Retail SOP

The retail industry in South Africa has been growing enormously over the past few years. With the world-class infrastructure equivalent to the first-world countries, high living standards, and a vibrant market economy, South Africa is considered as one of the worlds most promising emerging markets. Growth in the retail market is mainly attributed to an increase in personal income, low interest rates, and rising employment opportunities, says our new research report, South African Retail Industry Forecast to 2013.

Our report identifies that the retail market has benefited from the strong consumer confidence and high public spending on both food and non food items. We have found that the non food retailing will grow at a faster pace than food retailing, with high spending on technical consumer goods. With the rising employment opportunities and low interest rates, the market is set for growth in the coming years. We anticipate that the South African non food retail sales will grow at a CAGR of around 7% during 2011-2014.

However, among the non food segment, technical consumer electronics products like mobile phones, personal computers, major and small home appliances and other goods account for the largest share. Clothing and textile also holds a significant portion of market share with growing demand for international brands in the country due to improving living standards. In near future, it is expected that the share of cosmetics and toiletries will rise with the entrance of new international cosmetics brands in the country.

Besides, our report reveals that, the market will witness a dramatic change in the competitive landscape over the next few years. A large number of companies will foray into the lucrative South Africa retail market with their diversified product portfolio. This will lead the incumbent players to invest heavily in establishing their stores across different regions of the country.

South African Retail Industry Forecast to 2013, provides future forecast on the industry, based on correlation of past drivers, challenges, and opportunities for expansion. In this way, the report presents a complete and coherent analysis of the South Africa retail industry, which will prove decisive for clients. Detail data and analysis will facilitate investors, financial service providers, and global real-estate players to navigate through the latest trends in South Africa retail industry.

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About RNCOS:

RNCOS specializes in Industry intelligence and creative solutions for contemporary business segments. Our professionals study and analyze the industry and its various components, with comprehensive study of the changing market behavior. Our accuracy and data precision proves beneficial in terms of pricing and time management that assist the consultants in meeting their objectives in a cost-effective and timely manner.

Get a theme/brand/niche. One of THE most important things in marketing is that you have to occupy a place in the heart of your customers. There are many words spent on talking about what this means, but for the time being I will keep it brief. This means that you need to ANCHOR your brand to an emotion, a thought or a competitive advantage. Tom Peters calls it a UPOV*8, ie a Unique Point Of View in 8 words or less. It has to be something that sets you apart from the rest, can be easily defined and creates an AURA around you. Everything you then do has to REINFORCE this.
Greenpeace protect the fragile earth
Aston Martin Beautiful, Luxurious, Serious Drivers
McDonalds Fast food, low cost, good service.

2. Atmosphere. Anyone who is familiar with The Wizard will know about using multiple Thought Particles to create an atmosphere. In a retails store this part is critical.
Use lighting; colour, spot, candle, globe. Create effects, dazzle, subdue, highlight.
Use Smells; Floral, food, leather, Grass. Awaken the senses.
Use colour; Complimentary (Violet & Yellow, Indigo & Orange). Antagonistic
Use sound; Loud, soft noise, music, fast, slow
It is up to you to come up with the rest.
Singapore Airlines, the smell has been patented
Stores, the lighting is sparse, and standard

3. PZAZZ Create steam, drama, velocity. Hire, fast working ferocious staff/Actors who fight/rollerbladers/gymnasts/circus clowns. It is like those funny home videos, you just cant help but look.

4. HIRE Good Salespeople This really should be rule number one, because it is that good. You are defined by those who work for you. Get the right people on the bus (http://www.jimcollins.com/). Use your brand to hire people that “FIT”Always make room for good sales people.

5. Define yourself That is you, the owner. In the military they have stripes that define who you are. A wise man once said to me, “what is the point of being somewhere, if no one knows you are there.” Wear, use, have a bright red tie. Die your hair. Dress like a Mime. Your team and customers deserve to notice who you are.

6. Business Names must be obvious – a good practical point. Dont call yourself “Daves” because no one will know what you sell. Give yourself a name that both defines what you are and what you do. Look through the dictionary. Find words that sum up what you are about.

7. Business Location Location Location!! You can not underestimate the benefits of a good location. High Visibility, good foot traffic, access to distribution centres. Pay for a high traffic location, it is VERY cheap advertising.

8. Invest in good Signage Get someone to design your sign and shop front WELL. It is extremely important when setting up the store.

9. Share your vision with everyone – All your employees, regular customers, friends and family should know what your store/business is all about. It should be reflected in the brand, the smell, the products and the processes. Make it visible, make it a slogan, make it count.

