By Kamal Karmakar In Uncategorized

The global retail industry has been greatly affected by COVID-19. The way people live, shop and interact with each other has been disrupted. Retail businesses are encountering a variety of challenges including limited access to inventory, an inability to respond to increased consumer demand as panic-buying sets in and an overall reduction in foot traffic as more businesses are forced to close.

As a business leader, I am certain you are asking yourself any of these questions:

You may feel overwhelmed in the face of such uncertainty, however, now is the time for retail leadership to take actions that will position their businesses for future success. Retail technology can not only help you improve processes and regain control, the right retail technology can deliver long term resiliency so you can weather uncertainty and position your business to thrive once all returns to normal.

Following are practical tips that you can use to navigate through trying times and more importantly help your business accelerate through the uncertainty to be ready to successfully take on the next phase of business.

EMBRACE CLOUD TECHNOLOGY

Retail businesses have had to quickly implement travel restrictions and support an expanding remote workforce. Retailers are now needing to provide staff with access to remote systems, and Cloud technology is proving to be one way in which you can gain back some control of your business.

Now is the time to consider moving your iVend Retail installations to iVend Cloud and we are here to help. We maintain a robust business continuity strategy for our iVend Cloud services which are engineered for resiliency by default and the majority of functionality can be managed remotely. Head office retail management can continue with minimal disruption as your retail applications on iVend Cloud can be accessed from anywhere in the world from a supported web-browser.

iVend Cloud addresses complete infrastructure and application management so you can be up and running with minimal effort and without the added responsibility of managing On-Premise installations of iVend Retail. When your employees are working from home there is no requirement to access company servers, modify network infrastructure to handle multiple remote connections or set up complex security protocols.

These architecture decisions help us ensure a high level of service for our customers. Moreover our customers get direct access to our 24/7 Support Services for Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 issues meaning despite this uncertainty your company can prepare to be resilient amid changes in the economic environment. Learn more about iVend Cloud

LAUNCH ONLINE SALES

Social distancing measures at this time are essential and accordingly consumers are changing their spending habits and are stocking up to stay home. If you aren’t already, encourage your customers to buy online and make sure your retail business can meet this unprecedented demand. Consider offering local delivery and shopper incentives like free shipping, added loyalty points and digital coupons.

iVend for Magento quickly facilitates online sales with an integration to Magento Commerce so you can be up and running in as little as three days with a B2C eCommerce platform integrated to iVend Retail. With this integrated platform, you can manage all your products, customers and sales in iVend and sell online. Furthermore, with your Magento Commerce solution hosted on iVend Cloud, even as demand increases, the solution automatically scales to enable your retail business to deliver a high level of customer service even through a crisis. Learn more about iVend for Magento

LEVERAGE MOBILE CAPABILITIES 

Now might be a good time to consider taking orders directly by phone, text, or even email. It may feel antiquated, but combine it with iVend Mobile Point of Sale, add home delivery, and you’re able to make your products available to the market again.

With this in mind, we are extending to all retailers in the Grocery and Pharmacy domains 2 free months of iVend Mobile POS licenses so you can make your products available via home, online and contactless-delivery methods. This way those most in need can continue to safely access your essential products. We are fully geared up to support this transition to mPOS with plenty of guidance, advice and remote training for new subscriptions of mPOS free through May 31st, 2020. Learn more about iVend Mobile POS

CONNECT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

Communicate with your customers and let them know what changes you are making in response to COVID-19 and highlight how you are ensuring business continuity. You’ll be up and running and want to remain top of mind with them during this time. We can certainly offer our assistance to you through our managed services and help you effectively coordinate your customer communications and marketing campaigns.

SEIZE THE MOMENT

Use this down time to prepare and transform areas in your business where you have not been able to focus on in the past. Following are suggestions for retailers to keep marketing and building interest:

Whatever approach feels right for your business, we can certainly offer our assistance to you through our managed services and help you effectively coordinate your operations and marketing efforts. Please don’t hesitate to reach out – there is no obligation from having these conversations and our retail teams have the time to support you however we can.