While customer-facing mobile applications get a lot of press for their impact on shoppers, apps geared toward sales associates and managers offer equally impressive benefits to retailers.
That’s because internal apps give workers real-time access to product and inventory information and help retailers create an easy, consistent in-store experience for customers. They can even provide management with valuable insights into worker productivity.
For example, by tracking sales per payroll hour via a mobile app, managers at The Container Store can better understand how each sales associate performs at different times of day. According to a post on PYMNTS.com, the information enables managers to make data-driven staffing and scheduling decisions.
Lowe’s also outfits its workers with a handful of apps designed to help them work smarter and more efficiently, Click Z reports. For instance, representatives on the floor can use an app to calculate credit, instantly estimating the customer’s fixed monthly payments to drive the sale.
How to Choose the Right App for Your Store
As retailers look to mobile solutions to improve operations and serve the customer, decision-makers should determine a strategy for developing and deploying internal apps. Three options take centre stage:
- Off-the-Shelf Apps Can Be Deployed Quickly
Particularly useful for retailers in need of time-tracking and inventory management solutions, prebuilt apps can be deployed quickly and easily, with a comparatively small price tag. Of course, off-the-shelf apps can’t accommodate every business need or objective.
- Fully Custom Apps Help Achieve Particular Goals
At the other end of the spectrum, custom mobile apps can be designed to achieve retail’s unique goals. These solutions usually require substantial time and money investments, but the payoff is worth it —custom apps can create more efficient processes that transform business.
- Partially Custom Apps Split the Difference
Platform-based apps —which rely on an app developer such as Kony or IBM to provide back-end infrastructure —give retailers a way to simplify app deployment without sacrificing function. Because they can access the vendor’s tools, infrastructure and processes, IT personnel don’t need to build the environment before they can benefit from the app.
To learn more about CDW’s IT services for retailers, visit our Retail Technology page.