10. Handle complaints immediately and thoroughly – Make sure you take complaints on board. They are constructive critisim. Even if you think the perpetrator is a fruit loop, he may be saying what everyone else is thinking. Tom Peters talks about talking to the lunatic fringe. From these comments, you may be able to improve service in leaps and bounds.

11. Give something back Most companies are starting to get it. Pick a good cause and get behind it. Sponsoring local sports teams is good. Planting a forest is better. Leverage is the key. Make sure you publicise what you are doing. Dont turn it into a marketing campaign, but make sure everyone in your sphere is aware of it

Middle Classes Checking Out: Mass Grocery Retail in Central & Eastern Europe( http://www.bharatbook.com/Market-Research-Reports/Middle-Classes-Checking-Out-Mass-Grocery-Retail-in-Central-Eastern-Europe.html) is a new special report by leading independent economic forecasters Business Monitor International on the Central & Eastern European food retail market. The report provides regional commentary and opinion across 14 countries, SWOT analyses across the Central & Eastern European region and BMI’s expansion and growth forecasts to 2012 for the grocery retail industry.

This new special food retail report also features individual country chapters on Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Each country section features comparative performance indicators of the major grocery retail formats (supermarkets, hypermarkets, discount stores and convenience stores) and the independent sector against the major retail chains. SWOTs on the region’s leading retailers include company overviews, strategies, store networks and grocery market positioning. Each profile covers key statistics including financial performance, number of retail outlets and employees. Middle Classes Checking Out: Mass Grocery Retail in Central & Eastern Europe also includes a macroeconomic forecast for each Central & Eastern European market for 2008-2012 and future risks to growth as predicted by BMI.

For more information please visit : http://www.bharatbook.com/Market-Research/Grocery.html

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Shop Mannequin is one of the most popular and successful retail display devices in history. For centuries, they have assisted store owners and managers in bringing their clothing and other displays to life. Mannequins are those silent sales people that show off the latest and greatest without bugging the customers, and with a little brain, they can be the most effective sales staff.

There is an abundance of mannequin types in the world of merchandise. Men, ladies, children, and even animals are created in mannequin form as well as any variety of body sections. Necks, heads, legs, hands, and just torsos are used for accessorizing or specific clothing display. Though any of these mannequins can spice things up, the right mannequin design, as well as professional merchandise placement, will put mannequins to use in a whole new way.

It is most important to emphasize the merchandise in a mannequin display, unless of course you own a mannequin store. However, the obvious need for a merchandise focus is of little value without a creative setup. The types of mannequins, the pose, the hair, the skin color, and every feature of a mannequin display must reflect the category or style of merchandise on display.

Mannequins displayed in a formalwear store or department should have conservative and elegant poses, and should most likely be sleek and artistic in design, while those in a sports category can be partial forms or full body mannequins in active poses. Female, sporty mannequins need short hair or ponytails, and the body forms should appear fit and muscular.

Just because a mannequin is used, does not always mean that it will be cheap regardless of where you purchase it from. Similar to buying automobiles, some mannequin brands hold their value because of their superior craftsmanship, design and established brand name. Just as a used Rolls Royce or Mercedes will cost more than a brand new Toyota, there are some brands of mannequins that are expensive even though they are used.

A brand name mannequin with realistic features can cost between $750-$1300 new. If a used one is 50% off, it will still cost more than brand new no-name mannequins imported from Asia which retail between $250-$400. Brand name mannequins cost more because they are actually fiberglass sculptures of real life humans and many of the steps involved in creating them are done by hand.

Sculptors usually begin with a metal skeleton, bend it into a pose and build it up with clay. The clay figure is then cast as a mold to hundreds of identical fiberglass mannequins. The mannequin is passed through the hands of at least a dozen artisans, from sculptors to sanders to painters and this level of detail is why high end mannequins look so lifelike and their solid construction makes them more durable.

Less expensive knock offs, made in Asia are made by machines and resemble life-size dolls. Instead of looking fluid they have stiffer looking poses. They tend to break more easily if they fall and many of their joint fittings are made out of plastic instead of metal like the more expensive brands. Sometimes they do not hold up well under the hot sun if they are in a store window. These are best used for online vendors or people who use a mannequin occasionally.

If you are looking to buy a Rolls Royce or Mercedes caliber mannequin on the used market, here are some brand names to look for: Adel Rootstein, Patina V, New John Nissan, Hindsgaul, Ralph Pucci, Greneker and Goldsmith. Usually – but not always – mannequins produced by these companies will have their company name stamped somewhere on the mannequin bottom of the foot, or on the butt or back, even on the head.

There are a few other factors that can drive up the price of a used mannequin. Since the majority of mannequins in retail stores are in a standing position, a mannequin that is in a seated, reclining or athletic pose is highly sought after and the demand outstrips the supply. Also Asian or African-American mannequins as well as plus size mannequins are scarce in general, so a used one in good condition will command top dollar.

