Monday, April 22, 2013

Kirana / Parchoon | Grocery Shop | Store | Online Store



We all have our childhood experience of shopping. Shopping then in itself used to be a project and we plan for it.

The grocery for the entire month is fixed and a list of necessary items is handed over to the head of the family usually father. The list is full of needs and wants were exceptional and were considered once in awhile only Or are conditional if expecting guests or if someone has passed with flying colors and so on.

The list has its own importance and everyone in the family wish to include an item of their choice in the list and the father decides whether it’s required or not or when it can be added. As the budget for the list has a  little variance available as mostly homes back then were single income homes with women as a home maker father is the only source of income. This was the time when India has yet to witness major reforms in industrialization and is still on carts and cycles.

With the changing economical structure of the county, occupations have changed and with that the buying patterns, thoughts and much more. With changing times family’s lists have now accepted wants on a regular basis and women and children choices were considered more. With the advent of scooters family outings were increased and purchasing the monthly grocery was one amongst them.

Stores like departmental store, Pharmacy Store, medical store, stationery store, Furniture store, gifts store, shoe store were more prevalent and people feel sense of pride sharing such name in their conversions with others.

These stores were highly accepted amongst masses and were a new source of self employment for the common men.

With changing time, computerization, FDI in retail and Globalizations came the new era of supermarkets, hypermarkets and more. These formats have given an entire new dimension to the shopping experience. Now you need to just pick and choose what you need or want from the large formats of stores and shelves.

This has given new shape to the buying experience of customers, families shopping visit’s have now been more enjoyable and kids were more happy as they were more free to choose and convince their parents in the environment for items of their choice.

Also working women have become more independent and are less dependent on men; they have started shopping alone or with friends and even with kids. The dependencies on men have reduced and the empowered women and new shopping format were shining.

The above facts have increased the foot falls in stores and retail chains and it was necessary for them to manage the store operations well for better customer experience, as phrases like “customer is the king” is prevalent during these times.

So for better customer experience software’s were being used at market place for booking, billing, inventory management, purchase management and more.

With increasing competition things like loyalty cards, bonus points, promotional offers and discounts were visible at market place and Software is the one who is managing all this.

Well the software has come to the rescue of the store based retailers and helps them in many ways like:

· Trust on accurate information for strategy
· Track customer preferences and buying pattern
· Plan Marketing Strategies
· Maintain hassle free and clean accounting
· Engage with your customer
· Stock Analytics
o Expiry
o Slow moving
o Fast moving
o Dead stock etc.

With the acceptance of online purchases by the consumers, it is essential to have an online store of yours to be in the race and cater to the online shoppers as well.

With people spending more time online it is very essential to capture the online market which works 24x7 for you.





SWIL has helped retailers in every walk of their life, whether it is a single shop, a retail chain or an online store it has solution for all.

With RetailGraph and Retailg E –stores it has helped the retailer to dream big and grow.

Changing time has changed the way retailer do business and its a win win for the customers and retailers.
















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RetailGraph Team
SoftWorld (India) Pvt. Ltd.


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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

No Analysis - No Business







RetailGraph - Power of Analysis to your business

Promotional Effectiveness

Devoting money to consumer or trade promotions can be an effective way to boost business activity.

But in planning your promotions, it’s important to understand the insights that make the difference between profitable promotions and those that fall flat of expectations

With RetailGraph we help you manage your promotion activities, such as coupons, discounted prices, buy-one-get-one, or sponsor-driven promotions to determine the impact. With these facts clearly understood, you’ll have the insights to improve your promotion plans for increases in revenues and profit, market impact and enhanced ROI.

Marketing Mix Optimization

Marketing Mix Models quantify the sales impact of various marketing activities and determine effectiveness and ROI for each marketing activity. RetailGraph can provide a roadmap for the future by showing how to adjust marketing strategies, and plan budgets.

