Our last article “Retail Business Intelligence” detailed the importance of retailers having an analytic system in place to make the most of the data their point of sale and retail systems capture. A key business area where a retailer can put this data to good use is within a loyalty program.

A loyalty program at its basic purpose is built to provide the retailer a competitive advantage over other retailers. The next question you ask…How do we get that advantage when nearly everyone focuses on price? The big-box retailers like Wal-Mart can leverage their highly efficient supply chain and enormous buying power to drive prices lower and lower with intention of beating their competition. Though, a loyalty program when targeted appropriately can leverage benefits that extend beyond just price. Customer retention, brand recognition, and exclusivity to a program are but a few examples where a retailer can focus with their loyalty programs. How a retailer adjusts their loyalty programs over time to adapt as customers’ needs, business focus, and competitors’ offerings change will dictate how successful their loyalty programs will be.

When choosing a point of sale system it is important to consider how these loyalty program needs will be met. Retail Pro has leveraged decades of retail experience within its POS and back-office system to create a simple and flexible loyalty application which can be married with the other analysis functionality, like Retail Analytics, Business Intelligence, and Customer Binning and Segmenting. The synergy of these powerful tools provides the perfect mix for a retailer to keep their customers returning tomorrow, next week, next year, and on.

Retail Pro International understands a successful business depends on strong, loyal relationships. Fostering these relationships, and more importantly, maintaining these relationships are key to continuing success as the economy regains its momentum.

This summer Retail Pro International will launch its new loyalty program functionality arming you with the powerful features necessary to build and maintain loyalty with your customers. We encourage you to request more information on how Retail Pro can help you with your retail management system and loyalty program needs. Please visit us at http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php

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As the global economy struggles to regain its strength, retailers are forced to make difficult choices about where they invest their scarce resources and what to expect in return. Should they buy or lease new store locations now that real estate prices have fallen? Or should they invest in technology? How about operational improvements? Employee productivity? Without adequate tools for decision making, picking the path with the best Return on Investment would require major guesswork and more than a little luck. Fortunately that is where Business Intelligence (BI) or Retail Analytics (RA) can make a difference.

BI or Retail Analytics tools ideally address several critical factors – first, they help businesses extract more value from  IT investments they have previously  made. Next, they empower managers with insightful information about their business that is not available through traditional daily or weekly flash reports. Also, a good analytics tool brings together valuable comparative data in an easy-to-use and understand dashboard-style graphical format. The simple graphical view can then be clicked upon for successive “drill-down” levels that expose the detailed data behind the dashboards. For example, Retail Pro dashboards can be personalized to each employee’s liking: sales by store, sales by hour, sales by zip code, margins, average receipt size, sales by department or style, total markdowns, vendors comparisons, stock on hand, etc. In summary, decisions no longer need to depend on guesswork, hope and luck. Managers now have daily access to valuable facts and trends from various parts of their business that can enrich their quest for continual business improvement. 

How to get started with BI? Existing Retail Pro customers have an easy path. Your Retail Pro POS and back-office system already has a wealth of data within it, ready to be transformed through BI into a dashboard format and delivered to your web browser wherever you are. For more information about our Retail Pro Business Intelligence module visit http://www.retailpro.com/solutions/BusinessIntelligence.php and then contact your authorized Retail Pro Business Partner for details.

For those retailers who are not a Retail Pro customer, we encourage you to take a closer look at our very popular retail management software to unlock the full potential of your business. To request more information and let us know if you want us to have an authorized Retail Pro Business Partner contact you right away, please visit us at http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php