Historically, retailers have turned to employees or contractors to handle delivery across the supply chain. But that trend may end, or at the very least, be subsidized with a new type of home delivery service: crowdsourced shipping.
In this digital age, cash still represents 30% of all retail store transactions and 55% of transactions under $10. Cash also accounts for almost half (41%) of fast food purchases and a third of transactions (33%) at convenience stores. As mobile wallets and other cash alternatives are introduced, the trend raises the very real question of whether cash needs legislative protection. In a growing number of municipalities and States the answer is yes.
Retail is undergoing a major sea change as retailers reshape the shopping experience. As consumers become more demanding thanks to the conveniences of online shopping, savvy retailers are making strides to replicate – or even surpass that experience – at physical locations. Retailers who make customer-centric decisions, investing in stores, technology, fulfillment and customer service teams will stand to profit.
Automation and new recruitment/retention strategies can help address the supply chain labor crunch.
The cost of picking and shipping errors go far beyond returns processing. Here’s why.
Modern retailers understand the core benefits of leveraging the power of Predictive Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. Predictive Analytics accounts for all of your company’s relevant data at a micro-level, identifies your business’ trends, opportunities, and influencing factors. It makes recommendations to retailers that will help them increase forecast accuracy, reduce inventory costs, increase in sales, and maintain high customer satisfaction levels.
If you think credit and debit cards are about to displace cash for retail transactions, think again. Legal tender remains the most commonly used form of payment, accounting for about 40 percent of U.S. transactions overall, up to two-thirds of purchases under $10, and half of transactions valued at less than $50. “Cash accounts for about 85 percent of global consumer transactions,” according to MasterCard. “In most countries the cashless journey has only just begun.” So while plastic and electronic payments have been hailed as the currency of the future, there is a long way to go.
For many European shoppers, waiting at checkout lines any longer than five minutes is too long, according to retail study by Adyen. Shoppers are looking for an experience that satisfies three fundamental demands: convenience, context and control.
A five-hour outage on June 1st that left Visa cardholders across Europe unable to complete transactions caused widespread disruption and frustration, and raised serious questions about a future cashless society. Consumers saw cards being declined as they tried to make purchases at gas stations, restaurants, supermarkets and retail stores. Some reported having to stand in line at checkouts for 20 minutes as cashiers struggled to process transactions, not knowing the system was down. Some drivers couldn’t get gas, which for some created a real problem. Among those affected was a member of the British Parliament, Angela Rayner, who tweeted she was able to fuel up because “my local garage knows me.”
POS resellers are essential to a vendor’s strategy to target its products to the right market. Without the benefit of channel partnerships, vendors would be hard-pressed to gain brand mindshare.
Long checkout lanes, disorganized shelves and hard-to-find products lead to frustrated shoppers. And when customers get frustrated, they often give up on a store and walk out, especially if there’s no associate around to help them.
If there’s any doubt about the impact of cash management solutions on the cost structure of retailers, consider this recent finding by IHL Group: Replacing manual processes with automation technology can save retailers an average of 200 to 500 labor hours monthly per store.