RetailGraph helps companies untangle their analytics. By leveraging historic information, such as point-of-sale data and companies’ internal data, RetailGraph helps you to quantify the sales impact of various marketing activities and its contribution to sales-volume, effectiveness, efficiency and ROI.

Dashboards

A marketing dashboard is a collection of what are believed to be the most critical diagnostic and predictive metrics,organized in a way to promote the recognition of patterns of performance. A good marketing dashboard gives you critical information at the right time, is easy to understand, and helps you make judgments without taking your eyes off the road.

RetailGraph helps you with analytics to your organization which can help you measure customer focus in ways that actually help you identify issues and priorities. You can have business intelligence out of analytics that we provide.

Financial statements and sales figures tell about history, our work will tell you about the future.

SUPPLY CHAIN OPTIMIZATION

Inventory Optimization

Even small variances in inventory can have big repercussions in business. Caught with too little and you have rush charges, express delivery fees and unhappy customers. Order too much and you increase costs and risk write-offs for obsolete or expired goods. A view of your inventory across all channels ensures that your goods are where they're needed—not forgotten in a warehouse or reserved for stores while your customers OR Internet customers receive out-of-stock messages.

RetailGraph helps you with Inventory Management to see inventory across your entire network no matter how many channels, products or outlets you have. Not only can you see the status of your inventory at every point in your supply chain, but you can also share inventory data with your suppliers so they can better manage the in time delivery.

Operational Efficiency

For every organization to climb up the ladder, it is necessary to develop plans for operations improvement and efficiency enhancement. The value of your organization highly depends on a focused and comprehensive operational evaluation and implementing the necessary changes to accelerate growth. In turnaround situations, operational efficiency enhancement and restructuring is typically required for a company to survive a depressed state and achieve stability and profitability.

RetailGraph helps you manage your operations and helps you with smooth operation and data visibility across the business. Helps you maintain customer records, history, product details, stock details, taxation and more.

The feasibility to have real-time data and analytics helps you take the right decisions at the right time.

SALES ANALYSIS

RetailGraph giving you the insights for your business

INCENTIVES

In many situations, the sales force is the organization’s biggest asset in terms of promotional resources, and too often companies fail to maximize returns on that investment. Incentives play a key role in motivating your sales force to a desired behavior. It is well understood that not all incentives are going to work. Some will work better than the others. Some of the essentials while looking at optimizing Sales force Incentives could be gain insights into Sales lift attributed to Incentives while taking into account competitive data, economic data, sales trends, and variety of organizational data

· Turn insights into Sales Strategies, Deployment of Resources, Forecasting Sales and Channel Assignments

· Plan for various scenarios as you build out sales and incentive plans for the next year

RetailGraph helps bring together the various aspects that could help you to have visibility on your sales team’s performance and which can help you to design incentive programs to drive an altogether new dimension for your Sales Team.


SALES ANALYSIS


Sales analysis is a tool to identify the specific parameters of a product or a service that drive a particular action. Some of the questions that analysis answers are:

· What aspects of my business results in higher customer retention?

· What are the specific products that lead to more purchase?

· What are the specific areas that I can choose to ignore without losing out on my current clientele?

· What are the specific products I should stock more?

· Who are my customers?

The interesting aspect of analysis is that you could use it to understand any of the variables that you need to understand.

RetailGraph helps you to better understand what drives purchase, repeat purchase, and much more.

PURCHASE PROPOENSITY

Propensity implies inclination to something or someone.

A propensity model will enable identification of entities which are more inclined than the others, to an object of interest. The purpose of propensity modeling is to build models that indicate the propensity of each customer or customer segment to purchase a specific product or service.

RetailGraph analytics will help you determining the buying pattern of customer to an extent helps you to know what he/she will purchase, and in which order the purchases will be made.

These models in turn enable our clients to build effective up-sell, cross-sell and retention strategies.

