COVID-19 is having a serious impact on retail businesses.
CDS is here to help you withstand the temporary interruption with valuable tools to implement in your business during the lull, updates on the status on retailers, helpful resources for you to explore for your business, and other tips you can use to stay ahead of the curve.
See some helpful tips and advice below for your retail business.
Facebook is offering $100m in grant money and advertising on their platform.
The Texas Department of State Health Services issued a set of guidelines to follow for retail stores planning to reopen this week.
The guide also gives info to shoppers looking to engage with retail stores, giving better insight to retailers on how shoppers will behave during this transition.
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To help small business owners and entrepreneurs better understand the new programs that will soon be available to them, the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship created a comprehensive guide to many of the small business provisions in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress.
These programs and initiatives are intended to assist business owners with whatever needs they have right now. When implemented, there will be many new resources available for small businesses, as well as certain non-profits and other employers.
This guide provides information about the major programs and initiatives that will soon be available from the Small Business Administration (SBA) to address these needs, as well as some additional tax provisions that are outside the scope of SBA. To keep up to date on when these programs become available, please stay in contact with your local SBA District Office, which you can locate here.
SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans offer up to $2 million in assistance per small business and can provide vital economic support to small businesses to help overcome the temporary loss of revenue they are experiencing.
These loans may be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable and other bills that can’t be paid because of the disaster’s impact.
The interest rate is 3.75% for small businesses without credit available elsewhere; businesses with credit available elsewhere are not eligible.
The interest rate for non-profits is 2.75%.
SBA offers loans with long-term repayments in order to keep payments affordable, up to a maximum of 30 years.
Terms are determined on a case-by-case basis, based upon each borrower’s ability to repay.
SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans are just one piece of the expanded focus of the federal government’s coordinated response, and the SBA is strongly committed to providing the most effective and customer-focused response possible.
For additional information, please contact the SBA disaster assistance customer service center. Call 1-800-659-2955
This is a survival plan for independent retailers, to help them make it thru the financial crisis that they are facing as a result of the Coronavirus (Covid-19).
This plan includes creative ways to approach retail sales, marketing, vendor relationships, inventory management, and other helpful advice that will enable the independent retailer to survive the next few months, and then thrive when things get better.
Even if you performed an inventory count at year end, this is a good time to double check your inventory counts are accurate on the floor and in your Retail Pro database. It will also give you a chance to do any necessary cleaning of your sales floor.Â
Pull updated reports from Retail Pro so you can see where your business stands currently. Look at your sales compared to last year/last month/last week to get an idea of trends you are experiencing.
You cannot improve the things you don’t measure.
OnHand and Sales by Item
Physical Audit
Sales Comparison by Dept
Sales Compairson Year Over Last
Sell Thru Report
Key Performance Indicators by Dept/Vendor
This Year/Last Year | This Month/Last Month
Vendor Scorecard
Open Purchase Orders
Inventory Comparison
Staying in contact with your customers to let them know your status can help bring them back after the market stall.Â
Using features such as Bins & Scoring can let you prioritize your best customers or customize the message you send. Let them know that your business will be there for them when it’s safe to open again.
The current stall in the marketplace highlights the need for omni-channel options for you to reach your customers wherever they are.
Don’t wait for them to come to you…by having an integrated online store, you can have a constant endless aisle for your customers integrated with your Retail Pro software for full reporting and KPI’s.
Magento
Shopify
Woo Commerce
Big Commerce
Amazon
eBay
NitroSell
VTEX
Channel Advisor
If you aren’t using an Open To Buy budget plan, then you are not utilizing the best information possible from your inventory to make decisions.
An Open To Buy uses basic math to reveal how much inventory you need to meet demand. The fundamentals are simple, but accurate planning requires accurate projections, and predicting the future is no simple thing.
Stores will reopen at some point soon, and when they do, their survival is dependent upon their ability to have the best data to make the best decisions.
