward them with points, discounts, product offers, gift vouchers, or social mentions.

Thus, with their referral, you gain new customers. In exchange, they get rewards, which makes them happy and more loyal to you.

Add convenience to their shopping experience

What do customers need the most when they enter a supermarket? The ease to shopping. To find items quickly. To get fresh items.

You can ensure these by adding convenience to your store design and display in the following ways:
• You can keep sales executives in different sections to help them with queries or doubts.
• You can keep related products in the same or neighboring displays to enable ease in finding things.
• You must clean the floor and make it smooth for the effortless movement of the basket.
• You must keep bright signs, big labels, and enough lights to point customers to every corner of the store.
• Give a touch of creativity to your product display to spark curiosity and interest in customers.

Engage with your customers

You have customer data – their email ids, numbers, and social media handles. You must engage with them through these channels. You can send them emails on new promotions, launches, and offers. You can even wish them on festivals, birthdays, anniversaries, and other important events. The best option is to ask them which channel they prefer and keep communicating so that they remember you.

These strategies help you retain customers. You can use your POS software to help you with these strategies. Websys’ POS software helps you create loyalty programs, send automated emails, manage displays, and track referrals and rewards. You can improve customer experience with the Websys ERP software.

4 ways how ERP software enhances employee productivity

How much time an employee spends in the office is not critical. But, how much value each employee adds to the company’s processes is vital. The value addition of each employee defines their productivity, which contributes to the company’s productivity.

The best solution for companies to improve employee productivity is to use ERP software. It eliminates manual work, removes the complexity of operations, and integrates functions. Thus, it enhances their efficiency and saves time and labor.

Let’s look at how ERP software enhances your employees’ productivity.

It automates daily tasks

Previously companies made data entries on paper, which increased the paperwork and documentation. The paperwork took more time, increased employee stress, and had higher chances of errors. Employees’ morale went down, affecting the accuracy and quality.

On the contrary, ERP automates your business processes. You do not have to worry about errors, duplicate work, or spending too much time on it. The monotonous, repetitive work gets done efficiently and with more accuracy. Thus, your employees manage more work in less time with high quality, increasing the value of work done.

It has a single central database

Earlier, companies stored data in Excel sheets or physical papers. It increased your workload when required to gather and reconcile data across different business functions. Collecting data from different sources took more time with increased possibilities of errors.

With the ERP software, things are more manageable. A single, central database exists to store data from all departments and business functions. Thus, you are not required to make new sheets for different departments; just take the updated data from the database to process them further. It helps every team to work on updated, real-time, and accurate data.

It facilitates coordination and communication

Most of the employees do not like meetings. Waiting for approvals is a tedious task. Continuous follow-ups are a dull task as well. But you cannot escape these when using paper-based or spreadsheets for collecting and storing data.

But when you have the ERP solution, you are saved from such dreary tasks. A single, central database makes your access to data easier and smoother. It helps you coordinate with other departments and within the team easier.

Alerts and notifications feature help flag issues and take immediate action. There are in-built email templates, follow-up alerts, approval workflow, and meeting set-up features to make your coordination smooth.

It makes decision-making easier

The ERP software also provides insightful, data-backed reports to facilitate analysis. You can generate reports for analyzing performance, costing, budgeting, and customer satisfaction. You can even set the regularity of report generation to weekly, monthly, etc.

For generating ad-hoc reports, you need to feed in the criteria, and within seconds, the system generates insightful reports. You can drill down the reports to a more granular level of analysis. You can monitor your business sales, inventory, costs, marketing campaigns, product lists, customers, etc.

Analysis of these functions and factors helps you take action and decide the next steps. You can view the loopholes, understand the problem areas, and make improvement decisions.

How can Websys ERP software help?

Thus, ERP software can reduce your employees’ menial jobs and let them focus on core tasks. They can use the saved time to strategize more ideas and innovative practices that benefit the company. But it is crucial to select a proper ERP system that ensures all these benefits to you.

Websys’ ERP is the right solution for your needs. We are a leading provider of affordable ERP solutions and services to our clients. Automation, a single data source, and effective reporting features of the software help you achieve higher employee productivity.

Key marketing metrics of apparel stores that ERP software must track

Apparel stores use ERP software for its several benefits to their processes. The software streamlines processes, making them more productive and efficient. ERP collects customers’ data and generates insights for making strategic decisions. It helps you deliver the best services to customers, increasing your ROI.