SALES DASHBOARD


A Sales dashboard is a collection of what are believed to be the most critical diagnostic organized in a way to promote the recognition of patterns of performance. A good Sales dashboard gives you critical information at the right time, is easy to understand, and helps you make judgments without taking your eyes off the road.

RetailGraph helps you to see the analytics and act on it.

RetailGraph can help you measure customer focus in ways that actually help you identify issues and priorities.

Financial statements and sales figures tell about history, our work will tell you about the future.

RetailGraph e-stores helps you open and manage you online store. It also integrates with your Physical Stores database and is user friendly and fast to implement.
RetailGraph e-store gives you the power to connect with millions

With Benefits Like:

· Setup your own online store
· Customize your store-your logo, products etc
· Translate into any language
· Reach millions of customer
· Multiple payment options
· Experts marketing Advice
· Generate More income
· 24x7 business expansion
· New features can be added



More on us on




Monday, April 15, 2013

Shopping Online Vs Shopping On store


Hello All,

Today’s story is of a upper middle class nuclear family of Nair’s , there were 5 member in family as their younger son say’s, Mr.&Mrs Nair, their daughter Sandhya (pinky), younger son Tarun (Deepu). Ahh sorry I forgot to mention about Tomy their Labrador, yes Tomy is part of the family and very close to deepu and pinky.

Both the children were good in studies and have recently learned computers and use of internet in their last vacations, and they are now graduating on the use of it day after another. Pinky is in 10th this year and avoids wasting time in avoidable outings as she is focused on achieving good marks in the board exams.


The family usually used to go together on a nearby market which has almost all type of retailers for day to day needs.
Please Be Online 


One fine day Mrs. Nair asked pinky to come along with her to buy some fresh flowers from the nearby market, as they were expecting some guests and she would like to decorate the drawing room.

Pinky who is busy online in her free time, asked her mother---You want roses or Lilly’s or some other flower

Mrs. Nair: We will buy rose only, 5 white and 5 red... Yes it will work, will decorate both sides in combination

Pinky: Ok… it will get delivered in another 30 minutes.

Mrs Nair: What? , what do you mean; we have to go to Raju’s shop for flowers.

Pinky: I just ordered it online; you will receive a call in 5 mins to confirm your order, and yes you have to pay when they deliver.

Mrs Nair getting a little angry, why you ordered online, it’s not safe and what if the flowers are not fresh, please don’t do it the next time, by the time Mrs Nair could finish with all that her phone rang, she received a call and heard a well mannered voice reconfirming the order, Mrs Nair told him clearly, if the flowers are not fresh I will not accept and will not pay, a polite voice came from the other end, yes mam for sure.

Mrs Nair waited in a dilemma will the flowers get delivered in time? Will they be fresh? What if the decoration is not perfect today and all the negative thoughts were in her mind, soon the bell rang – yes flowers and they are fresh, she Paid the money and started her decoration.

The evening went as planned guest’s arrived every one appreciated the food and flowers as well.

However still Mrs. Nair is not in favor of online purchases, she believes in experiencing (touch and feel) the product before buying. Every common individual have the same thought process, yes many of us. But the thought is changing and people have started enjoying the benefit of online purchases.

Mrs. Nair’s another encounter with online purchase happened soon.

It was a Sunday morning and every one planned for a Lunch, pinky and deepu insisted for a movie after lunch, on which Mrs. Nair said no, not today, we need to go shopping for the grocery, I already have the list with me and we can't miss that.

Children insisted again and again for the movies, as it was the last chance for them before the exams which will start next month.

No no no, Mrs Nair shouted, we have to buy it today we are running short of grocery and I alone can’t go and carry so many bags, so we have to buy today.

Pinky in a requesting tone---Mother let’s buy it online my friend ritika and her mother also purchase grocery online, she told me and it’s safe. 

NO- yes big NO from Mrs. Nair----What is this online-online pinky-- what's wrong with you kids, you are becoming unsocial now a day’s u don’t like outing with your parents at all nor even help in purchases as you used to help earlier. This is just the start, Mrs. Nair Continued for another 10 minutes, when Mr.Nair interrupted and explained that there is no harm in online purchase and that way children are helping us but in a different way. 

