Clocking Customers
I opened my new store early October of 2006 and to this day I have not seen consistency in the number of people that walk into the store or the amount of daily sales. I find this to be very abnormal—one day we’ll make a $10,000 sale and the next we’ll only take in two batteries. It depresses the hell out of me to look at daily number sometimes, but by the end of the month fortunately everything works out well. The biggest problem with this is I never know when I need to have extra staff (besides during the holidays and annual events).
My point of sale system tracks the time a sale, repair, and lay-away was entered so I’ve been taking note of those times but realized they extremely inconsistent. It thought it would help me to see how many employees I’d need during the holiday times—thought it could help to save some money and not have everyone working but I’m afraid to trust it.
How do you all do with counting and clocking customers? Has it saved you money on staff? Were you really able to see when you needed more hands on deck? Any other benefits?
JACK800 commented:
cONTINUED – 4pm, Female, 30’s, 20 miles from home.
Could be mother ferrying children to an academic/musical/sports
related event/clinic/class on a regular basis and knows of your
store but is seldom in the area. Noticed her watch losing time on
her way to her destination and came in after dropping off the
kid/s. Marketing goals – young child’s gift solutions,
low year anniversary presents, low cost everyday fashion looks.
Characterize the customer, zoom in on that customer’s special
needs, and build traffic based on creating a reputation as THE
place to go for ….
JACK800 commented:
A more interesting analysis may be in the categorization of the
Customer, not the sale. Your sales dollar analysis tells you What
happened but not How it happened which is what you want to know. A
simple metric based on zip code, age, time of day, and gender will
give you a clue as to Why the sale occurred. With a few data
points, you may be able discover specific customer groups that you
can market to. Example: Watch battery –
Neil The Jeweler commented:
I don't pay much attention to dailies(except when I get a BIG one),
like you say its the monthlies that count. But lately I've been
more concerned with quarterly reports, which are more in line with
selling seasons. Except of course Decemeber, that is a meangful
monh by itself and needs to be treated seperately. Clocking the
times of transactions will only tell you about completed
transactions, it does little to tell you how many actual bodies
were in the shop at any particular time(did some leave without
looking or buying?), which I think is more to the point of
scheduling staff.
