3 Tips for Retail Field Reporting for SMBs

Having a small business doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t be up to date on the same technology as larger competitors. With easy to use solutions that make field reporting for smaller retailers scalable, as well as affordable, there’s no reason not to take advantage of the latest technology to keep your sales and inventory up to date in real time. That’s where mobile field reporting comes in. It’s a system that anyone can use. Here are three tips about how your small business

1. Test New Merchandising Displays

Shopify advises retailers that showing, and not telling, is the right way to go. However, how do you test innovation? The answer is with actual data. When it comes to field reporting in retail settings, one of the most important aspects is then analyzing the information in meaningful ways. Recognizing trends and matching them with different sales strategies is essential, in addition to tracking inventory and other hard numbers. If you come up with a clever merchandising idea, field reporting allows you to also test the results. The FReD software by 360 Field Reporting that offers flexible mobile data collection solutions emphasizes the importance of adjusting merchandising plans according to daily data collected. In other words, you can tell if your aesthetic approaches are working in real time after only a few days.

2. Mobile and on the Go

One of the most useful aspects of mobile-based field reporting systems is compatibility across devices and centralized information. Traditionally, trying to update data in multiple places, especially with pen and paper inventories, creates more work than solutions. Mobile systems that also sync up with a data cloud eliminates mistakes and double work, and updates in real time.

3. Track Competitors and Report Back

Keeping track of what competitors are doing in real time can be difficult since they’re always updating and changing approaches to entice customers. Huffington Post reports that one of the best and simplest ways to keep track of what your competitors are doing is literal vision. This is where field data collection software comes into play. By allowing your field reps to report back what they see in terms of linear shelf space and other information about competitors while out on foot, the flow of information speeds up Keeping track of what competitors are doing in real time can be difficult since they’re always updating and changing approaches to entice customers. Huffington Post reports that one of the best and simplest ways to keep track of what your competitors are doing is literal vision. This is where field data collection software comes into play. By allowing your field reps to report back what they see in terms of linear shelf space and other information about competitors while out on foot, the flow of information speeds up systems and other retail solutions is the availability to scale the system to business size. This is what mobile devices are all about, allowing small businesses to operate field data collection and inventory management systems all from a simple smartphone, tablet, or computer, synced with data across all platforms. This helps keep you organized, and on top of the competition.