Now days even store based retailers have their online stores, from where you can pick and choose.

All the three explained started explaining the benefits to Mrs. Nair:

· It’s Safe shopping you pay through secured gateways, or you pay on delivery

· No Parking charges so that’s a discount

· Best rates and offers

· Free home delivery, no need to carry all the bags on your own

· Return facility for goods also available, in case you have changed your mind on some purchases

· Lux will be Lux it will not change its property if we buy online

· You avoid long queue and much more.
SHOP Online and Save



Thank god Mrs. Nair agreed, and they searched for their retailer online whom they used to buy from, yes he has an online store and we can buy from here--- pinky in excitement

This was the first lesson OR introduction of Mrs Nair to online shopping in an online store.

She told what all she needs and pinky and deepu assisted her to get all the products in the online basket, it took around 15 minutes to shop online, and they have 4 time slots available for home delivery so they choose  the evening slot—and yes they are done.

They just saved at least 40-45 minutes and above all the mood of kids and a movie to enjoy with the family.

It’s a win win for the retailers as well
· Setup your own online store
· Customize your store-your logo, products etc

· Translate into any language

· Reach millions of customer

· Multiple payment options

· Experts marketing Advice

· Generate More income

· 24x7 business expansion

· New features can be added

· Attract online customers irrespective of demographics

Yes RetailGraph along with RetailGraph E-store helps you to bring your business online. Some of the Key Features are:
· Automated Sale, Purchase and Inventory management

· Include 1000s Add-to-Cart products per web site. Create, import, and export Store Modules.

· Supports PayPal, COD, Bank Transfer & payu.in payment gateway services.

· Supports both Hyperlink and HTML Form Add-to-Cart Buttons Create integrated Shopping Carts.

· Dozens of customization, web site themes. A complete set of GUI Design Tools for creating your Products Ads and Web Pages.

· A META Tag Design utility - used for search engine classification and indexing. An image file Import / Preview utility

· Built-in Import / Export data utility for interfacing with Retailgraph Program. Automatically generates both the Main and Sub Category Navigation menus.

To conclude it’s clear that online shopping is picking up and picking up real fast, with more store’s adopting the e-store model and more youngsters changing the mindset of their parents and more importantly parents realizing the benefits and accepting it is an early start of an online era where buyer prefer online purchase over traditional purchase.

And why not when I know that I can have the same quality, quantity and price of the product then why waste my time, energy and a little money to go and shop.

So retailers get your online store today. And buyer keeps shopping 

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Saturday, April 13, 2013

“It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.”

Today's blog is about a general observation, to project the opportunity for small and medium sized retailers.

Before we start please read the below observation and continue reading if you agree: 

  • Indians on an average spend more than half of their expenditure on FOOD.
  • Organized Retail has very - Very less share of FOOD sales in India (India is beyond Metro's as well).
  • Still Maximum Indian Populations lives in Tier 2, Tier 3 and rural areas.
  • The maximum portion of sales of Big retailers is apparels and life style products maximum of which comes from metros and High Income group individuals or earning singles or DINKS (dual income no kids) and so on.

Organised Retailers are surrounded by SBRs

The Point to make is, it’s not all about the Big Retailers, but it is about our own store based retailers (SBRs) the new avatar of mom n pop shops & other not too big stores which are targeting the masses of India.

Yes it is the new avatar. They are adopting technology, how many of us have seen a CCTV or a small machine in such stores 5-10 years back, very few, but now they are quite common, they understand the use and importance.

As pointed in my earlier posts http://retailgraph.blogspot.in/2013/04/every-skyline-has-its-own-special-story.html, with time mindset also changes and it must change.

