Make and sell hamper packs.

A basket chock-full of goodies is a popular method of moving stock that does not sell well. It is versatile. They can be made to be appropriate for almost every occasion. In our family shop, when I was a kid, we used them a lot to sell. So I am quite experienced in them.

Remember a hamper is a good sale in the shop.

Here are some tips.

) Research hampers that sell near you. Check out the price points, see what they are composed of, see what they look like and how they are put together.

) Now you need a theme.

Consider an individual searching for a hamper in your shop. For example, Mother's Day has recently been. That would have been your theme. What would they want to find in a Mother's Day hamper from your shop? Get imaginative! Check out last year's selling reports for the same time as last year. We have a very good report top-selling report you can use.

) Look through the shop for items you want to move that are not selling well. Select a few that are appropriate. Now you need some articles that do sell. These help move stock that does not sell. Your selling reports can help you here. If there is a community festival, often your suppliers will help with stock to move. They usually have the same problem, too, the desire to move inventory that is moving slow.

You need to select a large item as a visual focal point for your hamper. Now you will need to arrange the smaller things around this big one. Most hampers look like a triangle. The most desirable items have to be seen.

) Value

You need to set a budget. What will your customer spend?

When making your hamper, make sure that if a customer adds up the total items in the hamper pack, it is less than the total price. This is where the slow-moving stock report can help.

) Research indicates that customers want simple rather than complex and if it starts to get too complicated that many people tend not to choose, so giving you a no sale rather than a purchase.

Now with this in mind, consider if you make a hamper or pack name.

In stock pricing, you will find this under hamper packs. See the green arrow.

Naming your hamper or pack is a good idea (see red square) as long as you make the name understandable and straightforward. Say you are in office stationery why make a name like "The flying carpet pack". Besides this name telling your customer nothing and so confusing them with something meaningless, it makes it complicated.

Make it simple with something they can identify with, eg "Secondary Student Plan", "Home Office Plan" or "Kindergarten Pack."

Another idea that works very well is to make a "Starter Pack", "Small Pack", "Medium Pack" and a "Large Economy Pack". 

Hamper packs are a great way to upsell. 

They can be used for anything, lotto, pet foods, magazines, services, etc.

Data mining in retail

Retail is possibly the most competitive industry. It is a cut-throat competitive market and every edge helps. So retailers struggle to meet customer expectations and sustain their business in an increasingly volatile market. This is where data mining can play a significant role in the retail industry by giving retailers a unique perspective to learn about their customers' behaviour and buying patterns from a computer perspective. 

In many cases, there is no choice as there is nothing but a computer that can tell you the answer to some questions, like if I drop this line, how will it affect the rest of the business. It is relatively easy to estimate how much you make from a line, but it is difficult to say what effect will the loss of this service have on the rest of the shop. Another question might be the effect of the introduction of credit card fees on my business, etc.  

To make it work, though, we need powerful computers. We use this one. It is a beast rated in the top 1% of all computers, and it will often run overnight, doing millions and millions of searches. 

Data mining has proved to be an important tool in identifying helpful information collected over time from your computer's large pool of knowledge.

This is something you will use a lot.

Continuously we get people, e.g. bookkeepers, bankers, etc. asking us for financial figures that are years old. So what people need from their POS Software is to find out what a client or the total clients owed on a nominated date. Say they wanted to know how much your customers owed you on 3/1/2018.

This is often a problem for people with other Point of Sale Systems. They have to keep special backups. Now they have to find the appropriate ones. Then load these backups to get the figures. Once they manage to supply this information as sure as day follows night, they get asked for other figures from other dates. This can be a problem if they have not kept the backups.

Here is a better way for you to do it.

Go to the main menu> Register reports>Customers>Trial Balance.

Now select the date that was, in this case, we want 3/1/2018, so I put this date here.

Now comes out all the details.

If they pick another date for you, no worries put in those dates.

You have saved yourself a lot of work and time.

