We had an interesting session with a client last week while trying to identify why, while sales had been down vs. last year, gross proft margins had actually improved…enter FlexQuery.

While working with them to gain insight into this question we created a layout in FlexQuery to compare sales volumes and sales revenue by year by month.  Sub-totalling gave us the results we wanted in terms of a layout for comparison, but we were still at a loss as to why the margins had improved.  Then, we added discounts (in % and $ terms) and everything fell into place.

It turned out that while sales had been better in 2009, they averaged just under 10% in discounts for calendar 2009.  YTD in calendar 2010, these discounts had been cut back to just over 6%.  What we weren’t expecting was all of the ancillary stuff that came out of this:

1. It turned out that approximately $500,000 had been lost to discretionary discounts.
2. Some of the discounting was considered “valid” as it was the result of procedural errors – in some cases product had been sold prior to it having been received (money was taken outside of Retail Pro), and in order to affect stock levels but not sales revenue, the product had been sold $0.00 thus giving a 100% discount.  Some product was being discounted because prices in the system were set up incorrectly.
3. Taking point 2 above into account each year, approximately $200,000 of revenue was being lost to discounting.
4. Discretionary discounting was more prevalent in some stores than in others and within stores some staff were discounting more than others.
5. No discount reasons were being given (a breach of policy) by staff.

Without FlexQuery’s ability to filter, sort, and group on the fly this analysis would have been difficult to complete.  As a result of the findings, several processes have been implemented by the client to address the procedural errors, and more importantly a layout now exists for managers to check easily and regularly the level of discretionary discounts.

FlexQuery has been gaining traction since its introduction to the wider Retail Pro community over the past few months, in some cases being adopted as the default reporting module of a retail operation.

While FlexQuery was originally developed as a Head Office type application that would allow a Retail Manager or business owner unprecedented access to the data being collected in their retail stores, we are receiving an increasing number of requests for store specific licenses of FlexQuery.

A typical scenario has been one where a business owner or Retail Manager initially has identified something is wrong but has not been able to pin-point the source of the problem due to not having the necessary tools in-store to drill down into their data to transaction level.  They have subsequently installed FlexQuery in-store, and in conjunction with the store manager have analysed their data, easily identifying lower margins, excessive stock movements, procedural errors (e.g. excessive canecelled transactions which are being created just to do a price check).  Based on the outcome of this drill-down, immediate action could be taken to rectify the issues identified – be it stopping discounting through Security Administrator in cases where a particular employee was achieving high sales targets by selling the product at a loss, identifying overstocked product in specific stores while at the same time having to order from suppliers to meet demand at other stores, etc.

Due to the nature of FlexQuery and the implementation options for it, Retail Managers are increasingly finding they can empower store managers by giving them greater insights into the retail operation while at the same time maintaining control over reporting.  Some of the benefits found are:

• Having a single, common reporting format at all sites with the reports and layouts created and managed from Head Office.  This allows a Retail Manager or business owner like-with-like comparisons across all stores. Consistency across reporting guidelines then allows the measurement of KPIs across store managers/staff to get an overall picture of how the entire retail operation is performing.
• Allowing store managers greater insight into the operation of the business, which has in turn allowed them to better manage the store and the staff they are responsible for.
• Allowing store staff access to KPIs which directly affect their remuneration, thereby motivating them to perform better.
• In cases where multi-site retailers share sales data across stores, stores can run store by store comparisons which has created healthy competition amongst stores within the same retail business.
• Reporting at store level can be made as simple (making a single report available) to as complex (making every report available to all sites) as desired.  Specific features of FlexQuery can also be locked down in cases where a Retail Manager does not want to make the full functionality of FlexQuery available to all users.
• Reports can be locked down so that store staff can only read the reports without being able to modify the layout of the reports.  By locking down the reports, store staff are also limited in the way they can interpret the data , in a way being guided by the Retail Manager as to how the business must be operated.