SBRs can make a difference to themselves by changing their own mind set. Your biggest obstacle might be closer to home than you think or it could be you yourself. So mindset to adopt change for good should be carried. 
Change is for good. RetailGraph makes it Possible

In today’s world, the traditional store-based retailers (SBRs) need to employ analytics to understand their customers and most importantly themselves. 

RetailGraph Analytics help in many ways:

· Better demand management

· Better ROI by carrying the right assortment and balancing the inventory with demand

· Profit maximization by optimizing pricing and other strategies

· Running festive / time bound promotions and schemes

· Identifying and retaining their best customers.

As we all knwo the competition is no longer the store across the street or the neighbourhood store, but is as far as on web.More products and lines are being introduced month on month. Only analytics can support. As the saying goes god helps them who helps themselves, so help you business with analytics and analytics will help you back. 

Changing Time--changing Customer---So adopt Change & move on
The opportunity is there for the one who acts and acts fast. A whole pie is waiting for you to dine upon. The retail landscape, ever-expanding and changing, shaped by new-age competition defying traditional retail channels and practices, with growing online shop, has shaken many retailers out of their inertia. Worried over sustaining the competitive advantages to survive, they slowly turn to information technology and analytics

The time is an excellent example of change with its ever changing and never stopping nature, with time things change for good of course, but for that they would have to move beyond their own traditional mindset, to develop a robust understanding of importance of analytic. 

RetailGraph & Retailg e-store as your analytic friends help you in following ways:

· Trust on accurate information for strategy
· Track customer preferences and buying pattern
· Plan Marketing Strategies
· Maintain hassle free and clean accounting
· Engage with your customer
· Stock Analytics
o Expiry
o Slow moving
o Fast moving
o Dead stock etc.

· Fully Menu driven and user-friendly
· Setup your own online store
· Customize your store-your logo, products etc
· Translate into any language
· Reach millions of customer
· Multiple payment options
· Experts marketing Advice
· Generate More income
· 24x7 business expansion
· New features can be added

So the conclusion is, adopt change its for your own good, and let us help you add wings to your business through RetailGraph- Giving Power of Analytic to your Business

Hope you liked the blog, do share your comments.

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Monday, April 8, 2013

Interference---Change is need of the hour--Independence


Today’s story is yet again a story of changing times and will tell more about the buying pattern of individuals of different age groups and how the businesses can’t neglect that….

A residential society invites many shops like Departmental store, Sweet, barber etc in the same vicinity. This is a win-win for both, businessman gets business and is near to customer and for residents also as they can avoid traveling distances for small needs.

Patel bhai (every one addresses him so, and so does Mr. Desai,) who operate a decent size store was supplying grocery to the residents from almost 15 years now, and has become a part of everyone’s daily life and is just like family. With Raju and Pappu as young helpers patel bhai is managing the affair well.

Mr. Desai is one of the early entrants in the society and one of the oldest customers of Patel bhai.

As time passed by Mr.Desai’s son got married, Mr. Patel is also invited in the wedding and was introduced to the daughter in-law as an elder person she should respect (In a typical Indian scenario we all and specifically daughter in laws ought to pay respect to everybody and anybody her new mother and father say’s – they were programmed to do so)

So the young couple (Ritu & Sandeep) started living in the society and yes used to visit Patel bhai for daily needs,specifically Ritu as she has given new responsibilities in the family.She visited Patel bhai’s shop quite often and her observations and experiences have irritated her to an extent that she decided to share it with her friends.

Friends of her are the new members in different families. So it’s the daughter in-law’s Club.So the evening came when all the young ladies “Daughter In-law’s Club” gathered for their routine get together.

Ritu can’t hold it anymore and she initiated and told that I have certain observations that I would like to share and narrated the entire story which is as:



I visited Patel bhai’s shop and asked for list of items, and he told me buy LUX only instead of Dove Soap. Not only once but insisted me atleast thrice i felt that he is also trying to be my mother inlaw.

He say's Desai’s never uses dove, I will give LUX.

Another time I was buying a room freshener for our room, he again pointed it out.

