The Relevance of Store Metrics

Being a store manager is not an easy job at all. The job comes with a lot of tasks, responsibilities, and decisions to make, which can very much determine the overall success of the store or the business. Thus, there is a need to develop and implement equally efficient store metrics. One very distinguishing characteristic of store metrics is that they hold much power and influence when it comes to making decisions.

Let us take a look at the coffee shop scenario, for instance. Let us suppose that you are the manager here. You survey the crowd on a Tuesday night and speculate that it would be a slow night. Suddenly, at half past midnight, a huge crowd drops by your coffee shop, ordering lots of beverages and pastries. You quickly lose track of time because you go about the tiring process of taking and serving orders. Just then, you are informed that you are running out of milk, which is very essential in preparing the beverages your customers are ordering. You quickly call your commissary, only to find out that there is only one case of milk left in stock. To make matters worse, you ask for the expiration date of the milk in question, and you learn that it’s already past expiry. What do you do? This is a tough scenario for any store manager. But with the implementation of store metrics, the whole decision making process could be made easier.

From that scenario, let us move on to PRISM or Pioneering Research for In-Store Metric. This is a research project that has been funded by approximately forty retail businesses and companies. Some of these companies include multibillion dollar corporations, such as Walt Disney, Procter and Gamble, Miller Brewing, Coca Cola, 3D, and Kellogg. These companies are also sharing whatever data is collected by the project in its entirety. The project is aimed to determine the purchasing behavior of customers. With the launch of the project, infrared rays have actually been installed at the counters of a few branches of the stores of these companies. These infrared rays were installed for the purpose of counting how many people have walked behind that particular counter. With this calculation also came the calculation for the subsequent purchases that have been made by the customers.

The project was actually launched in the year 2006. At the time, it was just a dry run that was implemented. Ten stores were included n the dry run. With the success of the dry run came the full launch of the whole project. From the original ten stores, roughly 200 stores have now been installed with these infrared mechanisms.

With store metrics being focused on the purchasing behavior of customers, the management can now focus their efforts on how to maximize from the data that have been collected over time. What’s more, the system can work efficiently in determining just how the store can improve, towards the goals of stronger performance and customer satisfaction. And this is not just about gaining more profit, you know. Store metrics can also be used in determining just how you can improve the shopping performance of your customers. This way, your business will become more appealing to their eyes.