Although your inventory is the lifeblood of your business, it can quickly turn into an albatross when too much of it is lying around unsold. The bottom line is that your company can’t afford to be weighed down by goods that are not moving out the door as expected.
Fortunately, your retail POS system is equipped with tools that can transform clutter into cash.
Bundle products
Whether you are thinking about the layout of your physical store, or the positioning of items on your digital pages, paying attention to location with a focus on combinations is everything. What might not seem desirable in and of itself could gain a real shine if placed in tandem with one of your more sought-after pieces.
Start by figuring out what the shrinking violets are by utilizing your inventory management software to examine your remaining merchandise selection. Then come up with ways to bring these poor performers into the light.
Even if you sell them at a lower price than you had originally hoped, their association with popular goods will serve to move them from languishing in your warehouse into the homes of your valued customers.
Repackage and repurpose
Particularly in the case of things with a short shelf life, such as food or flowers, you don’t have weeks or months to wait. Instead of just throwing perishables out and losing their wholesale purchase price, why not offer them as incentives or bonus gifts to customers who find another product to buy?
By doing so, you will make good use of your inventory, while at the same time enriching your relationship with a valued customer.
Remarket
Sometimes inventory remains stagnant because the word has not yet spread to the specific audience that will truly appreciate it. In other words, your marketing strategy might be lacking or misdirected.
Take a deep dive into your current sales campaign’s design. One of the best features of a retail POS system is its ability to gather and retrieve customer information, so don’t be shy about harnessing this data to its fullest effect.
Once you learn who your audience is and what their interests are, you can tailor your search engine optimization (SEO) and product titles and descriptions to ensure that visitors are properly directed to the items that meet their interests and needs.
Then take pains to see that your images and content inform, educate, and engage.
Buy Now, Pay Later
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) has become increasingly popular during these uncertain economic times. This arrangement allows you to divide payments for bigger-ticket items into more manageable chunks, thereby turning an untenable purchase into a manageable one.
Providing this service has a dual benefit: It lets the customer know that you are empathetic to the effect that today’s financial challenges are having, and it also allows you to shift hard-to-move items that may be failing to sell because of their higher cost.
Inventory management automation
Inventory management software can remove costly human errors, free up staff, and streamline your operations.
If you are one of those business owners who believe that your company is too small to benefit from a retail POS system, it’s time to reset your thinking. This software is affordable and easy to learn, and it takes most of the errors and guesswork out of organizing your product selections.
It even makes that dreaded tax preparation exponentially easier.
Best of all, once you set up the systems, you can look forward to more accurate forecasting. It’s just a matter of a few clicks to see what has sold in the past and what has not, making re-ordering more precise and cutting down on those budget-binding surpluses.
Equally important, the software helps to ensure that you never run low on those bestsellers that meet customer demand, and attract people to lesser-known items that you are also featuring.
It’s time to convert those listless sellers into profit boosters. Through bundling, repackaging, remarketing, BNPL, and software automation, you can turn their diminished potential into added profits as you simultaneously boost customer engagement and brand recognition.
North is a leading financial technology company that builds innovative, frictionless end-to-end payment solutions designed to simplify and grow businesses of all sizes. From the front door, to the back office, the developer world, and partnerships that expand the payments landscape, North offers proactive, comprehensive merchant services, in-house processing, and more.
