Retail shops naturally have slow and busy periods throughout every day, week, and month. The key is to use the slow periods to your business’ benefit. Taking advantage of downtime in your retail shop is twofold:

• Scheduling to ensure employees don’t have downtime.
• Using your time wisely when your retail shop is slow.

Scheduling and Assigning Tasks to Avoid Employee Downtime

While it’s important to have some employees on hand to complete pivotal tasks, it’s also important to avoid excess employees and bored staff. This can be done by considering the following when scheduling:

• Note which housekeeping tasks need to be completed during downtime. Only schedule enough people to complete these tasks without any extra time on their hands.
• Limit the amount of people you have working during quiet periods. If you do make this mistake, send staff home early and then correct the problem on the next schedule.
• Communicate what employees need to be doing whenever there is downtime. Ensure that they always know their first and second priorities so that their time and your budget isn’t wasted.
• Create housekeeping task lists. With many different personalities and employees moving through the doors, it’s easy for employees to forget what they should be doing. Create tasks lists for employees to reference and check off throughout the day.
• Assign a shift lead. If you have multiple employees working during downtime, designate one person as shift lead to ensure that everyone gets important tasks done.

Using Your Time Wisely When Your Retail Shop is Slow

Now that you have your employees accounted for during downtime, you can focus upon your own tasks. Downtime is an ideal period to knock out administrative tasks that can help grow your business in the future.

To make sure that your downtime is used efficiently every time, make a list of the items you need to complete and prioritize them. Use this list as your reference guide whenever downtime occurs. Common tasks include:

• Employee Evaluations
• Schedule Building
• Timesheet Management
• Inventory Management
• Inventory Reporting
• Sales Reporting
• Website Updates
• Marketing Updates

To get the most out of these tasks, it’s important to complete and document them efficiently. That’s where your Point of Sale (POS) system comes in. Your POS system can act as your comprehensive management system, providing you with a single system to manage employees, inventory, reporting, website, marketing, and more. Your POS system will the document and report on the work that you’ve completed, creating a history of tasks that you can refer back to and learn from in the future.

If you don’t know how to use your POS system for these tasks, Marketing 360 Payments can help. First, review your current POS and note its functionality. Then, view the Marketing 360 Payments POS Buyers Guide to understand what functionality you need and how to use it.

Does your POS offer your business the support you need? Are you ready to simplify your business with the use of a new POS? Marketing 360 Payments can help. If you are ready to talk with a Marketing 360 Payments representative about the right choice for your business, contact us today.