A few mannequin manufacturers (Rootstein and Patina V) have produced limited edition mannequins that were fabricated after real-life supermodels or entertainers. When these mannequins are no longer in production it increases the value of used ones. Another mannequin company – Ralph Pucci -commissions well-known artists and designers such as Maira Kalman, Jeffrey Fulvimari and Anna Sui to design a line of mannequins for them. Since these mannequins are popular as art pieces in addition to being a vehicle to display clothing, they can sell close to their original price of $1,100.

If a used mannequin has all its parts, but they are broken or damaged, a skilled mannequin refurbished can bring them back to life. If there isnt a mannequin refurbished in your city, you can find one online and then ship the mannequin part to them. The company that we work will give us a rough estimate of the repair cost when we email them digital photos of the broken part so we can determine whether or not it is worth it.

Typically the first thing that gets damaged on a mannequin is their hands, which is why you so often find used mannequins for sale with missing hands. Even if all the fingers on the hand are broken as long as there is at least a stub attached to the wrist – there is a good chance that the hand can be repaired by the mannequin refurbished. But if there are no hands at all, it is extremely difficult to find a replacement hand online. If you are lucky enough to know the name of the manufacturer of the mannequin, you might be able to purchase a hand from them directly if the mannequin is still in production.

The reason why it is so hard to find replacement hands is because there is not a universal standard in the device that attaches the hands attach to the arms. Some hands have a round fitting, some are square, some have a keyhole shape and each of these shapes come in different sizes.

Retail Dashboards are pictures of spreadsheets used by executive managers to visually identify around five key performance indicators. Dashboards have gauges, like the speedometer in a car, and graphs and colour, to draw attention to areas of strong and weak performance of each retail store and the organisation as a whole. They may display: sales per hour, items per sale, average sale, conversion rate, and wage to sales ratio at the store, regional, and national level.

The purpose of the Dashboard is to enable executive managers to effectively communicate strategy and objectives to area managers who then reinterpret the strategy into actions for each store manager. Ultimately it is the Salespeople on the shop floor who carry out the activities that satisfy the objectives of the company.

Sophisticated Dashboards allow executives to produce what if scenarios, save them, and send them down the line to their area managers. But mostly, there is an upward reporting of numbers and a downward communicating of strategy – meaning that the statistics are lost at the individual Salesperson level.

For example, an executive dashboard may show each stores sales per hour KPI (Key Performance Indicator) compared to each other store but it does not show each Salespersons sales per hour compared to each other Salesperson within the store. Therefore it is impossible for the executive to know at the individual Salesperson level how to improve sales performance.

Particular to the retail industry sales are made on the shop floor. Not by telephone or meetings, or online purchase. While branded merchandise and store design attracts customers to the shop it is almost always the Salesperson who makes the sale. But in almost all cases Salespeople have no individual daily sales target because there is no system in place to generate objectives, goals, targets at the individual sales level.

This represents a problem because area managers, who have been tasked by executive managers to improve sales performance, have no further information about the KPI activities within that store.

Once the merchandise and store displays have been checked by the area manager, the next logical step is to look at the POS (Point of Sale) reports to identify poor areas of performance. And here comes the surprise! – Not a single POS system is able to tell managers which Salespeople performed better than others. Why, simply they do not have a time sheet (roster) attached to Sales Targets so have no way of calculating predicted or actual individual sales goals.

Some attempts use spreadsheets to figure out individual sales goals but spreadsheets fall over. They inaccurately produce goals as they do not weight fast and slow periods of the day. They are not connected to a dynamic time sheet meaning if the roster changes the goals do not, but should. Spreadsheets take time to copy, past, edit, modify, and correct mistakes. And there is no feedback system for comparing actual performance compared to everyone on the shift.

While an executive manager can see that a particular store is underperforming, because a KPI is lower than the other stores, they cannot determine who in the store is underperforming on the same KPI.

So whats the big deal? If you cannot determine low KPIs at the individual Salesperson level in retail then you cannot improve individual sales performance based on statistics and dashboards are pretty pictures about statistics – which we interpret as instructions for changing behaviors. Dashboards cause executive mangers to want to change behaviors across the organisation but, as you can see, they do not help front line store managers change behaviors at the individual staff level.

Effectively increasing sales in retail by focusing on the sales skills and behaviors of each individual salesperson, requires a sophisticated, easy to use, web-enabled system, that communicates the objectives of the organisation to each individual salesperson on a level playing field. Such a system will report both up and down the organisation so that staff at every level can understand the objectives of the organisation clearly, statistically, and fairly.