As the pressure to perform in the retail industry increases with rising rentals, more competition, higher customer expectations and evolving trends, retailers are finding it increasingly challenging to manage and grow their retail business. With the convergence of the demand chain which starts from the customer through to the distribution channel and the supply chain which starts from the suppliers to the stores, having an integrated efficient system and business processes in place is an important determinant to retail business success.
With a significant technological advantage and a good retail management software solution that complements their retail strategy, retailers will be able to gain control of their business operations through a single point of view, optimise resources, increase process efficiencies and lower costs.
However, an inherent fear of complex and time-consuming implementations with high costs is often a deterrent to making the required IT investment. Retailers sometimes make-do with a mini billing or small inventory system which may be able to support the business in its startup but fail to support the business growth with relevant functions and reports as it scales up. There are others which invested the time and resources to implement an expensive system only to realise that the system is not addressing its retail business needs comprehensively. In such cases, many retailers have then refrained from looking at other options.
Investing in a robust and integrated retail management software system could benefit a retailer in many ways.
- Increased profit margins through better understanding of buying trends and stocking based on consumer preferences
- Increased sales as a result of better inventory control, reduced stock-outs, lost sales and happier customers
- Control of inventory will help to streamline your warehousing and store space
- Control on pilferages through intelligence gathered on pilferage-prone items and locations so that more checks and measures can be put in these problem areas
- Managing the merchandising mix so that it reduces the problem of over stocking or under stocking
- Minimum stock outs which leads to increase sales as customers are able to purchase what they want instantly
- Understanding the customer purchasing pattern to plan an optimum merchandise mix
- Tracking customer buying history allows you to discover who are your loyal customers and execute targeted promotions to maintain their loyalty.
Addressing the needs of the evolving retail industry, ETP International has developed the ETP V5 Retail Management Software which covers all the key functionality required for retail companies and is built to help retailers align their business processes with their strategies. Its integrated yet modular approach allows retailers to deploy ETP V5 comprehensively or modularly as per their requirements.
ETP V5 helps to streamline areas such as inventory and merchandise management, customer service and point-of-sale, loyalty and customer relationship management, cash management, marketing and promotion planning, merchandise and OTB planning, CRM and loyalty management, warehousing, inventory allocation and distribution, product life cycle management, procurement and MIS reports. With the components integrated into a single database with a single sign-on, management benefits from an integrated view of people, processes and goods moving at different speeds across different time zones and different languages in different countries at any time. Covering a wide spectrum of functionalities in a retail organisation, ETP V5 also adds value to corporate functions such as human resource and training, finance, marketing, and more. Being an international software solution company in the World, ETP provides retail solutions to the retail industry leaders using its ETP V5 retail management software as a platform.