We have all had shop assistants asking if they can help.  Most customers say they do not like to be disturbed by shop assistants. It's a fact, but is not disturbing them the best thing for the shop? 

If you want something to think about in your shop, have a chew on this study here. This study points that out.

"Shoppers who interact with a sales associate are 43 percent more likely to purchase a product, and their transactions have 81 percent more value, compared to those who don't interact with an associate. In addition, they are 12 percent more likely to revisit the store."

This is true of all shops; see here.

The orange is the increase in sales, notice the department store which is the least technical got the biggest percentage increase.

Let me give you a personal example. I went to a toy shop to buy a kid's present. I was unsure of what to get, so I appreciated it when a shop assistant suggested that I buy a kid's table set. So I bought it on her recommendation.

1) So your staff needs to know their products.

The study also states there are significant problems when customers can't find a shop assistant when they have questions. A negative experience can lead to customers going elsewhere.

2) So you have to make sure that your staff is at hand.

What is clear is that consumers do rely on interaction with your staff to make purchasing decisions. Helping them will lead to a significant increase in sales and repeat purchases.

Try it out now.

I was reading here about the three problems that concern SMBs in the retail industry now. Two we can help you with to measure directly.

Inflation

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show that inflation which was at its highest level in 13 years, at 3.7%, is now 5.1%, and we all know it is going up. We are looking at the worst inflation here in fifty years.

What you need to know is your business rate!

The reallocation in consumer spending

There can be little doubt now that after two years of COVID, buying habits have changed. People are not travelling as they used to, not going out as before, etc. The tourist that many of my clients depend on is not coming.

So what do we need to see what is working now?

Where we are going, no one knows. But what your POS System can tell you is where you are now and how you got there.

So here is how you can get your figures?

Go to main menu> Sales - Register> Sales Comparison for a given Period.

Now do this in two hits.

First, put in the last 12 months and compare the results to the 12 months before. That will give you a picture of the change in your department sales between the two years. Also, for the total and each department, the inflation rate.

Now go back in and put in three years ago. Now compare that to the last 12 months, which will give you these pre-COVID figures, which will give you a better idea of where you are going.

There is much more in there, but this is a good start for this analysis.

Let me know how you go.

Zara is a worldwide large fast-fashion retail chain. On their flagship store in New York, look at their shop front. It definitely would attract attention. 

Does anyone want to put something similar on their shop front?

​For many years, the study "For the love or money" has been the best study of Australia's customer loyalty and loyalty programs. The 2022 edition is now released. You need to pay for the study itself, but the executive summary is free and accessible here.

It is worth a read if you are a retailer thinking about a loyalty program. 

About 88% of Australians enrolled in at least one loyalty program. The average is 4.3.

About 46% consider themselves active, which is up on last year. That is a lot of people, about 40% of Australia active.

Have a read. I am confident you will get a few thoughts.

Track staff for all sales transactions.

What is all too common is that a transaction has occurred which appears strange. A something does not appear correct, you want to investigate, but you do not know who did it. Typically it could be the price, the discount, etc. 

With our POS software, you can make it mandatory to put a staff ID on each transaction. This staff ID can be set to remove or reduce options for employees to give discounts to customers. So you can stop many of the queries before they happen.

Plus, once the staff ID is used, you have a data tracking system. You can then track every sales transaction entered into your system to see exactly who did what and when.

Firstly what you need to do is enter a unique staff ID for all staff.

Go into staff maintenance

Retail today is about pursuing information-driven decision making. Working by guesses and feelings puts you at a disadvantage over your competitors. They are working with exact information. Large organisations often display sales graphs on how they are going at their monthly meetings. This is because it is a great way to show information.

In our Pos Software, the graphs about your business are there.

Let me show you an example from a shop where I will use two years to give you a long term trend and a seasonal view.

This is a two-year graph of their toy sales.

As you can see, something was done right in October. Plus, the outlook for this department looks good. You can also see that the sales figures vary greatly month to month.

This is a graph of sales of their dry cleaning agency in the shop over the same period.

