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Sunday, April 15, 2012

Retail Work Force Dropping

In the Atlantic: Why the future of retail doesn't need workers. Partially agree. It still needs workers, just a reapportionment of them. New skills. More innovation. Better engagement tools and skills.
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1 comment:

kevin said...

This was an interesting article and it linked to another that talked about how some stores actually see improved sales and profitability by increasing payroll. While this may seem counter intuitive it, when you look at the reasons behind the improved performance it makes sense instantly. With increased, trained staff retailers are able to provide help to customers so they can get in find what they need and make a purchase. To some extent it comes down to the fact that people hate to waste their time, and if they can’t find what they need they will quickly give up and leave, which is exactly what retailers don’t need. They want you to buy.
Working in the self-checkout industry, we advocate that self-checkout devices should be part of a total operations strategy that includes redeployment of labor. By automating some of the checkout activity stores can redeploy labor to roles that allow employees to better help customers locate product. The net result is higher sales for the store, and an improved experience for the customer. Happy customers become repeat customers which leads to more sales, and more sales leads to more profit, which is what the retailer wants.

6:29 PM

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