Well these are just two instances it happens all the times, he always cross question’s, I even doubt if he used to discuss it with my mother in law or father in-law and it can defame my image at home.  I can't take it any more.

Hmmmmmmm a loud and clear sound made by all – as if confirming that they have experienced the same and are in agreement to this.

Everybody jumped in and participation started:
# Many a time we have received expiry goods.
# He should not interfere in what we want to buy
# He always used to give suggestions
# Can’t we even buy products of our choices
# He might even used to tell about it to our parents
# This has created a scene in our family yesterday

What should we do, can’t we buy from some other shop?
In between a voice came, have you seen the other shop in next lane only 200 mtr ahead of Patel bhai’s shop, let us buy from there he has a neat and clean rack arrangement, so we can easily pick and choose and buy independently.
Wow that’s great let us purchase from there.

Patel bhai has to face the music
As expected dip in sales--, and looking at residents shifting to the new shop has made him a more worried.

A week later an old and close friend visited him, Patel bhai discussed the point of his worry with his friend.

His friend asked Patel bhai,...which scooter you used to ride when you were young ?

What is it to do with that…?

It has to, you tell me….

Lambretta 
Ok and your son 

Motorcycle said Patel Bhai.

Think Patel think, time is changing and so does buyers and he left.

Patel bhai has understood the message and has a crystal clear plan in his mind by night.

The very next day he called certain vendors and ordered for a makeover of his store, he has also seen demo of Retailgraph and finalized it for his store along with the online store feature.
A new signboard on his shop stating

“Change is good – store operational in 5 days.”

This has also created a little excitement in the residents who see the sign board every time they enter or leave the society.
Finally the day arrived “Patel Bhai’s” old shop in new avatar is ready for business.The new store has clean and clear arrangements-proper-racks-discounted items and a software system.
  

Retailgraph in place which has many features and benefits like:

· Automated Sale, Purchase and Inventory management
· Online Store Feature (Optional)
· Complete MIS View and user defined reports & analytics.
· Complete Accounting up to Balance Sheet
· Barcode Billing printing
· User & Store wise login
· User / Store / Region wise privilege to view and edit information
· VAT & Central Tax handling
· Trust on accurate information for strategy
· Track customer preferences and buying pattern
· Plan Marketing Strategies
· Maintain hassle free and clean accounting
· Engage with your customer
· Stock Analytic
o Expiry
o Slow moving
o Fast moving
o Dead stock etc.

· Fully Menu driven and user-friendly And much more

This new format with arranged racks, software for management and an online store in place, is been successful in getting customers back has helped Patel bhai save his business.


Well no one is wrong in the above mentioned scenario; rather it is the changing times.

Remember “lambretta scooter then came Priya then came Hero Honda and so on.

Distances remain the same but the way we prefer to travel them changes. 

And Why not if change is for good.
In today’s scenario, buyer associates shopping with:

#Indepencence
#Choice
#Empowerment
#Selection
#Authority
#Intelligence
#Awareness
#Pride, confidence and much more

So let the new buyers come and purchase, let them feel the product, let them think, let them decide.
For you to analyze and engage with your customer there is “Retailgraph”.

Just to add on a personal experience with my daughter who is just below 3 years.

Whenever we go out buying chocolates / toffee, it is her who would like to do all the talking and selection of gems and chocolates on her own, of course I interfere and she doesn't like that. :-)

as they say------ Changing times----------

----------Stories Keep on changing but answer to the problems are analysis and visibility------------------- 

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Thursday, April 4, 2013


“Every Skyline has its own special story to share, and who better to tell the story than the people living there!”

Yes he only can share who has experience it.

Well I am sharing about Retailgraph and it ongoing stories of success. 

Today I have stories of two brothers same business, no please I am not sharing about the, the Brother of India, but twins of Mr. Gopal and Mrs Gayatri who were running there Grocery stores in a tier-III city.