We can all see that something is NOT going well here. The trend is down. Interestingly the monthly swings are much less 

Now you have had a taste for graphs why not try it now in your shop?

Let us use it so lets us start our excursion into the universe of graphs.

Go to register reports > Sales-Register > Dissection Monthly Sales Trend (Graph)

First, make the overall shop sales to show how your shop is travelling. So pick the last 24 months.

Now select individual departments and start looking at them.

) Examine the trends.

) The seasonality of the department.

) Think about why they are happening,

) Discuss these graphs with other people in the shop.

Take your time as each graph has a story.

Also, remember that these graphs are adaptable. You can change many of the details. We will discuss this in a future post.

How are physical shops doing in Australia?

As official figures include both online and physical shops, so it's hard to say. However, an interesting pattern emerges looking at the major companies' shares that are mainly internet shopping sites in Australia, since the COVID lockdowns stopped about the start of the year.

Here are the share prices of some of these majors since the start of the year.

) eBay: 
Its chart shows over a 20% drop.

) Amazon:
Its chart shows almost a 20% drop.

) Shopify: it's not exactly a website, but it is a wholesaler for people with eCommerce websites.

Its chart shows almost a 70% drop. Now that would hurt badly.

) Kogan: 

Almost a 50% drop. That would also hurt badly. 

Clearly, the share market is saying something here about these business models.

This is all happening at a time when worldwide retail sales are booming. The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that last month was 9.1% up.

Although we have not yet got the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for March, we look at the Mastercard SpendingPluseTM report, which states the following.

This suggests that as COVID goes down, we buy more at physical shops than online.

Let me know what you think and what is happening in your world.

Many of my clients use financial advisors every year. So we have worked with a few financial planners on behalf of our clients. So the information they need is in your POS system for your shop.

Generally, the cost is between $1,500 and $3,500 a year; yet it can be more. For example, here. Look at the case study below and see the green arrow pointing to the first year fee.

​That is $13,660 initially and an ongoing fee per year of $8,000. That is a lot of money on a personal $400,000 investment fund.

There are several reasons why the cost is so high. Part of the reason is that it takes almost as much effort to do a plan of $400,000 as it takes to do one of $4,000,000. The items, decisions and complexity are similar, and all that changes is the amounts. This is a typical problem in accounting.

But the other reason is the time taken by the financial planner to put together the plan. You go to them and say you need this. They then request a heap of information. You then hunt for the information, put it together, and they then examine this information. They interrogate you for clarification, then, as sure as day follows night, they ask for more information, so you have to hunt around for some more documentation, supply it, and only then can they start. Most of the time is spent collecting the information, not doing the actual work.

The result is that you pay much more than you should.

I will give you a personal example of how the price can spiral. I paid $1,500 for a financial plan, which I did not want, but I had to get one for taxation reasons. Then, after paying that, I received another bill of $500 to pay the accountant fees used in the plan. Then, after paying the accountant fees, I found that there were two entities involved, so the other had to be done too. Then it was announced that this was a yearly fee. So a one-time fee went from $1,500 to $4,000 yearly, which was stated as a very cheap fee. I felt that there had to be a better way.

I knew that I could save a lot by being organised and doing much of the job myself.

So I looked at a few online tools. I generally found them of limited use, more for amusement than helpful.

Then I found one I liked "projection lab."

It a professional online tool. You enter in the information. Since its only me, only I have access to the information. Then I could then experiment with it and so model my financial future. I know what I put in will not precisely match real life. But it's better than a vague concept in my head. Plus I can ask it questions and decide what I like about the consequences.

It had enough functions for me but I suppose as I learn more, I will use more. for now its fine.

Best of all, my accountant told me that it should be acceptable for the ATO for my purposes. Of course, if I had to go to a financial planner, I would be better organised as most of the information would be on hand for them.

It is free, so give it a go. At least if it does not work for you, you will have a better idea of what you need.

Let me know how it goes for you.

