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.

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.

Prepare for mother's day as it's coming. This is the third-largest retail event following Christmas and the back-to-school season. So it's worthwhile preparing.

Based on previous years, the retail industry is looking at an increase in overall sales this year with an average spend of about $80.  

For Mother's Day (25%), a considerable percentage of shoppers state that convenience is crucial when picking out a Mother's Day gift. They do not know what you buy, and they want to do it quickly. So make it easy for your shoppers to find their gifts. Consider creating a display such as this that features your Mother's Day merchandise with signage to lead shoppers to this exhibit. You want to make it easy for your customers to grab and go.

If you are unsure of what will work in your shop on Mother's Day or to get some ideas.

Go to Register reports.

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

 In the form, put in the week before May 9, 2021, and check it out. That will give you what worked last year.

Now put in the year before COVID-19 hit on May 12, 2019, and see that report. 

This year will be a mix of these two dates. As people expect restaurants and special outings to be down compared to 2019, so flowers and gifts should be up on 2019 figures. 

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

Mother's Day is an excellent shopping day in retail. Although it is a limited-time shopping festival with a short season, it can considerably impact your shop if correctly done.

COVID has protected us from the flu for the past two years, but the flu has not disappeared. Most people have not taken a flu shot for two years, so they are susceptible to getting the flu. Then there are currently two years of seasonal infections, with the current year's most recent variations coming with the opening of Australia's borders. So expect an extreme flu season.

Unlike COVID, the flu does not care about your age, wellbeing, or way of life.

The most effective way to safeguard yourself is to get your flu vaccine soon.

Unfortunately, there is a shortage of flu vaccines now, so I suggest you book now, if possible, your staff. Lucky for us, these flu vaccines, unlike COVID, have a proven safety record.

Also, COVID is a flu, and our flu season is coming up, so be prepared for another wave of COVID. But that is another issue, some of the guys at work doctors have told them to take a fourth shot.

Overseas reports are reporting that shoplifting as a result of COVID has skyrocketed. Although no figures have come forward for Australia now, as we tend to get these only after the stocktakes in the mid-year. It is almost certainly true now in Australia too.

Unfortunately, it does not take much to turn a slight increase in shoplifting into a crisis. Depending on your margins, a 1.4% stock shrinkage could amount to a 20% loss in profits.

Much of the problem now, I am sure, is because most shops are desperately keeping staff to a minimum to hold off cost pressures that are forcing prices up in an attempt to combat surging inflation and supply chain disruptions.

Consider a check of some of your shop to give you a feel of how you are affected. This is easy to do; follow the documentation on stocktaking in your point of sale software. Fortunately, we did increase the flexibility of the stocktaking procedures last year, so making it easier. What you do is divide some parts of your shop into several small areas. The size of the area is that one person can do in two hours. Keeping the locations to manageable size means it can be stopped and started as the shop trading conditions change.

This will give an exact figure in your discrepancy reports. These are invaluable for examining your shoplifting problem.

This will enable you to make informed business decisions.

Ignoring Valentine's Day can cost you. It is dollars considered the fifth biggest shopping day in the year. COVID has shown that even in the middle of the most significant pandemic that we have all experienced with its unprecedented shakeup of our economy and all the jobs lost, consumers did not cut back their spending on Valentine's Day.

I put in Valentine's Day for Australia for this year, last year, and 2019 (pre-pandemic) in google trends. This year's outlook looks like this.

Interest is lower now but comparable to these years.

Now, if you want some ideas, see what does sell in your shop on Valentine's Day and what stock you have? It will take you seconds to find out and give you some good ideas. Remember unlike other marketing holidays, many products on Valentine's Day are still marketable afterwards if you select wisely plus many of you are well-positioned to get the *Last-minute shopper*, the guy who needs to get something at the last minute. That guy is open to ideas for a gift and requires a card.

So in your POS software, I recommend you look at the Top N stock report, which gives you the top-selling items.

Go to Register Reports marked in green.

Select stock.

Now you will see two reports, click the one on green first. The purple you should hold in memory as you may need it before placing an order.