Yes brothers are Mr. Ram and Mr. Shyam – remember sita-gita yes similarly they were Ram-Shyam twins. Both brothers who were graduates and have also learned computer in their college.

Their attitude and approach are in opposite directions and Ram is a bit introvert and closed in nature and don’t like much changes in life on the other hand shyam is a bit outgoing and is open for changes specially if it is for good. Both are close to parents, and each other.

Both were given a shop each to run their family business of grocery (“KIRANA”) store after completing graduation. Starting their shops was a moment of extreme pride for them and their parents. Business families prefer business.

Let me remind of how traditional store used to be :

1. Lala ji (like ram and shyam now), and

2. Helper (usually named chotu, pappu, raju) no offences to names.

3. Lala ji is Lalaji for all age groups and sexes may it be a boy of 8 year or senior citizen 80 year old

4. Lalaji is only for accounting he will not go again and again to get things for you, hierarchies and job descriptions were in place.


So both our Lalaji’s ram and shyam were happily running their business with their chotus and raju’s, after couple of years of monotonous work on shops Shyam started feeling that there are things which he must improve upon and he should discuss it with Ram as well.

On the very night after dinner shyam initiate the conversation with Ram

Shyam: How is business brother?

Ram: As usual what’s new?

Shyam: Ok. Are you facing any challenges or changes?

Ram: Challenges? Yes chotu is taking too many offs now a day’s, that’s it.

Shayam: You do not understand I am asking about operational challenges?

Ram: I have never thought of that as far as profit is their?

Shyam: I have many challenges and issues let us discuss and I am sure you will realize they were your problems as well. 

The concerns are:

· Mistakes during billing to the customers and Wholesaler- these are on daily basis and are losses how to control ?

· Managing the expiry of many products is tough, leading to problem in claims and chaos ?

· Registering breakages and How to control pilferage ?

· Can’t we purchase material together and sell at our shops mine, yours and fathers?

· I wish if we can have information on our sales, product wise, customer wise and much more but how ?

· Why can’t we run promotions on our store like the bigger retailers do, we can also offer our regular customers some scheme or points but how to do that?

· The manual work I do is prone to errors can’t we have a computer working and telling all these things?

Ram: you have gone mad, It’s not magic shyam we have to do hard work only, then only it will work. From tomorrow focus more and work hard.

Shyam: No you are not getting me, it’s not that way, let us take some advice from our cousin manoj, he lives in a bigger city he must have more idea. Please let us call him and discuss.

Ram: Ok, let us call him.

Manoj is a cousin to them and runs 4 retail stores in a bigger city.
Manoj : Hello brothers how come you called so late, everything alright how’s uncle and aunty.

Shyam( In excitement): everyone is fine here other than our business

Manoj: What happened and how can I help.

Shaya & Ram: narrated the entire story of issues and concerns they have.

Manoj (laughed out as if he knew the solution): yes yes… I can help you.

Ram-Shyam: how please tell more.

Manoj: I am happy that you have thought in this direction and are willing to change the way we used to work, I used to face the same challenges, but thanks to “Retailgraph” now I am tension free and have clear visibility of my business.

Ram-shaym: Retailgraph, what is that?

Manoj: He is a magician,. it is a complete Retail Management System that offers small and mid-market retailers a complete point-of-sale solution that can be adapted to meet unique retail requirements. This powerful software package automates POS processes and store operations, provides centralized control for multi-store retailers, and integrates with other popular applications. RetailGraph is based on most advanced & proven Microsoft. Net Platform with SQL server as backend & is capable to meet unique & changing retail needs. Retailgraph shows you the analytics of your retail business. Retailgraph is highly effective and useful software which can also be called as Departmental Store Software, Electronic Store Software, FMCG Software, Stationery Software, Warehouse Software, and Software for wholesaler and so on. It is the flexibility and scalability of the software which makes it useful for so many businesses.

Ram-shyam: That’s too much he does too many works and we can’t even handle a single store.