For over 100 years, “ANZAC Day” has been observed in Australia, becoming our honoured and sacred institution. I can remember, as a kid, going with my dad. He enjoyed meeting up with the guys from his WW2 unit. They fought in the Lae area of New Guinea from Jan 45. I doubt any of them are with us now. 

Here is a famous picture of one such veteran marching that took the internet by storm. No one knows who he is, but we all feel his pain.

Our office will be closed, but our after-hours and emergency support will be running non-stop throughout ANZAC Day today. It is available both for urgent and standard calls.

Please do not ring me unless it is urgent as I want the day off with my kid, ring Micahel instead. I will be back on Tuesday. 

This is something you need to investigate whether all least-cost routing for payments are the same in each bank? 

In our market space, we were the first to push 'Least-Cost Routing', saving our clients a lot of money. The idea was that as your customers electronically paid you with Visa and Mastercard, there were many paths through the bank system where the payment could go, so Least-Cost Routing selected the cheapest path that reduced interchange fees and card payment fees. As such, the merchant saved money.

That is all good.

However, recently, some banks have introduced a Merchant Choice Routing service and stated that it is the same as Least-Cost Routing. Allow me to have my doubts. Merchant Choice Routing allows you to select the path of the funds manually, either through EFTPOS or credit, which you put in advance, which has been purely a customer choice up to now. The problem here is that different card transactions have extra costs depending on the amount and the card.  

A big problem is here. 

Let us make a simple example. Say you pay a 1.5% transaction fee for Visa and 10 cents if it goes in as an EFTPOS. I know it's more complex than this, but please let us keep it simple for now. 

So a contactless purchase on a Visa debit card would cost $0.15 (1.5% of $10). If Merchant Choice Routing is activated, the same transaction would cost $0.10 via EFTPOS. The transaction is processed through EFTPOS, and it attracts a fixed debt service fee. So you have lost. If your card payment amounts vary greatly, and everyone's amounts vary, these losses could mount up. You may find that with Merchant Choice Routing, your bank fees increase. 

Another problem

Also what happens to a payment going through a VISA or Mastercard? Is it being least-cost routed? I am looking at one bank statement for one of my clients; I do not see it.

Have a chew on this, please, and see what the score is with you.

The best and most used selling method in retail - cross-selling. Cross-selling is when someone comes to buy a product, and you sell them that product and something else. The something else is the cross-sell. Often the profit on it is more than the initial product. Strategically, this is a fundamental method in modern retail, and it needs to be done well.

What you need to do, is place a product in a consumer's mind looking for another item to make it work. The more things you can place, the better, but do not go overboard. So what you need is to find out what products that sell well with the items the consumer seeks, which is easy to do with your Point of Sale software.

Let us start.

Go here to the Sales reports "Category Companion Sales by Period."

It will then give you this screen that lets you select your categories.

Now go through your top-selling categories. Check to see what items sell well with these categories. Then make sure that these items are noticeable to the buyers of the categories. This, you will find, is a great way to pick up more sales.

By incorporating this into your management processes, you increase your total sales.

In a shop in  Venice, Italy this sign was seen, I wonder if it worked? Anyone want to try it in their shop? You can read the discussion here.

You will find their results here for February 2022. 

The spreadsheet proven the most useful for retailers is Table 3—retail trade, by the state. Now select your closest retail type and see the comparison. Now, look at your shop.
These figures are what our bankers, political leaders, and landlords will be using to base their decisions on. This then tells us what they think is happening in the marketplace. This is often more important than how you feel about what is happening now. If it says it is up, and you are not, it does not reflect well on you in these people's eyes. 

So, like many individuals associated with retail, we look forward to seeing what these statistics show. Unfortunately, the categories are limited because it only breaks them into their type of retail, so all we can do is select the closest and check that. Ensure you are armed with the information before you meet the bank or the landlord.

Overall, we can say that retail shopping is very *up* by 9.1% in Feb 2022 compared with February 2021; clearly, the lockdown is over, and people are coming back, which is good news.

