9 Time Management Tips for Retailers

Anyone who owns a retail store of any kind has to be a special kind of crazy. We get it. The tasks pile up and for every one that you complete, two more pop up. Or at least it seems that way.

The more that piles up, the more stress we feel, and the less productive we become. At the end of it all, poor time management can result in a dramatic loss of sales.

To stay sane, any retail owner or manager must come up with ways to be more efficient and accomplish more each day. You also need to maintain a healthy balance and some time for yourself. So we’ve put together a brief set of pointers. And believe me, this is just as helpful for us to think about it as it is for all of you. Just try to remember that time management is just as much about saving energy as it is about saving time.

1. Make Clear Goals

Setting goals is an important skill to have in all parts of life. And there’s an art to it. You have to prioritize, making sure all urgent tasks are completed without overwhelming yourself or your staff.

Taking the time to sit down, spend some time thinking, and write down a list of goals is a great first step. Don’t frantically write every single thing that is on your mind. You won’t be able to get everything done in one day. So find ways to make attainable goals that will motivate you to come back to the list the following day.

Be as specific as possible with exactly what your goals are. For instance, if you have a large product inventory, don’t say that you’ll count the entire thing. Rather, choose a specific part of your inventory that you’ll focus on. Being specific keeps you focused and makes goals easier to accomplish.

2. Use Simple Lists and To-Dos

For more menial daily tasks, make lists and to-dos that serve as reminders and help build healthy time management habits. This is a great task to tackle at the same time every day.

Most people are most productive in the morning, so take advantage of that fresh motivation and energy that each day brings.

Figure out a system for this that works for both you and your staff. You could have printed reminders at opportune areas around your retail space, or you could share them using an app such as Google Keep.

A simple retail store daily checklist can help you and your staff systemize their daily tasks.

3. Stay Focused and On-Task

It’s 2018 and distractions abound as it is. On top of that, you’re trying to run a small business. Staying focused might be the very hardest part of your entire job.

Calls, texts, emails, customer supports issues, inventory, ordering, accounting, and scheduling. Ok, I could go on but you get the point. Again, there is just too much to do. Embracing distractions will only prevent you from getting something done well. Instead, keep referencing your daily lists and larger goals. And try to stay off your phone a little bit more. It’s filled with an endless amount of extra information and the most common route to extended distractions.

4. Automate What You Can

Speaking of our phones! Automating certain aspects of your business is a great idea. And though our phones do serve as major distractions, they are undoubtedly quite helpful. More and more tasks can be done easily with simple apps on your phone or other virtual assistants.

Your retail POS can also automate many time-consuming tasks. With the right point of sale, checkout times will speed up, scheduling and payroll can be a breeze, inventory is updated in real-time and can be edited remotely, and advanced analytics can all help save you time while also improving the day-to-day operations of your business.

If you run multiple stores, then a good multi-store retail management software can also save time and help keep things running smoothly

Also, look for third-party applications or services that can save you time. For example, a ton of busy work related to finances can now be automated.

Social media management can be cheap and save you hours every week, for example. There are also loyalty programs or customer resource management apps that can assist with keeping your best clients happy and taken care of.

See also: Retail Employee Scheduling Software: Features, Solutions, and Benefits

5. Train and Trust Your Team

First of all, trust yourself. You hired your team, after all! Once you’ve solidified your great staff, implement a great training system. This might be a large time investment upfront, but it will pay dividends down the road. Organize a system that requires the least amount of time and obligation from you. You can also lean on your existing team to help out with new employee training.

It’s almost important to remember that you can’t do everything. Delegate tasks thoughtfully. This not only involves trusting your staff, but also requires a knowledge of each person’s interests and strengths. It’s not beneficial to blindly assign tasks, or dump off just things that you don’t enjoy doing.

Instead, give defined roles and responsibilities to each member. This shows your staff respect, will ensure tasks are done well and promptly, and will save you time having to do it yourself!

Communicate openly with everyone and remember, that your way isn’t always going to be the best solution. You’ve surrounded yourself with people who have great ideas and also care about your business. Take advantage of this rather than ignore it to improve your retail stores’ performance.

