The Return of Retail: How You Should Prepare

Last year, the spread of the coronavirus caused retailers to shutter and in-person shopping to grind to a halt. But these past few months have shown that shoppers are gradually returning to stores, marking a shift from the predominantly online consumer habits that dominated 2020. In fact, visits to physical stores have increased by 28.5% since the start of the year. Customers who’ve spent the past year stuck at home are ready to shop and they’re ready to have in-person experiences.

Optimistic consumer outlooks, pent-up demand, and widespread distribution of the vaccine will generate increased economic growth, retail sales, and consumer spending to the tune of $44.4 trillion.

– Matthew Shay, NRF president and CEO

Retailers, and the brands that sell at retail, need to be prepared to welcome these shoppers back as their confidence continues to increase. It’s time to start thinking about how you can make this year even BETTER for your business than 2019. If you’re a brand selling at retail, that means increasing staffing in order to meet the demand of customers returning to shopping in-store. Retail stores have undergone a seismic shift from a place of sales to a point of service. For retail to adapt post-COVID, there needs to be a focus on expert salespeople who can provide customers with the knowledge and expertise that they crave.

But large questions on exactly HOW to achieve this still remain. At AllWork, we’ve been speaking to our current clients and these are the top things to consider when it comes to restaffing at retail.

Update Your Budget

Before you begin scheduling talent back into stores, you’re going to need to reevaluate your budget. Your budget may be completely different now and you’ll need to determine which stores you will be staffing and how many team members you can rehire. Next, create a realistic sales per hour number to determine an ROI that you can begin to measure.

Collect Data From the Sales Floor

There will be no room for error in this new retail environment. It’s more important than ever that you have full insight into the performance of your team. Make sure you’re collecting these important key metrics in real-time:

• Sales per hour
• Notes from the sales floor
• Photos of displays and events
• To-the-minute start and end times of shifts

Utilizing a mobile app for your retail team will ensure that all of this data is collected accurately and instantly.

Make sure your team is being paid properly

Recent events have made having an expert payroll partner even more important. Employment, and unemployment, laws are continuously changing so it’s important to have an experienced payroll team in place. Having a payroll partner means seamless payments for your entire team to make sure you’re compliant with all state, local, & federal laws including the new AB 5 Bill in California.

So, how do you do all of this?

Transitioning your field team back into retail will be tricky at first, but tapping into a workforce management platform can help set your team up for success by making sure you have all of the tools you need to manage your remote team.

AllWork has a full end-to-end system including budgeting, scheduling, time & attendance with a mobile app, a learning management portal, and payroll services. We also have a talent pool of 60,000 beauty professionals that you can use to restart your hiring efforts.

Our platform allows you to restart your retail team while minimizing travel and give you everything you need to manage them from a distance. Altogether, we can help you increase sales and productivity while improving the ROI of your talent spend.

To learn more about how AIIWork can help successfully transition back into retail, email info@allworknow.com or schedule a demo here.