Retail

From fashion retailers to supermarkets to duty-free and specialty stores, the retail industry is very diverse. The industry is also highly competitive, fast-paced, and full of challenges.
Retailers who want to be successful need to provide their customers with an outstanding experience now more then ever. No matter if it's in-store, online or on their mobiles. Shoppers have come to expect an omnichannel experience from their favorite brands. As a result, they demand increasingly personalized offers and service, anytime and anywhere. If you don’t do it, your competitors will! It’s as simple as that.

Meeting all these challenges and more!

If that wasn’t enough, inventory management could complicate things further in the retail world. If your customers cannot find what they are looking for, you might lose not just a sale but also their return business. On the other hand, a large inventory can tie up considerable working capital and limit flexibility and response time in front of market fluctuations.

But that’s not all, managing healthy levels of inventory can be affected also by specific industry issues. These issues include seasonality in the fashion business, becoming outdated in the tech world or the problem of perishable goods for grocery retailers.

Another challenging area is managing a multi-channel operation. This becomes even harder when too many IT systems are in place to handle the different sides of the business. Different platforms often cannot communicate properly, creating inconsistent data, time wastage, and uncontrolled costs.

Challenges for Retail

Ever Changing Demands of Customers

The ability to keep up with the ever-changing demands of customers and changing consumer buyer behaviour is now extremely challenging. Especially for retailers and their technology systems.

Seamless Experience

When moving between online and in-store experiences, customers want the same products to be available. They expect the same experience as if they were buying from a bricks & mortar store.

Siloed Marketing

Retailers engage with their customers across many different channels, including SMS, email and social media. Having multi-channel communication is essential to customer engagement and your customer shopping experience.

Poor Reporting & Analytics

Retailers tend to generate lots of data without the right reporting tools. As a result, it’s difficult to gain customer insights and generate accurate and timely information for current and future decision making.

Multichannel Buying

Retail customers demand to purchase products using multiple sales channels. Therefore, retailers must focus on creating a second-to-none customer experience across all channels to secure their customers.

Stand out loyalty programs

Customer experience is key for brand loyalty. Promotions and special offers can help drive loyalty but the key is personalization. You as a retailer need to know your customers from their historical purchases.

Inefficient Processes

Disparate systems and islands of data can make it tough to provide a seamless process and a great customer shopping experience. For example gaps between retail sales, warehousing, and accounting can unnecessarily affect your business.

Solutions for Retail

Dynamics 365 Business Central – Retail

Company wide solution
For small and mid-sized companies
Pay monthly for what you use
Financial Management and Accounting
Customer and Vendor Management
Multi-currency and Multi-language
Sales, Marketing, Service [CRM]

Purchasing and Payables
Warehouse Management
Demand & Supply Planning
E-Services
Workflow and Approvals
Document Management
Reporting & Analytics
In cloud or on premise
Access anywhere on any device

Learn More

Retail - Industry Solutions

LS Central
- Data Integrity
- Head Office
  - Product Management
  - Loss Prevention
  - Price & Offers
  - Replenishment/Open to Buy
  - Click and Collect
  - Loyalty Programs
- Back Office
  - Store Management
  - Cash Management
  - POS Management
  - Stock Management
- Front Office
  - POS
  - Mobile POS
  - Mobile Inventory
  - App for Phone and Tablet