When it comes to retail stores, the figurative elephant in the room is Walmart. This ubiquitous American super chain seems to have a megastore in every suburb of America. Some people hate Walmart, pointing to their notoriously low wages and history of driving mom and pop stores out of business.\u00a0Others point to Walmart as a shining example of what an American business can and should be, citing their mastery of logistics and ability to get amazing deals from their suppliers.<\/span><\/p>\n Wherever you fall on this spectrum, it\u2019s worth noting that Walmart is extremely successful. We\u2019ll put it this way – if you\u2019re judging a company by its sales revenue, Walmart is the most successful publicly owned company in the world, according to<\/span>\u00a0Fortune.com<\/span><\/a> – \u00a0with a revenue of $482.1 billion dollars in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n If a company makes almost half a trillion dollars in a year, you can bet there are some strategies that you can learn from them. Although Walmart\u2019s sheer size makes directly applying their business model to yours a bad idea, you can nevertheless gain inspiration from some of their tactics for your own retail store success. Here are 5 ways to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We know what you\u2019re thinking – come on, Walmart can\u2019t be paying it\u2019s employees a decent wage. Right? After all, this is the company that has a reputation for cutting costs to the bone at every chance that it can.<\/span><\/p>\n However, that reputation may be about to change. In\u00a0<\/span>a highly publicized move<\/span><\/a>, Walmart has started to pay it\u2019s employees more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 they are required by law to give.\u00a0Specifically, new hires are set to receive $10 per hour after they complete onboarding and skills training, and $9 until then. Additionally, these hires have a clearer path to making $15 an hour than they did prior to the changes, by continuing to attend skills training.<\/span><\/p>\n Why the switch? Well, if you listen to Walmart\u2019s PR campaign, they did it because they wanted to invest more in their employees. And while that\u2019s probably true, there are other, more business-oriented reasons as well: Walmart’s profits had been falling.<\/span><\/p>\n As the New York Times states in an article titled \u201c<\/span>How Did Walmart Get Cleaner Stores and Higher Sales? It Paid Its People More<\/span><\/a>\u201c,<\/span>\u00a0\u201csales at stores open at least a year fell for five straight quarters; the company\u2019s revenue fell for the first time in Walmart\u2019s 45 year run as a public company in 2015.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Outside survey agencies pointed to Walmart\u2019s lack of stocked shelves and hard to find employees as factors. And so, Walmart executives bit the bullet (costing them $2.7 billion dollars) and upped their pay rates.<\/span><\/p>\n While the results of this massive \u201cexperiment\u201d aren\u2019t set in stone, so far have they painted a picture of optimism. Walmart store customer approval ratings, which previously had around 16% of stores meeting customer service expectations, rose to about 75%.<\/span><\/p>\n The moral of the story?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If your store is suffering from a lack of quality customer service, ask yourself: am I paying my employees more than the market rate? If not, that could be a potential area of improvement. The logic is simple: when employees are paid more, they work harder and are happier on the job – which leads to better service and more sales from customers.<\/span><\/p>\n If you currently have a separate inventory for your eCommerce side of business and for your brick and mortar retail store, now could be a good time to examine how you might integrate those two sides of your business.<\/span><\/p>\n Why? In a word: efficiency. When you have separate inventories and ordering\/payment processors, you make it harder on yourself to get your inventory supplied.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s why Walmart has recently begun to consolidate the inventory buying process for its online and physical stores. As\u00a0<\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/a>\u00a0details, the giant did so for a few reasons:<\/span><\/p>\n An unnamed consumer goods supplier is quoted by\u00a0<\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/a>\u00a0as saying, “<\/span>The way it operated until now was extremely inefficient for us and them\u2026.For example, they would buy 5 million cases a year for stores and 500 cases (for) online and then make us go through a different buyer for online. It was a nuisance.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n While you obviously don’t buy as much inventory as Walmart does, there\u2019s still a lot to be said for \u00a0streamlining business processes (like buying inventory) that have to be repeated over…and over…and over.<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re unsure of how to go about the process of streamlining your inventory ordering, <\/span>schedule a free consultation<\/span><\/a> with us here. We\u2019ll show you how Agiliron can allow you to manage your online and in-store inventory in one easy to use interface. That way, you can spend your time where it counts – on growing your business.<\/span><\/p>\n Many of Walmart\u2019s recent business moves have been efforts to up the ante against Amazon. The two companies are currently in an \u201carms race\u201d to see which one can conquer the other\u2019s territory first.<\/span><\/p>\n Will Amazon develop physical locations to rival Walmart? Or will Walmart upgrade its online offerings to be better than Amazon? Only time will tell. However, along the way, other retail stores can benefit from seeing the experiments Walmart tries out on the market.<\/span><\/p>\n Case in point, Walmart has been offering\u00a0<\/span>in-store pickup of online grocery orders<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at some of its stores. Customers can buy from pretty much all of Walmart\u2019s areas of merchandise, except for automotive supplies. Walmart has offered in-store pickup of non-food items for quite some time, but this is the first time that grocery items have been included.<\/span><\/p>\n While there\u2019s a $30 dollar minimum for the service, there\u2019s no extra fee added on for the convenience. Give Walmart credit for seeking a competitive advantage by making the lives of their customers easier. While you probably don\u2019t offer groceries at your retail store, consider how you can make your customers in-store experience through the use of the internet.<\/span><\/p>\n For example, if you\u2019re a clothes retailer, maybe you can have your customers use your website to pick out a few items of clothing they\u2019d like to try on when they get into the store, or maybe they can fill out a short form telling you their sizes and style preferences.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Walmart has been bringing bulls and professional bull riders to some of its stores in the past year, in an effort to offer \u201cretailtainment\u201d that will drive more customers into their aisles.<\/span><\/p>\n Though no bull riding occurs (strangely, they don\u2019t have room for that in Walmart\u2019s store layout) there are live bulls and the riders sign autographs for interested customers.<\/span><\/p>\n Explaining the move, Walmart Chief Marketing Officer Tony Rogers is quoted in a\u00a0<\/span>Business Insider<\/span><\/a>\u00a0article, stating,\u00a0<\/span>\u201cJust as the world is becoming more digital, a lot of our customers are craving for a more physical, real experience, and a live retail experience.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n#1: Pay Your Employees More Than The Market Rate<\/b><\/h2>\n
#2: Combine Your Online and In-Store Inventory<\/b><\/h2>\n
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#3: Start Offering Online Ordering and In-Store Pickup<\/b><\/h2>\n
#4: Give Customers A Kickin\u2019 Reason To Come Into Your Stores<\/b><\/h2>\n