Retail Management With COSU Devices: Handling the Holiday Upsurge

For many vendors, the holiday sales period can spell the difference between success and failure, providing a boost that can turn around the fortunes of a struggling retailer. Conversely, an inability to capitalize on last quarter sales could be a business’s final death knell. That’s why retailers need to make sure their management processes can handle the uptick in sales activity.

Navigating Peak Seasons in the Retail Industry

To prepare for peak seasons, sometimes all it takes is a serious commitment to upgrade your store’s technology. After all, while you’re busy focusing on holiday décor, your competitors are using modern retail management strategies to streamline their operations.

Even a simple act such as providing free Wi-Fi to shoppers can work wonders. Not only does this free service attract customers, it also convinces them to stay at your premises. And the longer they stay, the greater the chance they’ll make a purchase.

That said, there’s more to free Wi-Fi than enticing customers to hang around a bit longer. Having internet services at your store translates to better sales opportunities. For instance, it could mean that your payment system is able to process payments faster. Furthermore, it allows real-time inventory updates and more accurate stocktaking figures. Free Wi-Fi could also encourage shoppers to subscribe to your online newsletter, follow your social channels, or even sign up for an online account.

How can going digital help you practice better retail management during peak sales seasons? One area for advancement is the deployment of corporate-owned, single-use (COSU) devices. These are powerful computers that function as dedicated devices — including point-of-sale (POS) systems, digital kiosks, smart TV displays, and virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) devices.

Optimizing Retail Management With COSU Devices

Using COSU retail management devices leads to more efficient sales procedures along with better customer service. With increased customer traffic during peak seasons, modernizing your store’s operations can drastically improve your bottom line. Here’s how:

Self-Checkout Kiosks

No matter how well your cashiers perform their jobs, lines will inevitably form when stores get busy. And when some of the staff take breaks or go on leave, the problem just escalates. Unfortunately, those long lines at checkout may prompt people to think twice about buying anything.

What’s the best way to deal with this scenario? Sure, you could hire additional personnel, but that’s just a temporary solution. The smarter choice is to invest in self-checkout kiosks that make it quicker and easier for customers to pay. Moreover, the promise of a hassle-free self-checkout can entice them to shop a bit longer and maybe buy more as well.

Inventory Management

Manually counting and re-counting stock items is an exercise in retail management futility. It might be simple when you’re dealing with a few customers on a slow day. However, a fast-paced holiday season means there are occasions when shoppers outnumber available stock. Having barcode scanners and RFID tags allows for real-time inventories. Furthermore, the idea of a product running out can also push customers into making a snap purchase decision.

In-Store Digital Displays

Tarpaulins and poster boards are nice to look at, however, they can be cumbersome to set up and, in some cases, tricky to change. When the store’s particularly busy, staff may battle to leave their stations to remove or replace these displays, including those showing out-of-stock items.

Luckily there’s a better retail management strategy thanks to in-store digital displays using smart TVs — or even regular TVs connected to set-top boxes. This makes it a lot faster to replace images or update information. Moreover, it does away with printing expenses. Instead, you can simply edit existing display images or upload new ones. In addition, a good display system can schedule specific display times for individual items.

Interactive Experiences

A great way to liven up the customer experience is through the use of immersive technology like VR or AR. AR apps can provide shoppers with virtual experiences that simulate trying out a product or service. Using a customer’s phone and camera, AR apps can create a virtual fitting room for trying out virtual clothing, furniture or equipment against an actual background.

Meanwhile, VR equipment can accurately simulate for customers what it’s like to own and use a product. Think of VR driving simulators or equipment tests. Often, a positive interactive experience can lead to an overall positive attitude toward the company’s products and services, likely leading to a purchase.

Better Retail Management Dictates That You Make the Most of Your COSU Investment

For successful retail management, taking good care of your equipment is vital. A COSU unit represents a significant investment, so it pays to have a reliable device management platform on hand. This can provide the low-level management needed to keep devices updated and optimized.

The right device manager also requires cloud connectivity for critical software updates, fixes and round-the-clock availability of tools. By running on a dependable platform such as Amazon Web Services, you can expect reduced latency and redundancy, along with superior end-to-end encryption.

Finally, avoid management platforms that focus too much on legacy protocols and limit you to phones, tablets and PCs. Instead, look into unified endpoint management (UEM), which works with other types of smart devices as well as those using the Internet of Things (IoT). Being device agnostic is another must-have feature. After all, it’s unlikely a company will deploy a whole fleet of identical devices and models. If you’re maintaining a network of smart devices from different manufacturers, running different operating systems, you need a device manager that doesn’t discriminate.

COSU devices have the potential to revolutionize your retail management strategy. Add to that the right device management platform, and you can protect your assets with an additional — but much smaller — investment. This way, you’ll be able to future-proof your devices while also giving them whatever support they require right now.

Nadav Avni is the chief marketing officer of Radix Technologies, a provider of cutting-edge device management solutions.