While some people do their shopping online or buy directly from producers, most get their products from brick-and-mortar grocery stores and specialty meat shops.
If you want to make the most of the holiday season, now is a good time to review your business’s stocking procedures so that you can keep popular items available.
Check out these tips to improve stocking efficiency at retail stores.
Track Popular Items
If you’ve been tracking popular items year to year, you should have a good idea of what items sell the most during the holiday season. Keeping these items out on the floor should be a top priority because customers can’t spend money on things that aren’t there.
Even worse, if a family comes to your store for a particular item that you don’t have, they may leave and do the entirety of their shopping at your competitor’s establishment.
Plan to Your Advantage
Once you know what your priority items are, make sure you have enough floor space dedicated to them so that customers can access the product. This may mean shifting your normal placement of items to give holiday foods more space.
If some of your popular goods are large (think whole turkeys or spiral hams), you may want to have a dedicated storage unit with just these items.
Don’t Sort Directly From Pallets
Research shows that you’ll spend far more time and energy stocking if you have your employees take products directly from the shipping pallet to the sales floor. Items that come on pallets are not organized with your floor plan in mind; though items are packed together, they may go to aisles all over the store.
It’s much more efficient to let a few knowledgeable employees sort each pallet into carts. Each cart should be labeled for one or two aisles.
When the carts are full, other employees can take them to the appropriate aisles for stocking. Your employees will save lots of time walking and be less tired.
Use Carton Flow Racking
Carton flow racking is a style of storage shelving that uses gravity to make sure the things you need are within reach. At grocery stores, it’s common to see these shelves in the refrigerated dairy section, but carton flow racking is also incredibly helpful in your store’s backroom.
Following these tips to improve stocking efficiency at retail stores should help you work smarter, not harder. Increasing your efficiency now will set you up to maximize profits during the coming holiday season.
Image Credit: Woman working in a supermarket sorting fruit and vegetables By Kzenon FILE #: 286449436
end of post … please share it!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
home remodeling reference (links to internal page)
 |
 |
 |
 |
| directory | photos | forms | guide |
Helpful article? Leave us a quick comment below.
And please share this article within your social networks.