But, the POS, business intelligence, and CRM features of the ERP software make it attractive to marketers. Specifically, marketers love the various sales KPIs and analytics the software generates.

Let’s look at the key performance measures of an apparel store that marketers take an interest in:

Customer acquisition cost

Companies spend a lot on acquiring new customers. They spend on advertisements, salaries, and overhead expenses. But it’s not one advertisement for one customer. You target a big base of customers with every advertisement that you bring to the market.

To calculate this KPI, you can divide the total expenditure on acquiring new customers during a defined period by the number of newly acquired customers. This metric helps you determine how effective your customer-acquiring strategies are.

You must try to reduce this number as much as possible. You can use email marketing, chat features, and compelling copy to attract customers to buy the product.

Average transaction value

It’s good to know when customers buy your product. But, marketers of apparel stores derive satisfaction when their customers spend more on every visit.

By measuring the average transaction value, you can know how much customers spend every time they enter your store. You can find this number by dividing the total sales by the number of transactions.

Marketers can increase this value by:
• Devising and implementing promotional strategies
• Offering combo products
• Executing merchandising strategies
• Advertising popular products more

Conversion rates

Your job as a marketer is not only to attract visitors to your store but motivate them to buy. Your marketing campaigns must attract potential visitors to your store, develop an interest in the product value, and encourage them to spend money on it to derive that value.

You can calculate the conversion rate as total conversions divided by the number of total ad interactions.

For this, your job as a marketer is to know what factors influence your target audience’s purchasing decision. Identify what matters to them more – price, fabric, style, or other factors.

Analyze customer expectations and needs and fulfill them to show that they matter to you. Personalize your interactions with them to connect with them and inspire them to make a purchase.

In-store vs. online sales

Nowadays, apparel stores have physical stores as well as online stores. Some customer categories prefer online while some prefer in-store shopping. Preferences also change as per the location.

Apparel store marketers consider the sales figure from offline and online stores to adjust their campaigns. You must have these figures to see how your stores are performing and how successful your marketing activities are.

You can compare these numbers for the same period to get a balanced view.

If online sales are less, you need to improve your digital marketing tactics. Alternatively, if in-store sales are less, you need to draw footfalls in the store with attractive displays and more discounts. You might need to make many campaign adjustments to increase these numbers.

Your answer – Websys’ ERP software

Thus, investing in an ERP solution that provides insights into marketing KPIs is essential to up your game. Based on these measures, you must tweak your marketing campaigns to increase your sales and revenues.

Websys’ ERP software can help you track these performance metrics and adjust your marketing campaigns. We are a leading provider of cost-effective ERP solutions to retail clients. We make your journey to achieving your retail business objectives smoother.

Best procurement practices supermarkets must adapt

Procurement is a critical process in supermarkets. You must order the right products at the right time to serve your customers’ demands. For this, you need to manage the inventory for several product categories with different expiry dates and seasonality.

Also, quick changes in customer needs and preferences requires you to be on your toes constantly. You have to have a network of suppliers to maintain a consistent supply of products to avoid being unavailable. Since the margins are low, you need smart planning to respond to challenges rapidly. Thus, managing procurement is a vital need for supermarkets.

They must adopt the following best practices to ensure strong performance:

Keep a strong network of suppliers

There is a big competition going on between different supermarket stores. They fight over the prices and availability of several brands in all product categories. So, you must determine the best deals and keep multiple choices for customers to win over them.

Another need is a strong network of suppliers. They must find all possible suppliers providing many different products at reasonable rates. The primary consideration is their delivery schedules and the time between orders received and the delivery of goods.

Analyze buyer preferences and behavior to develop accurate forecasts

Your inventory remains in check only when you develop accurate demand forecasts. Accurate demand prediction saves you from over-ordering and missing any items on shelves. You will always have items when customers demand them. Thus, the chances of customers returning from your stores empty-handed reduces.

Now you can procure your products based on these demand forecasts. If it is the same repetitive cycle in a definite period, you can set alerts for ordering. Or, you can ask your suppliers to repeat the cycle of order after a set defined period. Thus, it reduces your effort and makes the procurement of products smoother.

Customize your procurement procedure for your supermarket location

If you have several supermarket stores in one city, state, or country, not all will have the same sales. Similarly, not all will have the same demand and procurement processes. So, you must customize your procurement procedures as per the location demands.

The customer demographics change for every supermarket location. So, the demand for a few product categories also differs. You must change your procurement strategies as per the change.

Some products may not be high sellers in one location but sell the most in some other location. So, you will be sourcing your products as per the store’s sales and forecasts.

