Steps to Reopen Business & Boost Productivity and Profits

After months of being in lockdown, businesses have now opened up and have started to welcome customers, both online and offline. And with the shopping season opening up, many businesses are hopeful of making up for lost time and sales. But it may not be as easy as it sounds. As COVID-19 cases continue to rise in many parts of the country, businesses are facing fresh restrictions on how long they can stay open, and how many customers they can allow at a time, especially in containment zones.

New business norms

Triggered by the pandemic, a majority of customers are choosing home delivery instead of physically visiting stores. And digital/online payments are replacing cash transactions while contactless deliveries are becoming more common. This change in consumer behaviour proves that the shift towards digital represents an opportunity for future revenue growth apart from promoting safety. So, what can you do to get your business on track and keep it there?

Read more on about the benefits of online business here.

Increase sales

Research suggests that consumers have been more willing to try out new products in the post lockdown scenario. This is partly because the products that they routinely bought before the pandemic were sometimes not available for weeks together. Also, product preferences have changed with essential goods getting higher priority on the shopping list.

So, start tracking the sale of the products that are doing well and experiment with the placement of popular and essential commodities inside the store. You can also start accepting orders through WhatsApp or phone and team up with delivery partners to make sure customers get what they need. This is sure to help build brand loyalty.
Streamline vendor management

Having to go from one week to the next worrying about a constant flow of supplies is not how you would want to run your business. Since the lockdown may have disrupted routine deliveries from distributors in some part of the country, you may have to make your own arrangements to secure supplies. Moreover, in some cases, monthly discounts from product manufacturers may no longer be available, and this could eat into your profit margins.

The first step you can take to address this problem is checking on stock consumption. Simple digital platforms, like HDFC Bank SmartHub, can keep an on-going record. With SmartHub, you can digitally record and update every single sale and generate correct numbers for account settlement at the end of each day. This can reduce your time and effort in accounting individual monthly balances and ensure a smooth billing process.
Digitise book keeping

Using a notebook or register to keep track of invoices and following up on overdue payments may not be the most efficient way to manage your everyday business. The possibility of errors can increase with larger orders or lack of time. Digital solutions like SmartHub can help you map payments to individual invoices to make bookkeeping transparent and streamlined. It can also eliminate human calculation errors that may occur when noting down due dates and outstanding payments in a register. With HDFC Bank SmartHub, invoice tracking becomes simple and accurate. This way, you can check day-to-day cash, manage collections and improve your business finances.
Know what products to sell

With entire housing societies placing orders in bulk, there is a clear need for small stores to understand customer preferences. A solution like SmartHub can help you generate and compare sales reports for the past few months to identify the best-selling products and promote them to customers.
Increase customer confidence

Today, safety is a customer’s top priority. So, the first step towards making your business or shop customer-appropriate is by following every safety precaution, whether it is wearing a mask, providing sanitisers and ensuring social distancing. Minimising queues at the cash counter and offering a contactless or digital payment option is an effective measure. With HDFC Bank SmartHub, you can provide multiple safe transaction options to your customers - scan and pay, tap and pay (Mobile Card Swipe Machine POS), wireless card swipe, online payments (Credit Card, Debit Card and NetBanking) and UPI (PayZapp). All these can offer customers peace of mind when making payments at your store.
Reduce staff

This may be the perfect time to rethink how many staff members you really need to help run your business. While it may not be an easy decision to make, recusing staff can help you reduce operational costs. Certain tasks, such as billing, end-of-day reconciliation, stock tracking, auditing and other periodic tasks, can also be automated with HDFC Bank SmartHub to save on time and human intervention.

The past several months may have been a challenging time for your business, but that does not mean the situation will be the same in the upcoming months. And you can ensure it gets better by making smart decisions and adopting new means and methods to scale up your business.