Now select last year Valentine's day, select the top 40 items, which should be plenty. I would suggest doing it by quality sold.

Now you will get a report with top sellers over Valentine's day, plus your current stock holding to see how you stand for Valentine's day.

Also, run his report for 2019. This was in the pre-pandemic period, and one expects that this year will be a mix of last year and 2019.

Do you have a minute spare, well what is stopping you from doing this now?

There is no lockdown, but it is not like people are getting out. I thought it was an overreaction, but one of our staff got COVID. So not knowing what to do, we told our staff if they feel that they can do their work at home, to work from home if not then to come to work. 

I went to a client shop on Friday, and it was empty in the shopping centre, no one was coming out. I got called up the next day, so I went back only to see the shopping centre completely full. What is going on? I was told that this is not uncommon in the centre even before COVID. Then when I went back yesterday, it did not look too busy to me. 

May be we are looking at some lockdown-style hesitancy due to Omicron, or are we looking at a new cultural norm?

Anyway, I took some pictures. This is Parkmore Shopping centre which is a large shopping centre in the Melbourne metro.

Enjoy.

Many years ago, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce decided to analyze how good Australia Post was on deliveries. So they asked many of their members to send them a return letter on a particular day. They concluded that the letter probably would get through on time, but you cannot count on it happening on time. If there was a problem then, it is much worse now.  

Due to COVID, we are all facing problems now with deliveries. I think it's made Australia flawed delivery system worse. Years ago, I was told that it was cheaper if you had many items to send to many places in Australia to package it and send it to China. Then have them separate it and send it back to Australia to the many places. That was then and now, I think we have had worse service and higher prices

Today Australia Post uses a measure that states if a parcel is three days late or less, it was delivered on time. With that measure, they are at 90%. Tell me, if you were three days late would you consider yourself on time?

So I was pretty impressed when in Townsville, I was given this analysis of 352 taken over seven months.

If you look at it, Australia Post in Townsville is doing well, that shocked me. Tip: If you send a parcel to Townsville, Australia Post looks like a good choice based on this. It is often the easiest too although rarely the cheapest.

Unfortunately, this sort of analysis is only suitable for what we send out. For what we get often, we have no control over who sends it.

Our experience now in Melbourne is pretty mixed, we have not broken it down by couriers, but we often face late deliveries now. One of our engineers was so upset recently. So he jumped into his car and delivered it personally. When I complain, I have noticed that even Australia Post now subcontracts much of the deliveries. Many problems are caused by most freight in and out of Australia going through consolidators. These consolidators wait for a container to be full before they ship it. This causes significant delays.

This is something we are living with now.

More than else, what a retail business needs is fast action at the point of sale. There is too much danger of people leaving if your counter is slow.

This Christmas is evident that people do not want to wait. Each second is a demise for retailers. The more it takes to be served, the more your client keeps thinking about whether they genuinely need your things. Plus there is the worry of COVID.

You want a fast checkout.

Here is ours, the quickest one I know.

See the image above and see where it is marked in green. Transactions were being done at a rate of four a minute. 

Using our system, your payment times will accelerate. Therefore, their queues will be considerably reduced.

Our success is due to our customer orientation. We deal with a wide range of customer inquiries daily. Our mission is to establish a good resolution in every one of them.

This graph above shows our customer service shows that our customers think our service is excellent where 0 = terrible 10 = excellent

This is something we are extremely pleased about despite continuous coronavirus problems.

Rapid COVID tests will be available from Nov 1. These tests kits act like the pregnancy stick sold now. What they allow people is to get almost instant results. This is a significant advantage as now people often need to wait three hours to get tested at a public test facility. I had to go at 8 am to have my daughter tested before they opened to get a spot.

Plus, if they get tested there, they are publically listed if they have COVID. Some people do not want that.

I expect it will be a good product here as US sales for these 15-minute tests is soaring, so why not here? One guy at work told me that he and his partner are soon going to a wedding, so he wants two to test themselves.

So why not check it out? The cheapest supply that I have found is here. I am not saying how good they are, as I do not know.