Adopt ERP software to enhance the ordering process

Technology makes a lot of processes and workflows manageable and smoother. You can do the same for supermarkets as well. The best solution is to adopt ERP software.

ERP software has the feature of sales forecasting based on an understanding of customer preferences. It allows you to procure inventory based on forecasts. The inventory data on the ERP system helps you find not-selling items, which you can remove from shelves.

Thus, you can schedule your procurement by analyzing customers’ past buying behavior. You know when to buy what and from whom, giving you the flexibility to offer the best prices to customers.

Websys is a prominent vendor of ERP software and solutions to companies in different industries. We offer our ERP software to supermarkets to make their processes efficient and productive. Our solution digitizes your processes to generate effective results. The ERP software:
• Automates your manual procurement processes, saving your time from being wasted on manual processes.
• Improves collaboration between departments, making it easier for procuring managers to get relevant data faster.
• Tracks your customers’ spending behavior and sales by product category to change your procurement habits.

How to manage payments and receipts in apparel and clothing store

Apparel stores see significant footfalls because people frequently buy clothing items. It means stores keep getting the inventory from manufacturers or other sources. Such a continuous flow of items means more frequent exchange of money.

Making payments to suppliers and receiving payments from customers becomes a continuous affair. And the added responsibility is keeping the transactions secure, faster, and smoother for the parties involved. All this is possible with an effective POS system.

Websys Infotech’s POS system manages all aspects of your apparel store business requirements. Be it inventory, billing, barcode scanning, or customer relationship management – Websys’s ERP deals with all. It is a versatile software addressing every apparel and garment store’s expectations.

The POS system helps you:

Speed up billing transactions

Customers hate waiting in queues after their shopping is complete. They wish to make the payments as fast as possible and exit the store.

Websys’ POS is your savior in such situations. With the POS system, your billing and invoicing process is faster. You just put in the details of the customer and the items bought. Barcode scanning or product search bar option helps you search for the item faster.

The system provides total and applicable discounts and taxes. It gives a total amount, and you can take a print. The customer makes rapid payment, and the POS attendant completes the transaction in a jiffy.

Have several modes of payment

You can provide your customers with several modes of payment. Cash and credit/debit cards are the primary payment methods acceptable by all POS systems. Websys’ POS system includes other methods as well, such as:

• Buy now, pay later – You can make your customers happy by offering them the option of buying products in monthly installments.
• Mobile payments – You can associate with mobile payment providers to add convenience to your customers’ shopping experience.
• Gift cards – You can sell gift cards to customers. Integrate these gift cards with your POS system so customers can use them as a form of payment. You can partner with a gift card provider for this.
• Loyalty cards – You can also create a loyalty program for your loyal customers. Add reward points whenever they buy something from the store. They can use these reward points later as a form of payment in your store.

Apply discounts and promotional offers

If you are running a promotional offer or discount, you can feed it into the POS system. You can use it on every item individually or in a product category. When selecting the clothing item, just click if the discount or offer applies; it is added directly to the cost.

Manage refunds and exchanges

An apparel store experiences many requests for clothing returns or exchanges for different sizes or colors. You can add this feature in your POS system to manage the refund of money to customers or to pay/receive the difference in the amount in case of exchange. Such a feature attracts customers, as they know even one wrong purchase would not result in losses.

Besides the payments and receipts-related processes, it also smoothens your inventory management. You can sort products by different factors such as size, color, brand, or material. You can even collect data on your annual sales and develop insights. You can find out what sells the most in summer or the festival season.

Furthermore, you can control user permissions to give access to employees based on their roles and responsibilities. You can integrate it with printers, cash drawers, and barcode scanners to streamline your processes further.

Overall, Websys’ POS system manages your garment store’s daily operations.

4 tactics to deal with slow-moving inventory

Inventory management includes handling both the slow and fast-moving inventory well. You must have the right tools in your kitty to identify the slow-moving inventory items and hurry their sale.

Your valuable capital and resources are tied to the slow-moving inventory. You also have to incur the carrying costs. Thus, if you do not sell slow-moving inventory faster, you face losses because you could have used your resources, capital, storage space, and carrying costs for fast-moving items.

Identifying the slow-moving inventory is good, but you must also determine a strategy to deal with it. Here are a few tactics to deal with slow-moving inventory:

Provide discounts or promotional offers

Discounts attract customers. It is a tried-and-tested method with excellent results. These discounts can be temporary if you just have to finish your inventory. But, if you are competing with another player or if your product is about to become obsolete, keep discounts for longer time.

