Confessions of shoe seller - A new stock system and website for the Finale Team.
Hello,
I think this months blog may just be me having a really good moan! The boss and I decided to change our stock control system along with the website in the new year and despite planning it very well I still feel like I have done nothing but tweak stuff and learn new ways of doing everything since the installation.
Now you would be forgiven in thinking that we made the wrong choice in the new system after reading those comments but we didn’t - it is great and does everything we need it to but learning all new programmes and ways to do things is not easy while running a business. I forgot how habitual we become and how we have particular ways of doing things and when those ways have to change - oh my goodness we find the changes hard even if they are better in the long run!
The reason we decided to make changes to both the stock system and the website was to improve our service to the most important people in our business — you — the customer. Our previous stock system was ok but was going to need updating soon and a package which gave us everything in one seemed like a good way to go. I can now access the stock, sales and website systems from my phone/ laptop and the shop 24/7 wherever I may be. The stock can be shared on the website quicker and the search facility on the website has been improved too. We find a lot of our customers browse on the website before coming into the shop in addition to those that buy online so having it well organised and easy to navigate was a really important factor for us.
The new season collections are arriving in on a daily basis despite it being very chilly here in Northumberland still and these will be photographed and organised onto the website as fast as we can do it. To keep us on our toes we are also in the middle of buying Autumn / Winter 2018 collections so it is a case of swapping from season to season depending on what day it is and where we are.
We appreciate the patience of those that have shopped with us over the last few weeks while we have become used to using the new till system. It has been lovely to hear people’s stories of technology disasters too while we have explained why we are much slower than usual processing a sale and pointed to the paper ‘emergency’ receipt pad (which I may add served the boss very well for the first 8 years of Finale’s trading!)
I don’t want to say we are fully trained and technology whizz kids just yet as there may be things I discover I don’t know how to do yet but we are slowly falling in love with the new screens and systems so I am sure it won't be long until we wonder how we managed without it!
Don’t forget to like our social media pages to see what is happening at Finale HQ, get a sneak peek behind the scenes when we go buying and be kept up to date on everything.
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Twitter https://twitter.com/Finale_Shoes
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See you all soon,
