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.

Eliminate the shrinkage problem in supermarkets with five effective strategies

One of the best practices for inventory management in supermarkets is physically counting your inventory. Now, imagine on one fine day, you start counting your inventory, and you find that the physical records do not match the digital records. The reasons can be any:

• An administrative error occurred when the employee made a mistake in point of sale, ticketing, or accounting of the product sold.
• One of the food products expires without being sold or goes bad, resulting in an operational loss.
• A customer steals a product by hiding it, changing the price tag, or any other way.
• A vendor shorts an invoice or steals a product while unloading the inventory.
• A customer returns the product after using it or returns a product bought from counterfeit money to enjoy the refund money.
• An employee engages in theft by stealing cash, ignoring scanning of all items, showing fake returns, issuing deceitful gift cards, or stealing merchandise.

All these reasons can lead to significant losses for supermarkets. Therefore, supermarket managers and owners must employ effective strategies to save their stores from shrinkage losses.

Implement an ERP software

An ERP software that keeps an account of all the inventory in your warehouse and store can solve your shrinkage problem. It tracks the location and status of the stock from the point you receive it from the supplier to delivery to the customer. You can reduce your manual handling of merchandise, and thus, get more accurate records.

Websys Infotech can help you with the best ERP software that manages inventory effortlessly. It is easy to learn and use and is a perfect fit for any size of supermarket store. We also help you with support services whenever you face any technical glitches or have queries.

Physically count your stock

Despite implementing inventory management software, you must employ people to count your inventory. You must have two individuals for this job – one for counting and another for verification; also, change the duties between these two employees every month.

Employ measures to combat shoplifting

You can hire security officers to keep an eye on potential shoplifting events. Alternatively, you can implement electronic security systems or cameras across your store to check for any theft. Lay down a shoplifting policy and keep it in a place where every person can read it.

Place the objects in your store so there is enough light, at a height that can be easily reached, or install mirrors. The floor design must be strategic to prevent shoplifting.

Offer discounts on products about to get expired

Vegetables, fruits, or packed products with a stated expiry date may be a loss when they go bad. Instead of suffering a loss, you can sell them at a discount. You can use them in the internal kitchen before it expires. Or, you can offer them as free samples to customers.

Employ capable employees

Employ the right set of employees who understand their job well and do it honestly. They must focus on their work at the point of sale, ticketing or while receiving goods from vendors, where most errors occur.

The same intelligence must be displayed while checking the condition of customers’ returned goods. Thus, POS, floor, and warehouse employees must have the knowledge and expertise in all these areas and be trained well to avoid inventory shrinkage.

Inventory shrinkages are part and parcel of a supermarket. You cannot just accept this and wait to see how much you lose in shrinkage every year. Instead, apply the solutions or tricks mentioned above to minimize shrinkage losses.

Demand forecasting and planning with the help of ERP software

Demand, when accurately forecasted, results in customer satisfaction and no additional inventory costs for retailers. This is an ideal situation, challenging to achieve but not impossible. You can attain the right balance between inventory stock and customer demand with ERP software.

An effective ERP software helps you with demand planning and forecasting. It aids in predicting stock requirements of your products and services to purchase from vendors accordingly. It analyzes customer purchasing habits and historical purchases to understand customer demand.

The key variables or factors to consider while forecasting and planning demand are:

Historical sales numbers

Tracking historical month-to-month sales gives you an approximate idea of this year’s monthly sales. You must provide a small percentage increase on the previous year’s numbers for the annual targets. Generally, consider two to five years of historical numbers to make predictions.

You can stock up your inventory based on these historical monthly figures. Communicate the demand for products to your suppliers accordingly for the following months.

Seasonality

You must add the difference that seasons bring to sales of some products. For example, woollen clothes and jackets’ sales are higher during winters. The demand for school bags and stationery items is higher just before schools reopen.

It’s not only about the seasons but also any other trend that affects sales of specific products. For example, when there are online sales by eCommerce firms, the sales of brick-and-mortar shops go down. Consider these factors in your demand forecasts.

Based on the seasonality, you can stock your inventory levels just before the season or festival. And once the season ends, either you sell it at a discount or send it back to the warehouse.

Business-specific rules

You must consider the business rules or limitations affecting your demand planning. These limitations may relate to:

• Warehouse space
• Arrangement of products on different shelves in different stores
• Promotional offers or tactics
• Inventory levels where the next order is placed to reduce freight charges
• Grouping of products into segments for demand planning

Suppliers’ logic

Suppliers and vendors in your industry of operations will have enough knowledge about the change in demand for products. They have insights on the availability of products, customers’ response to newly-introduced items, demand during specific times, etc.

Use your vendors’ expertise in the industry by considering their advice or recommendations on product demand and supply trends.

External factors

Other external factors can also affect the demand forecasts. For example, the country’s economic situation may be deteriorating, reducing the overall demand in the market. Alternatively, the production of raw materials is sluggish, or imports are not occurring because of some border issues.

Many external factors not under your control can affect customers’ demand or supply of products. Factor in these external influences while forecasting demand.

How can Websys Infotech help you?

These are the key variables that affect the customers’ demands. You must factor in these variables while planning demand and ordering stocks. An apt ERP software can help you with accurate demand forecasting and planning so that your customers are satisfied with their visit to your store.

Websys Infotech’s ERP software is one such solution for your accurate, on-time demand planning needs. Our ERP solution makes accurate forecasts that you can depend on for placing orders to your suppliers. Accurate demand forecasts help with better cash flow management.

With our ERP software, your money is not stuck in additional inventory that is not getting sold. Also, you do not face missing sale opportunities because of no item on your shelf. This ERP software enhances supply chain scheduling with no emergency runs or last-minute purchases, leading to efficient processes.