You can also offer other kinds of discounts and promotional strategies. Customers buying your slow-moving item can get:

• Early access to new products
• Additional small items as freebies
• Discounts on other products

However, you must keep a check on whether the discounts have an impact on demand or not. If not, you need to offer more discounts or apply another strategy.

Improve the product’s or its display’s attractiveness

An item may be slow-moving because of its looks, packaging, store display, or marketing strategy. These can be the reasons for customers’ negative reactions to it. So, you must make necessary improvements such as:

• Change the display position and place it where customers can see it prominently.
• Improve its marketing copy to attract customers.
• Make relevant modifications to its packaging.

Not selling the food items at the right time

Every food item comes with an expiry date. As a supermarket employee or owner, you must track every product’s expiry date and try to sell them before the date. If you miss it, the product becomes unsafe for consumption. And it is also a loss to your business since you cannot sell it anymore.

Bundle it with the same product or a different product

Longer hours of transportation of food products from the warehouse or production units to the supermarket also contributes to food wastage. There is a risk of food getting stale during transit. In such cases, you must sell it as soon as possible.

Solution for managing or preventing food wastage

You can bundle multiples of the same product and offer it at a special price. This tactic helps you sell volumes of the slow-moving product because even one sale means multiple products sold. Something like ‘Buy 2, Get 1 Free’ can also work because the word ‘FREE’ is a big attraction.

You can bundle multiples of the same product and offer it at a special price. This tactic helps you sell volumes of the slow-moving product because even one sale means multiple products sold. Something like ‘Buy 2, Get 1 Free’ can also work because the word ‘FREE’ is a big attraction.

The catch is that customers must see a perceived value in your offer.

Donate or liquidate slow-moving inventory

Despite employing these tactics, you have to take a difficult step if your slow-moving inventory still doesn’t move. So, either you liquidate it or donate it to a charity, resulting in losses for your business.

If you liquidate it, you must contact a liquidation company. The company will buy your product at clearance prices. You will surely suffer losses, but your store shelves will be free from the old, dust-gathering items.

You can donate them to a charitable organization. You will not receive any money for it, but you can get a tax deduction (depending on your jurisdiction of operations). On top of it, you will be engaging in corporate social responsibility. You can even market this on your website to attract customers.

Demand planning

Your ERP system helps you forecast product demand from customers’ historical data. This includes data on customer demographics, historical purchases, and buying behavior. Based on these demand forecasts, you can plan on ordering your inventory.

You can also study the historical waste patterns in your supermarket. And avoid repetition by managing it well.

Slow-moving inventory is a burden no retailer wants to carry. You have incurred costs on it, and you expect to earn profits. But when it’s high time, you must part with it either at less profits, no profits, or losses.

The best solution is to implement an ERP system to manage your inventory. And who better than Websys Infotech to provide you with its efficient solution? It is a perfect fit for all kinds of retail businesses. You get complete visibility of your inventory and finances to enable proper management.

ERP solution to manage supermarkets’ food wastage problem

Food wastage is a real problem. It exists worldwide – at an individual level and the supermarket stores level. Supermarkets are aware of this problem and aim to reduce it from their end. But the threats of heavy competition, shifting customer demands, and increasing prices put food wastage management issue on the back burner.

Some of the reasons why food gets wasted in supermarkets are:

Inaccurate demand forecasts

It is one of the critical reasons for food wastage in supermarkets. Wrong forecasts lead to less or more inventory. If less, you are unable to serve customers, affecting customer relationships. If the inventory is more than the forecast and has an early expiry date, there are high chances of wastage.

No provision of required temperature conditions

Every food category has different storage temperature requirements. While some are cold storage foods, some stay fresh at normal room temperature. But if not kept at the required temperature, they can destroy quickly within 1-2 days.

That is why supermarkets must store their items at proper temperatures to avoid wastage. Also, not maintaining the required temperature can lead to bacterial growth, making it unsafe for consumption.

Not selling the food items at the right time

Every food item comes with an expiry date. As a supermarket employee or owner, you must track every product’s expiry date and try to sell them before the date. If you miss it, the product becomes unsafe for consumption. And it is also a loss to your business since you cannot sell it anymore.

Long transit time

Longer hours of transportation of food products from the warehouse or production units to the supermarket also contributes to food wastage. There is a risk of food getting stale during transit. In such cases, you must sell it as soon as possible.

