What is the value of the data you get from your software system? Well, that all depends on how you choose to use it.
At Ten-25 we’re fascinated by how much you can learn from just one piece of information. Imagine, for example, having clear visibility of your key trading periods.
We don’t mean seasons, months, weeks or even days, though of course you can see those too – but we mean hours. Say for example, you see that 70% of your daily transactions are happening between 8-11am, with a heavy weighting towards Wednesday – Friday each week.
All well and good. Nice to know. But actually, it’s a lot more than that – how you apply that information can really make a difference.
Save more money.
Make more money.
There are two major areas to work on here: firstly, you can look at maximising the sales within those key trading periods, making sure you have sufficient stock and staff on hand to cope with demand, and potentially saving a lot of money at other times by streamlining systems to avoid unnecessary waste. You can look to gain incremental sales by digging deeper to find out why trading drops at other times of day.
It’s really important to consider why the situation exists, whatever data you’re studying.
In this instance, we’d wonder why so many sales were being concentrated into this period of the day; was it an arbitrary trend, a natural tendency within the industry or area? Or could it potentially suggest other factors:
Were sales linked to email offers or new stock announcements?
What was stopping people from ordering in the afternoons?
Was there an issue with the website?
Was stock availability an issue in the afternoons, following busy mornings?
Were enough staff members on hand to help customers?
Was it because the café next door is only open until 11?
Could you run an offer at specific times of day or on certain days of the week to encourage people to visit at other times?
Is it worth conducting additional research with your customers to understand their needs better?
There are always a lot of different factors to take into account, from whether your website is performing adequately at all times of day to whether you need more or fewer staff to cope with customer demand at different times of day, to managing stock more efficiently to avoid waste.
All these questions – and many more – can be looked at to reveal potential cost savings as well as opportunities for incremental sales.
Limitless possibilities – with a helping hand
Of course, trading times are just one piece of information.
The sophistication of the trading analysis available with Merchanter allows you to understand virtually any area of trading, stock management, customer habits and finance.
You can cross reference information, pull out what you need, and be confident that the information you have is always accurate and up to date. And you can then automate reports to keep track of any changes you make so you can easily see what difference your actions have made.
It’s just one small example of how valuable trading analysis is when you stop and think about the implications each piece of information throws up.
Need to get more valuable information about your business? We’re happy to help – get in touch to talk through your requirements.