ERP software: A guide on the cost components

Planning to get an ERP system implemented in your organization? Yes, you are on the right path because it will improve your business productivity. But, understand the main components of ERP cost better to plan, manage, and execute the ERP implementation.

ERP software pricing variables

The key variables that make up an ERP software’s price are:

Number of users

As the number of users increases, the cost of ERP software increases. So, the first point to decide is the number of users of this ERP system. Also, ask for the rise in price per user when you will add new users in the future. It will increase the total ERP software cost, as the vendor will add costs for every new user.

Customizations and modules

ERP software has various modules – human resources, customer relationship, inventory, eCommerce, analytics, finance and accounting, supply chain, marketing, etc. These modules improve your business functionality. What modules you wish to add to your ERP software depends on your business needs.

These customizations and add-ons are not cheap. The best bet is to find an ERP system whose basic version satisfies your business needs, so you need to spend less on customizations. You must find a vendor that offers integration services for additional modules.

Types of third-party support

The additional help and support you take from a third-party vendor for ERP software implementation also add to the cost. Some offer just implementation help with no training and post-implementation support services. Other vendors provide a whole consulting experience with the right strategy and all support.

If you do not have technical experts in your team, you will need a consultant with comprehensive support. If you have technical expertise but just need the system, an implementation partner will solve your problem.

On-premise or cloud-based

Vendors’ first question when you inquire about ERP software is, “Do you want a cloud solution, on-premise or hybrid?”

You have to pay annual or monthly subscription fees for cloud solutions. In the case of on-premise solutions, the organization is charged a one-time perpetual license fee. In both cases, there are additional charges for training, updates, and support services.

Over some time, the total cost of ownership becomes nearly the same. So, you must choose between high capital expenditure (on-premise) or high operating expenditure (cloud).

Training requirements

An important point that many organizations ignore, is training requirements for actual users of the ERP software. You can have online training manuals, classes, and videos. But the effectiveness of on-site training is higher, though expensive.

You can conduct training based on the role of employees and their usage of ERP software. Alternatively, you can do it department-wise to learn specific modules. Whatever the case, the training must address your current and future use of the ERP software for your business requirements.

Software upgrades, maintenance, and support

Any software needs updates, upgrades, and maintenance. You must ask for these costs from your vendor before hiring them. Also, add the cost of regular support services required when you face problems using the ERP software.

These are cost elements that add up to the total ERP software price. You can create your budget based on this. If you are looking for an competent, affordable ERP software, you can contact Websys.

We are a leading provider of ERP solutions in India that is perfect for your business. Our ERP software is available for your business processes in any industry sector. The system is easy to learn, use, and operate, saving time and money.

Best practices for supply chain management in supermarkets

Need for an ERP software for managing supply chains

Managing the supply chain is difficult because you face new uncertainties and challenges daily. Specifically in the case of supermarkets, where demand changes rapidly. You need to be aware of products popular among customers, vendors with the best product quality and price, available shelf space, and other expenses.

With all these factors in mind, you must address your customers’ demands effectively and on time. The best solution to manage these needs is a supply chain management (SCM) software or SCM module in an ERP software. Such a solution tracks demand and inventory stock changes, alerts retailers when inventory reaches a pre-defined limit, and generates more insights.

Websys’ ERP software’s affordability and effectiveness make it the best solution for managing your supply chain. Websys’ ERP has a state-of-the-art interface making it easier for users to learn and use the software. It perfectly fits supermarkets and grocery stores’ supply chain management needs. It streamlines your processes and makes them more productive, generating quality results.

Besides implementing ERP software, the following are some of the other best practices to adopt to improve supply chain processes in your organization:

Align your marketing and supply chain teams

Any marketing strategy you implement will affect your demand and supply. So, make plans for the movement of products in supply chains by aligning these two departments. Facilitate collaboration between them to address changes in demand, thereby delaying disruptions or delays. The Websys’ ERP software enables efficient communication between teams to improve further.

Know your suppliers well

You must have enough knowledge about your suppliers, such as delivery processes, technologies used, etc. It is good to know from where they are getting their supplies and the potential challenges they can face. This knowledge helps you prepare for any potential risks that may affect your relationship with suppliers.

Have appropriate, trained staff in the supply chain team

To ensure your supply chain processes function properly, have adequate employees in your team. The team must have well-trained employees with knowledge of all aspects of the supply chain. Their expertise and experience will help you have a smooth supply chain workflow, resulting in a better customer experience.

Keep working on your demand forecasts

If your demand forecasts are wrong, you may have too much stock or too little, leading to waste or unsatisfied customers. That is why focus on preparing your demand forecasts for every slight change in driving factors. Take into account historical sales, seasonality, promotions, and competitors’ strategies to forecast demand. Websys ERP aids you in forecasting.

Consider strategic sourcing to focus on TCO

Talk to more expert suppliers to pick their brains on what works and what does not. They know trends in the market, customers’ reactions to specific strategies, and effective supply chain processes. They can help you with tips on warehousing, transportation, operations, etc. Focus on all of these helps reduce your total cost of ownership (TCO).

Regularly review your supply chain procedures

You must monitor your supply chain procedures to check their compliance, efficiency, and accuracy. Such monitoring will allow you to reduce the risks of fraud, disruptions, and theft. You can take proactive actions to remove bottlenecks and make your processes more efficient and productive.

Manage your returns

Managing items returned by customers is more complicated than the outgoing ones. It affects the inventory count and adds to another category; you need to recalculate it. Your ERP software can help by updating data across teams.

Adopt these best practices in your supermarkets to reduce your business’ operating costs and improve customer services.