Solution for managing or preventing food wastage

Proper inventory management practices can reduce food wastage across supermarkets. For this, you can implement an efficient ERP solution for adequate inventory management. You can track expiry dates, sell expired items by creating offers and discounts, and manage accurate demand forecasts.

Websys Infotech is a provider of affordable ERP solutions for every industry. Websys’ ERP system helps you forecast demand, manage inventory, and other business processes for efficient business operations. You can also create attractive marketing campaigns and manage your relationships with customers.

The benefits of Websys’ ERP for your supermarket store include:

Expiry date management

Your ERP system can track the expiry dates of products. You can also categorize it as sell-by, use-by, and best-before dates. Based on the expiry dates, you will receive alerts.

You can add discounts or promotional offers based on alerts to attract customers. Your sale increases, and you also do not contribute to food wastage.

Demand planning

Your ERP system helps you forecast product demand from customers’ historical data. This includes data on customer demographics, historical purchases, and buying behavior. Based on these demand forecasts, you can plan on ordering your inventory.

You can also study the historical waste patterns in your supermarket. And avoid repetition by managing it well.

Warehousing management

Your ERP system tracks the movement of stocks in real-time. You can track what products you already have, work-in-progress items, and ordered but not delivered items. You can also allocate batch and serial numbers to items for better tracking.

Thus, you can have control over your stock movement and shipping. Your complex warehouse operations become manageable with Websys’ ERP solution. As a result, your food wastage reduces.

If you are serious about dealing with food wastage, get the ERP system from Websys. Not only will you reduce food wastage, but you will also serve your customers better.

Seven supply chain challenges for apparel companies

The pandemic played a spoilsport for many industries, including apparel. But with normalcy back in the world, the apparel industry is gearing up for action. The growth of eCommerce, the advent of many technological innovations, and new ideas play a critical role in its development.

However, it is the supply chain problems that are giving jitters to the industry. Let’s see what these supply chain issues plaguing the industry and causing delays or losses are.

Volatile demand

Volatile demand is the key characteristic of the apparel industry. Some fashion fads just stay for a week or so and then disappear, never to come back. What you are left with is inventory that no one will buy, and you have to pay for its procurement.

 

Ethical and environmental concerns

Customers have become increasingly concerned about working conditions in your factory that may harm your workers. They keep themselves aware of the environmental impact of your processes, such as pollution, use of water, or anything else. Another concern is the use of artificial or animal-harming fiber for clothes’ production.

If you have not implemented any measures against these unethical and harmful business practices, expect a severe backlash from customers.

Uncertain events

Uncertain events, such as natural disasters, can affect your production processes. The recent Covid pandemic halted production; an event, which no one thought of until 2019. Such uncertain events lead to stock shortages, due to which you cannot address customer demands. And it is difficult to gain back the customer once lost.

Rapidly changing trends affecting loyalty

Earlier, customers remained loyal to their preferred brands based on quality, cost, or other factors. But as the trends and fads on social media change every week, customers’ loyalty also changes fast. They may be loyal to you for a week, but if the next apparel store brings another trend, customers move to them. So, stores are wary of keeping excess inventory, but they have to be careful about sudden demand also.

Far-off production locations

Most of the time, apparel manufacturers outsource production to far-off locations because of low-cost benefits. But, in such cases, the time to market increases. Moreover, if there are any border issues or fashion changes rapidly, the late-arriving inventory serves no purpose. So, a wise decision weighing cost benefits vs. time-to-market is essential.

Transportation issues

Many possibilities of distribution or logistics problems can affect the apparel industry’s supply chain. There can be a war situation like the current times, or a major pandemic like Covid-19 that affected the transportation of goods across many borders. A slight holdup at a distributor’s place may delay your inventory supply for a day, but the effect is tremendous. Once customers come to your store and do not find the desired item, they may never return.

Forecasting

We live in a world of rapid changes in fashion and weekly fads. So, forecasting the demand for different products is challenging. Demand volatility, seasonal changes, and social media-influenced fads affect these forecasts. Also, adding in the factor of your business model and your customers’ expectations from you, decision-making is taxing.

These are some of the supply chain challenges that the apparel industry faces. The best solution is implementing ERP software to manage the supply chain well. The ERP software will track historical data. You can forecast demand based on this historical data, customer preferences, and evolving fashion trends. You can keep track of shipments to reduce transportation issues and often engage with customers to build loyalty.

Websys ERP can provide all these benefits and many more to make your store operations easier and smoother.