3 Incorrect Assumptions Retailers Should Get Rid of in 2015

Your beliefs about your business and industry directly affect your success. After all, any thoughts or assumptions you have can influence the actions you take and, in turn, your results. That’s why it’s important that your vocabulary is filled with empowering notions rather than beliefs that limit your success. Below are three examples of the latter. Are you making any of these assumptions in your business?

“I’m too small to get hacked.”

Studies have found that 70% of all business cyber attacks happen against small businesses, so don’t think that you’re “too small” to be worth the time of hackers. Be very vigilant against data breaches and take the necessary steps to safeguard your business’ and customers’ information.

Some of the things you can do include:

1. Staying on top of software updates - See to it that you’re always running the latest versions of your business apps and they’re armed with up-to-date bug fixes and security patches.
2. Being more mindful about collecting and keeping customer data - Don’t collect customer information if you don’t need it, and don’t keep their data for longer than necessary. Hackers can’t steal something that isn’t there.
3. Letting reputable third parties handle sensitive customer information - This is especially important when you’re dealing with payments. Avoid storing credit card information, and let third party providers such as PayPal or Stripe handle transactions. These companies are better equipped to take care of customer data so its best to leave it to them.

Speaking of credit cards, if you’re running a retail store in the US and haven’t started your transition to EMV, then you should really get a move on. I talked about EMV in much more detail in this article, and you may want to give it a read if you haven’t gotten yourself up to speed with the topic yet.

“Omnichannel is too complicated or expensive for me.”

Enabling omnichannel--that is, letting customers shop seamlessly across multiple channels (brick-and-mortar, mobile, online) can be expensive and complicated for large retailers with hundreds of outlets. But for small and medium merchants, the process of going omnichannel may not be as daunting as you might think.

SMBs can be nimble enough to implement omnichannel without getting bogged down by high costs or bureaucracy. If you have just a handful of stores, you’ll find that you can run an omnichannel operation by having the right integrations in place.

A good example of this is Bird On a Wire, a rotisserie chicken joint in New Zealand that’s capable of taking and fulfilling orders across multiple channels. Customers can place orders in-person, online, or via mobile and they have the option of either picking up their purchases at the store or having them delivered.

BOAW accomplishes this by integrating its point-of-sale solution (Vend) with its ordering software (mobi2go). By connecting the two programs, customer and order data can smoothly flow from one app to the next, allowing the business to process orders with ease. In other words, BOAW’s online and mobile ordering app can “talk” to the POS in their stores, so customers and the staff can smoothly switch from one channel or device to the next.

“I can just rely on my gut to make decisions.”

In this day and age, retailers need to be more data-centric when making business decisions. Factor in your intuition if you must, but don’t rely on your gut alone.

Data will enable you to make more informed choices in just about every aspect of your business, including merchandising, marketing, pricing, and more. So make it a point to dig into those numbers.

Gather customer data so you can get clear on who’s really buying from you and what you can do to reach them. Make use of in-store analytics tools such as beacons so you can measure traffic, conversions, and make better store layout decisions. Analyze your sales and inventory reports to figure out how you should be stocking your shelves.

An example of a merchant that put sales data into good use is T-We Tea, a San Francisco-based retailer that sells blended teas and tea accessories.

T-We Tea analyzed their sales and inventory data to identify their bestsellers and most profitable products. Upon doing so, they realized that while sales were increasing, people were actually buying more of their low-margin items such as accessories instead of their house-made teas, which yield higher profits.

To address this, the retailer decided to bundle up their bestsellers with their high-margin (but slow moving) merchandise and sell them at a discounted rate, allowing T-We to move more products while maximizing profits at the same time.

Bottom line

If you want to run a successful store in 2015, start by changing the way you think about your business and the retail industry. You might be surprised with the difference a few mind shifts can make.

Can you think of other incorrect assumptions that SMBs have? Share them in the comments.

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