Retail Technology – The need to move forward

In today’s competitive environment, it has become essential for retailers to provide great service for example I went into a book shop the weekend and asked did they have a particular book in stock. The lady was very friendly but unfortunately her reply was “the system I have can’t give me that information, but you can look in the business section over there” and she pointed in the general direction. This was really no help to me as I didn’t have the time to go searching though the shelves and then to find that maybe they didn’t have the book. The end result was I popped into Eason’s, asked them did they have it, they checked the system and told me there was three in stock and where they were located. I found the book and had paid for it within five minutes.

In todays demanding and hectic society this is the way things have become, simply put time has become a precious commodity. My example above is for a book store but the retail sector is not what is important but how many times have retailers lost customers because of similar scenario?? The number of retailers still operating with a cash drawer is very surprising but how much damage could this be doing to the business! Even if the owner of the bookshop was there, which they would normally do, do they believe an employee will make the effort when they are not around!
Retailers including golf shops, book shops, off-licences, convenience, hardware, cafes, restaurants etc should be performing I.T. audits to assess their business and its future –> survival or expansion .

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