Grocery stores and supermarkets sell household necessities, such as food, beverages, candies, cleaning supplies, and self-care products. They make it easy to buy everyday household necessities. Omnichannel mass merchandisers have driven the supermarket business to digitalization. On the global market, seamless omnichannel strategies have led to revolutionary trends. According to a report by Grandviewresearch, the total value of global food & grocery retail market size was around USD 11,324.4 billion in 2021 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.0%. This growth is mainly driven by COVID-19 lockdowns, increased online grocery sales volumes, and consumer polarization.
If you are planning to jump into the superbusiness of supermarket, be it offline or online, be it a single store or a chain of supermarkets, then you are at the right webaddress. You will find below a seven-step guide to help you get started with your own supermarket.
- Business Model
A supermarket model defines all business functions that are vital to the operation and life cycle of the company’s products. Formulating a business model can seem to be simple yet it can be a complex task depending on the organization’s size and the level of expertise it has. Calculating your capital investment, operating cost, your breakeven sale, ROI of the business, and sale projection for at least the next three years is essential as it will help you to understand what kind of budget you can allocate for marketing, sales, and rentals which are most affordable for business.
- Product category finalization
Products and services are how an organization makes money (revenue and profit). Whether offline or online it is important to finalize the whole list of categories, the supermarket has loads of products, and try to finalize the list according to your budget, and the size of the store. The product categorization of your online store impacts its structure and SEO. Indexing is done for all product pages, categories pages, and the holistic navigation system. Together, they expand the avenues from which you can draw traffic to your website.
- Layout Planning
The layout of your store can influence the turnover of your supermarket business. Shelf layout, product arrangement, and the placement of special offer all impact turnover directly. For offline stores it is important to understand the position of entry, flow of goods, flow of people, and layout in a way to avoid and reduce any chance of theft or error. In online eCommerce, design your complete layout including recording of goods, macro checking, micro checking, packaging , labeling, barcoding, stacking, racks on the basis of what you sell. Design the layouts of your warehouse in such a way that it is easy to operate and helps in minimizing the turn around time for each order.
- Organization structure
The suitable people for the concerned work, what would be the job profiles and the reporting structures. It makes sure about what kind of report do you expect on a daily, weekly and monthly basis from your employees. By organizing the official reporting relationships that govern the company’s workflow, the organizational structure provides guidance to all employees. When a company’s structure is formalized, it becomes easier to add new positions to it, and also provides a flexible and ready platform for growth.
- Standard Operating Procedures
Standard operating procedures, or SOPs, are guides to ensure that business activities are conducted consistently, and predictably, and nothing is left up to chance. It is possible to create your business’ SOP with input from the company officers and employees, those who will be using it to solve problems and get direction on how to handle routines or problems or to have it in place before the grand opening of your supermarket store. There are different SOPs for different departments dealing with the specific pecularities of thet department, be it logistics, warehouse, sales, marketing, in store, upfront desk etc. SOPs in place makes sure that each and every employee from top to bottom know exactly what specific roles they have to play.
- Software Evaluation & Selection
During the last decade, technology has become very influential in the retail industry. Instead of going to a retail store, consumers are opting to search and buy products online at various ecommerce platforms on their smartphones. However, traditional retail shops still remain a high priority, and it is important they keep up with technological advancements within the industry. The evaluation of the software is extremely important for both online and offline business as an integrated software & IT system is crucial to manage multiple chain operations, customer relationship management (CRM), logistics, and warehouse management.
- Recruitment Training
Retail staff are your frontline troops when it comes to winning and keeping customers. Therefore, you should pay close attention to the way they interact with customers and close sales. For a young employee to learn top-notch customer service through on-the-job training alone, it can take years. How about retail staff training to hone their skills and improve their presentation skills so crucial for a great customer experience . Retail staff need both hard and soft skills to perform well in their jobs, which can be provided through employee training and development. A good recruitment training will make your supermarket run even without your presence.
Why Choose YRC
Struggling to fullfill all the above mentioned steps and achieve your business goals? Or looking for a reputed e-commerce consultant. YRC is a one stop solution for all your retail problems.
Your Retail Coach is a bespoke retail & e-commerce consulting firm with an experience of more than 11 years in providing premium services and impeccable results.
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