It is a shame that it took so long for this product to appear, as we could have used it when COVID first started here.

We have waited 20 months for the green lights to get back in Victoria. I know that most of you have done much better but at least now we all have an opportunity to rebuild. Now is our time.

Now as Australia moves closer to achieving the required vaccination targets of 80% of double vaccinated, you can check here on how your feeder area for the shop is doing.

Put in your suburb and let it rip. Now you can find the exact areas of ​​interest by zooming.

Currently,

Single 75% is poor, 85% is average and 90% is good.

Double 60% is poor, 70% is average, and 80% is good.

This helpful resource is updated weekly.

The Australian government ruled out a "no jab, no job" policy, so leaving the decision to employers on whether they required employees to get vaccinated. Few employees were keen to get into this mess.

Now the Victorian government stepped in. Melbourne, Victoria, has earned a dubious distinction of being the most locked-down city under COVID in the world. Compared to the rest of Australia, we have low vaccination rates (49.9% vs 53.8% Australia-wide) and low testing rates with many blaming bad public policy choices e.g. a history of mucked up quarantines, weather or bad luck.

That motivated the Victorian Government in a surprise move. It announced mandatory vaccination for workers who are not working from home with few exceptions. They must have their first COVID-19 vaccine dose by Friday, 15 October. From 26 November 2021, this will increase to having the two doses or a medical exception. Currently, all Victorian businesses will need the employees to show proof of vaccinations by these dates.

Putting aside the legality of this, which will be decided here in the Supreme Court, I really don't know how everyone will be completely vaccinated by the 26 November target, even for those who want to get vaccinated. We are doing 70% more vaccinations than NSW now so the vaccination hubs often need a month before people can get their spot. Between the shots, many will want the recommended six-week gap between shots.

So how can the Victorian government make its deadline? 

Where does it leave us when the deadline comes up? 

I would make plans now, even if I was *NOT* in Victoria!

The big problem is that many are refusing to get vaccinated. What happens if they demand to come to work? Few employees want to be involved in a test case. There are plenty of demonstrations about this in Victoria. Although they all claim they will be non-violent demonstrations at the start, they all get violent. 

So it should be an exciting couple of months on how this goes down, this will keep us busy during the boredom of lock-down here.

These sorts of emails are, regrettably, common now. COVID has made business peoples lives difficult. In spite of the best efforts of delivery people, everyone currently is encountering delays and lost parcels.  

Fortunately, most people now understand the obstacles. 2021 is a challenging year for everyone. We are all trying to do our best to make it easier.

In my experience, the sooner you notify your customer, the easier it is to deal with the problem. Let them know by a call or email there is a problem. Give your customer the carriers new delivery date if possible, the carrier's reference number and contact details. That may get you out of the loop. 

What you need to do is let your customer know that you are here to support them.

If you do a lot of shipping with one carrier, we have several carriers integrated to automate this process. Unfortunately, many of these are not free services from the carrier but subscription services. So there is a cost for this service.

Vaccination rates are hitting 70%. Soon they should get close to 80%, which is the least that the politicians in Australia are demanding to open up the country. What is the situation for retailers now? 

Does anyone know?

The fact is that employers are required and responsible for making a safe environment for people to work, shop in and enter! 

So some employers are now publicly starting to demand that people applying must have proof of COVID Vaccination for jobs in their job advertisements. As you can see, these jobs listed here have nothing to do with medical, old age or childminding services which has been the case of so many legal arguments now.

I am not sure that this is legal. My understanding is that it's okay to ask, but someone does not have to tell you whether they have had the jab. Now it's clear that many employers are demanding proof.

What is the situation soon with existing employees?

Also, what is going to happen with customers entering the shop is unclear. 

An official in a shopping centre told me that he expects that everyone entering the shopping centre will soon need to be cleared first. If so, then unvaccinated people without a decent excuse will not be allowed into the centre. So your employee may not be able to come into your shop to work. If so you may be in your rights to dismiss them as they cannot work. That is going to cause a problem guaranteed. 

These issues need to be cleared up.
 