Manoj: That’s nothing he performs many activities like:

Key Features

· Automated Sale, Purchase and Inventory management

· Complete MIS View and user defined reports & analytics.

· Complete Accounting up to Balance Sheet

· Barcode Billing printing

· Export/Import in excel/pdf formats

· User & Store wise login

· User / Store / Region wise privilege to view and edit information

· VAT & Central Tax handling

· Facility to directly email reports
Benefits 

· Trust on accurate information for strategy

· Track customer preferences and buying pattern

· Plan Marketing Strategies

· Maintain hassle free and clean accounting

· Engage with your customer

· Stock Analytics

    o Expiry

    o Slow moving

    o Fast moving

    o Dead stock etc..

· Fully Menu driven and user-friendly

Ram-shyam: Brother it must be very expensive and how to managing this will be a bigger problem 

Manoj : It is easy to use and user friendly . ok tell me have you worked on window in your college.

Ram-Shyam: Yes, what’s in that, its normal windows on a computer with menu driven links

Manoj: Exactly, it is developed keeping that in mind, it’s the same way as window’s.

Ram-shyam: Must be very costly

Manoj: No its not it is cost effective, and you can recover the cost in less than a year, with more profits and removing losses in your business.

Ram-shyam: Please tell us how to get it installed and improve our earnings like you.

Manoj: I will give your no. to the, SWIL-members and they will contact you and get it installed.

Ram-shyam: ok brother thanks for the guidance, but who are these SWIL members?

Manoj: SWIL is the organization who has developed the software, you can say they are the heart and brain behind this. I will be mailing you some details please go through them. Good night and have a worry free sleep.

Ram-shyam: Thanks for the valuable information good night.

As I say: stores and stories keep on changing but answers to the problems are analysis and visibility to business.
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Tuesday, April 2, 2013


Hello,

Today I have a unique and interesting story of Mrs Chopra (Name Changed), her survival and transformation of her business.

Before I begin let me tell you Mr. and Mrs. Chopra were young couple and were in love before they got married, Mrs. Chopra is fashionable lady and had an excellent taste when it come to fashion and designs.

Today Mrs. Chopra Runs an Apparels chain after certain ups and downs in her life.

Mrs. Chopra had a tough life when her husband passed away and her daughter Simran was 3 years then. She utilized her education and started managing her husband’s factory. It worked out fine for a year or so but then it was real hard for her to manage the strikes and demands. So she looked out for buyer's and finally sold out the factory.

She then decided start business in of designer apparels what she know and loves around. Today she has her own store with the name of MCS (name changed).

All has worked well since last 20 years and now Mrs. Chopra has 6 stores across the nation and the business is good, but since last 1.5 years there is a dip in the business the foot falls are low and the conversion rate is at an all time low. This has led to diminishing profits and adding more worry to Mrs. Chopra, who is the heart and brain behind the business.

These points have disturbed Mrs. Chopra as she has tried all her wisdom and experience.

Oh but what a relief Simran her daughter whom she has send to US for higher studies is coming back, she will see her after 2 years. She is all excited to meet her after such a long time.

After a day’s rest Simran is with her mom talking all about her college and trends in US but looking her mom disturbed she asked if every thing's alright, Mrs. Chopra narrated the entire story of the Stores and she is unable to revive it and how confused she is.

Simran asked her about how is her IT Spend in stores.

Mrs Chopra smiled and shared what else other than a POS machine, CCTV, RFID and billing software.

Simran smiled back and asked certain questions

Mom What do you do for:

Managing your Inventory?
What do you do to retain your customers?
Do you sell online?
Do you have an analytical tool for your business to show the trend and visibility?
Do you note customer feedbacks and connect with them in a customize manner?

Mrs Chopra Got her answers in all the questions fired to her by Simran, she hugged her and told I got my answers young lady.

Well store and stories may keep on changing 

But 

The answers are the same Analysis and Visibility to business.

For More

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Cheers

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