6. Implement a Time Management System

There are many different types and styles of detailed time management solutions. First, identify what type of time management personality you have. There are variations on how this is broken down, but for brevity’s sake, let’s briefly look at 5:

• Time Martyrs: There’s never enough time in the day for this type of time management personality because they constantly overbook and commit. You feel validated by saying yes. It’s great, but also a battle to find free time for yourself and your business.
• Crazy Procrastinators: Most of us have let this happen at one point or another, but some people only operate well under imminent deadlines and plenty of pressure. Unfortunately, for most people, the knowledge of whatever it is you’re putting off leaves you with nagging stress and neverending distraction.
• Underestimators: This group stays far too focused on one or two small tasks, wasting time without even realizing it. They often have great ideas and complete tasks thoroughly, but this comes at the expense of other important matters.
• Do-It-Alls: These time managers can complete an incredible amount in a day. But often it results in quantity or quality. And the crazed desire to accomplish it all leaves feelings of unfulfillment and premature grey hairs.
• Commitment-Phobes: In case there was any confusion, this type simply hates making commitments. They don’t want to be locked into a schedule or have too much lined up for a week. They’d rather complete a task when in the right mood, rather than force themselves through it. In most cases, this just means that nothing productive will really happen.

Most of us are probably combinations of the good and bad things about each of these. It’s rarely cut and dry, but is nonetheless a good thing to think about in order to improve bad habits and unproductive time-wasting. So what are a few techniques that can help you gain better time management?

• The Pomodoro Technique: Break down each work period in small intervals (“pomodoros”) with short breaks in between each. This could be anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour. After a set number of intervals, schedule yourself a more extended break. We aren’t all meant to stay optimally focused for hours on end. Let your mind relax so you can spend your work time most efficiently and productively. The video below is one of many helpful resources for practicing this technique and others.
• 18 Minutes: Peter Bregman has broken downtime management into spending 18 minutes throughout each day to keep your mind on track. Start with 5 minutes each morning thinking about what you need to do to make this one day successful. Choose a few things on your to-do list and add them to your calendar. Spend one minute per hour to refocus on what you’re working on. Use alarms as reminders and don’t let the hours of the day manage you. Finally, take another 5 minutes in the evening to review the day and ask yourself constructive questions about how it went.
• COPE: An acronym for Clear-Organized-Productive-Efficient, COPE helps you completely revamp how you work. Like a diet overhaul, start by logging exactly what you did over the course of a week. Identify the time-wasters and eliminate them. Systemize your repetitive tasks and let the majority of your time be spent on the main tasks.
• ABC Analysis: We’ve talked about this as applied to your inventory, but you can also use this technique for time management. Categorize each of your tasks by urgency and only complete the most urgent on your list. Move on to lesser tasks once all others have been checked off.

There are myriad other techniques on how to improve your time management and efficiency, such as time tracking, but these are a few of the most popular and easiest to implement.

7. Keep Your Retail Store Organized

Keeping your day and tasks organized is important, but it’s also crucial to keep a tidy and navigable space. Your store layout and organization are vital for the customer experience and your pricing strategies. Your inventory space must be clean and well-organized so that you know exactly what you have in stock at all times. It saves you time on counting inventory itself, and even more time down the road dealing with poor ordering or out-of-stocked products.

Keeping these spaces clean also helps your employees. It’s your store, so perhaps you know exactly where everything is, but this may not be the case for each of your staff. Make it as simple as possible for team members to fulfill their job duties. Speaking of employees, using a good employee scheduling software in retail can keep everything organized and save you a bunch of stress.

8. Know the Ebbs and Flows of Your Business

Most retail businesses don’t have the luxury of being constantly busy. There will inevitably be slow times of each day, week, and season. Perhaps your coffee shop hits a lull between 10 and noon, or your amusement park is only at 25% capacity before 2 most days. Learn the trends so that you can plan your day accordingly. Slower times are a great opportunity to complete tasks you’ve been putting off, so anticipate these and complete them promptly.

There are also some jobs that physically can’t be done during certain times. If you own a party store, there’s no way you can do a full inventory count during October. Plan accordingly and maximize your effort.

9. Take Breaks

Just like we talked about with delegating, it’s important to remind yourself that you can’t do everything. Certain allowances like scheduled, purposeful breaks, make your time spent working that much more productive. Come up with a system for you and your staff that is reasonable and agreeable. Just be sure to be strict about it. Time management is all about routine, so don’t get too liberal with your break times. Just recognize that they’re important.

If you’ve built up that trust with your employees as we spoke about earlier and systematized your processes as much as possible, you can even manage your retail business remotely when the need arises.

Time Management Tips for Retailers with KORONA POS

Improving time management is a constant battle. And one that even the most successful people in the world are still trying to figure out. Try out different strategies and see which work best for you. You might even succeed with something more extreme. Jeff Bezos, for example, famously took two full weekdays off every week during the early days of Amazon in order to clarify his goals and vision. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box.

And let us know if you’re interested in how your retail point of sale can save you and your employees time, and improve your business. We offer a free trial and always have someone around who can talk to you about everything KORONA has to offer.