This is our sixth lockdown. A minority deliberately violated the rules to protest the latest lockdown. Yet, most are doing the right thing. But frustration is growing. 

Here are photos I took yesterday at Chadstone, Australia's largest and probably richest shopping mall. You pay a lot for the rent here. Usually, it is packed now. People everywhere.  See what it looks like now! This will be costing the economy a lot of money. There are several stores open, mainly grocery. I noticed that some that could be open are closed. I am sure because it is not worth opening. 

Despite the big promises from the state government, there is very little financial support for business, from what I see. 

Although there is vast parking, usually you cannot get a car park. I had no trouble parking yesterday.

In-store traffic monitoring

Are you trying to figure out when things are moving in your shop? At the best of times, finding out what is happening in your store is a daunting task. Now with COVID, these are not the best of times. Fortunately, you have a quick and instant report using our POS software, you can analyze your store's busy hours and optimize your roster.

Here is how to get started. Please click here.

As you do need now to understand what is happening now as its importance cannot be overemphasized today.

Lockdown 6 and the necessity to be able to do remote working
 

Today, most of our work is done remotely. That is because we did one thing right – Remote working.

With the uncertainty surrounding this pandemic and the speed of these snap lockdowns that our governments are putting in place, today we often have to work remotely. What was once a convenience used to avoid a commute to the shop is currently a necessity. My accountant calls me. He is at home. I am at home, we are talking on the telephone. The only way to get the stuff done is by me remotely dialling into work. This is life now in August 2021.

What I have noticed with people remote working is that you need to return messages and telephone calls quicker than before. People tend to be more time-conscious remote working. Try answer straight away, even if it is to say "When I get back to the shop on ..... I will do this..."

 Questions About Remote Work, Answered

Here are some quick FAQs that some people ask me about remote working if you have not started yet.

Q) Can our software can work remotely?

A) YES, there are several methods you can use. Don't hesitate to get in touch with our support staff to recommend the best way to do so with our software.

Q) Do I need to make changes?

A) Yes, you need the technology infrastructure in place to support remote work. Often it is much in cost but organisation. Home machines that kids used for games need checking for malware.

Q) Do I need a good Internet connection?

A) Depends. Suppose all you need are reports. Often we can set up a procedure that can work on flaky internet connections. If you want online access, as if you are there, you need a decent internet connection.

Q) Is my information secure?

A) It depends on how you do it. I would suggest that you consider frequent password changes. For example, I dialled my company from a public WIFI in the shopping centre. When I came home, I changed my passwords immediately. I had doubted my sensitive data going through these public WIFI systems.

If you are concerned, you can use a VPN at a minor cost. I pay about $3/month for a VPN.

Q) Does someone have to be in the shop for it to work?

A) There are some pluses and minus to setting it up, so someone must be there.

Remote work considerations for the future

Today we have to accept that COVID is mutating, so producing new waves. Some employees are more vulnerable than others. Others have kids, and if the kids are in a lockdown, they often cannot come to work. Others prefer working from home. So we have to accept that a proportion of the workforce won't be returning to work soon.

Remote working will be with us from now on, your software has to be able to handle it.

This Delta variant is spreading. It now is the dominant variant. Now South Australia will go into lockdown too from 6 pm tonight. It joins much of Australia already in lockdown.

If you want to know what lockdown looks like in Melbourne, I took some pictures of the Parkmore shopping centre. This is a large shopping centre with 128 shops. It should be packed now.

But in shopping centres, there is no monkey business as shopping centre management enforces the lockdown immediately. The shops open were mainly shops classed as essentials. Although I did notice some in the essential list did shutdown, probably as the owners do not think it's worth opening. Some shops sort of stayed open as they use Click and Collect or do repairs. Most shops that were open were only available for a limited time.

If you want to know how your suppliers are affected in different states, I find this helpful site COVID-19 Restriction Checker. This is because they frequently update the information.

If you want to know how COVID is playing out, try this site COVID LIVE.

Keep safe, I like this quote by Mahatma Gandhi when he stated “It is health that is the real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.”