​​Why not add accessibility to your Google Map Listing?

Doing a net search, I found that over a million Australians use wheelchairs. About 1.5 million Australians use prams and strollers. Many people have trouble walking (I could not get estimates, but that includes people with walking sticks, etc.).

) Have you ever wondered why there are so many more people with prams and wheelchairs in shopping centres?

) Do you wonder why?

) Do you see why it is important to them?

Ballpark, there are at least 3 million Australians now who have accessibility problems, over 15% of shoppers.

Many people now check accessibility in Google business listings when searching for businesses like yours, business listing sites Australia

Okay, there is a simple fix: tell them that you have wheelchair access in Google. Go to your Google My Business listing and update these options in Attributes.

​

Save, and when these people search for you, they will see that you are accessible to them.

If you want to know more, watch this video here.

How to become an Afterpay merchant!

Afterpay is a payment type, and in its class, it is the most popular Pay Now Buy Later product in Australia. Currently, about 3.6 million users in Australia; check for more details here. It is great for my clients that rather than use laybys, it is better to use Afterpay as you get your money now, with no hassles. If you are doing laybys, I recommend you try to switch to Afterpay. It's the one that my clients report the greatest success in using.

Because of its interest, I get repeatably asked about integrating it into our POS Software.

It does not need integration as your EFTPOS machine can do it. However you will then need to get Afterpay permission to become an Afterpay approved merchant. If you are interested, you need to go here and provide details like your EFTPOS terminal details. Once accepted, which does not take long, you get the ability to accept Afterpay. Your funds are settled like any other card payment.

Point to consider:

) Lots of people use it

) Afterpay does direct customers to your shop

) You will need to accept Paywave Mastercard with its costs.

) It is very hard to pass on Afterpay fees to your clients.

) If you do not use it, there is no cost, so you can keep it for emergency although the Paywave is a problem. As it needs to be activated.

We do have a product baring system that you will need to help handle the following:

) Fees are fairly high so there are a few low-cost items that you will not want to go through.

) Some products Afterpay will not let you trade through them.

Clients of ours doing this have reported that it is straightforward to use and does fulfil a need for their consumers.

Physical stores anticipate making a significant rebound this year for Easter now that COVID is over. Overall, the industry is looking at about an 8% expansion. I expect more as restaurants will be down compared to 2019, so gifts should be up on 2019 figures.

 Based on Google Trends, we can see that public interest is growing. So the interest is there.

Since it is so late, people are looking for convenience. You want to make it quick and straightforward for your customers to find their gifts. Best to make a showcase with your Easter products with signage to lead them to the display.

If you have not done it yet, it is quick and easy to do this with your retail POS system.

Go to Register reports.

Now pick "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period."

In the form, put in a few days before April 4, 2021, and a few days after. That will give you a list of what sold last year.

Now put in the year before COVID-19 hit, a few days before April 21, 2019, and a few days after. That will give you a list of what sold that year.

This year it will be a mix of these two dates. 

Now, these are the items that worked for you then. They will should work for you again this year.

Easter is an excellent shopping day in retail. Although it has only a short holiday season, sales can be impressive.

A scenario all too frequent now is that a staff member rings up and lets us know they have COVID and are taking a few days off. This is better than having them come to work and making more people sick.

There are two points here. 

The first is widely known. If you look at this graph below, you will see the red arrow is the most dangerous period of spread before people realise they have COVID. Generally, the RAT tests cannot pick it up, as the symptoms are only starting up, so few tests are done here. All you can do here is get people in the shop-tested. Since a RAT test will not pick it up, they will need to go to a testing site.

However, what is not widely known is that after people are over COVID, in the Post-infectious area (see the green arrow), they can still spread COVID. This period lasts for about three days and it is after the symptoms are resolved.  This is due to something called viral shedding.

It is worth reading up here because it is not being discussed. If you want more read here too.

We ask people to work from home, if possible, for a few days after they are over COVID. If they cannot work from home, perhaps they can take a few days off to get over this period.