Preparing your stock for Christmas

Mixed channel shopping predicted for the Christmas shopping period – Ideal opportunity to take further control of your stock with the KC product range.

“A quarter of 2,043 British adults surveyed said they are willing to spend more than £1,000 on a product online this year, compared with 12% in 2008.”

GSI Commerce

As UK retailers gear up for the busiest shopping period of the year, experts are predicting that more and more UK shoppers will be utilising both on and offline shopping channels to purchase their festive gifts.  Improvements in broadband connectivity and consumers more willing to shop around for the best deal mean that the competition between retailers will be more intense than ever.

We are finding that companies looking to capitalise on increasing consumer numbers are turning more towards the accurate stock management products such as KC Stock Manager and KC Reorder in order to give themselves the competitive edge over rival businesses.  Cost effective with a solid return on investment, these products are specifically designed to aid companies as they look to improve the control over their products.  After all, unearthing which are the most popular products in time for the predicted spending rush can mean the difference between turning over a healthy profit and struggling to break even for the year.

To further assist KCPOS, KC Back Office Accounts and KC e-Commerce customers we have put together our three biggest tips to help ensure that your products sell at their optimum levels during the Christmas period.

1) Highlight the products which you know will sell well during the festive season.  By using products such as KC Reports in conjunction with KC Reorder you will be able to view historic sales data and highlight the key sellers at Christmas.  We recommend that you look at products which could indirectly be boosted by Christmas spending too.  For example, products like sticky tape, scissors and bottle openers all improve in the run up to Christmas.

2) Distribute your stock before the rush.  By having your products in the right branches /distribution outlets it the can mean the difference between good and great sales figures.  KC Reports allows you to highlight the products which sell the best at which branches.  Using this information can give your company a real completive edge over your market competitors.

3) Communicate your findings to staff at branch level.  There is little point gathering all your data if managers/staff at branch/outlet level do not know which products to highlight to consumers.  By communicating to staff which products you would like to be prominently displayed in your shops and on your website, could mean even better sales during the festive season.

To meet this increased demand for shopping channel integration we are currently promoting our full integrated range of EPoS, e-Commerce and Stock Management products to retailers in time for the Christmas period.  Key to these products is their ability not only to integrate with each other but to link in with any company’s accounts package be it Sage, Pegasus Opera II or IRIS Exchequer.  The ultimate goal of these products is to seamlessly integrate together in order to provide clear and accurate stock information, reduce the need for rekeying of data and increase the volume of customers which can be served at any one time.

Company Managing Director Phil Dawson explained the significance of integration in the run up to Christmas,

“During the busiest shopping periods with Christmas being the key time, many retail businesses find that their stock management is not as smooth running as it could be.  Companies can find that their online and offline channels compete for stock of the most popular items and reordering tends to be hit and miss.  Our products provide a link between the different shopping channels and provide accurate up to the minute reports so that any company using our software can order stock based on figures rather than guess work.”