By David Farquhar, Workplace Systems
It’s a challenging time for retailers. The recession and its aftermath has led to cautious consumers and an evolution in shopping habits that is impacting footfall and spend. The growing e-Commerce market has also led to a shift in consumer shopping habits, which has benefited some retailers but disadvantaged others.
In a variable climate such as this, maximizing opportunities during seasonal peak periods is vital. In the lead up to the holiday season for example, retailers can make up to 40% of their annual revenue, while Easter weekend, Back-to-School season and summer sales can all drive above-average profits.
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In the past, retailers have tended to rely on previous experience when it comes to staff scheduling requirements during these peak times. However, past figures are no longer a reliable indication of future patterns and can leave retailers without the adequate resources and manpower to service customers during these critical periods.
Retailers that create workforce schedules based on last year’s figures, without the ability to adjust their associate numbers in real time, are likely to be ill-prepared to cover changes such as this. That unfortunately means they are losing out on potential revenue or could be overstaffing.
The Impact Of Showrooming And Webrooming
Changing consumer purchasing behavior is also affecting buying patterns during peak periods. The rise of showrooming, webrooming and click and collect are all rapidly altering the purchase funnel.
Retailers are increasingly anxious that consumers are using physical stores to simply view products, before getting out their mobile devices to find a better price or offer with an online retailer and completing their purchase elsewhere. However, a survey of 15,000 consumers by Accenture is indicating the opposite; that customers are in fact increasingly researching retail purchases online first, before heading in-store to buy them (aka webrooming). Almost half of U.S. consumers (46%) say they’ve showroomed, but an even higher proportion (69%) say they’ve webroomed, according to a Harris Interactive poll.
Either way, it is clear that consumer behavior is in flux. In order to effectively navigate these new behaviors, retailers must work smart, stay agile and be flexible enough to respond intuitively to changes in customer numbers and habits. Correct alignment of your staff is an essential part of this.
You do your business a disservice simply by reusing a schedule from a “normal” week and you put yourself at a disadvantage if you merely add a multiplier and assume increasing coverage by 2X or 3X will suit your customer’s needs. These higher sales volume weeks don’t look like the rest of the year and simply cannot be scheduled as such. Maximizing revenues at peak periods requires smart schedules.
Smart schedules ensure your top associates are schedules during your most lucrative peak periods, helping to improve in-store customer experience and contributing to increasing transaction value and/or conversion rates – all without an increase in labor budget.
Three Strategies For Seasonal Period Success
1) Utilize a peak period recruitment plan for more effective hiring
If your organization hires seasonal employees to cover peak periods, you need a workforce management system that helps you create a recruitment plan, identifying the quantities and types of shifts required to meet predicted demand.
2) Use data to identify and plan for conversion hot spots
It’s likely that your organization collects wide-ranging data, such as store traffic, on a daily basis. To achieve your seasonal period goals, your workplace management system should be able to surface actionable insight from this data, such as potential conversion hotspots — an increase in predicted demand. Managers can adjust schedules based on this insight.
3) Use a workforce management system that allows you to pivot
Your labor forecasting and scheduling solution should provide you with the best possible schedule as a starting point, but then allow you to be flexible and make adjustments in real time to accommodate unpredictable changes in demand or traffic.
Having the right people on hand at the right time, when stores are busy, and being able to forecast business demand as accurately as possible are vital to success during seasonal periods. Want to learn more? Check out the video on how to maximize your revenue during seasonal periods.
David Farquhar is the Group Chief Executive Officer, Workplace Systems. He has more than 20 years’ global enterprise software experience and has held CEO positions in six companies which have ranged in size from mid-market to start-up and has built highly successful international management teams across the world. Farquhar has also been Executive Chairman and Non-Executive Director on more than 10 boards.
