Whether it is a brick-and-mortar or online retail, any business venture will face a variety of risks. As early as the planning stage, you should anticipate problems and strategize how you will handle any situation, either with your employees or customers. If you want to reduce future issues, you should focus on coming up with suitable retail policies.
Are you wondering what policies your retail business needs? Here are 4 basic rules your business should have in place before its launch.
Payment Policies
Firstly, you should have good payment policies and procedures. As a retailer, you need to not only highlight the forms of currency/payment methods you accept but also put in place straightforward guidelines for whichever payment method your customer may choose.
Nearly 50% of customers will cancel an order if they prefer an unavailable payment option, and many more won’t consider your business if you don’t have that option at all. To better accommodate customers’ needs, you should consider a payment policy that accepts as many payments as possible. Moreover, with a good payment policy, your business can acquire new customers, and develop trust with your existing ones as well.
Operation hours policies
Any retail store will have business hours and store hours. You should have a clear policy on when you are available in a week, indicating your opening and closing hours. Besides, you should also state when you are available on weekends or on holidays.
Research by Nexa professionals shows that customers prefer talking to live customer service representatives. Make sure to indicate whether you’re available for emergency concerns after business hours, as well as your average waiting time for a response.
Customer exchange/return services policies
Your customers are the backbone of your retail operations. Therefore, any policy you come up with should be customer-friendly.
As the sales process does not end when a product is sold, you should have a return policy in case a customer needs to return or exchange a product. You should also indicate how you will refund or exchange customers, either in the form of a cash refund or a new item. In addition to that, remember to indicate how much time a customer needs to return the product after receiving it. It would also be important to mention any products that cannot be returned or exchanged.
Staff policies
You should have a policy outlining your expectations of employees’ performance. Your staff needs to know and understand how performance reviews are conducted, standard working conditions, compensation for work injuries, and termination conditions. A good working policy will motivate employees and serve as a standard for your retail business.
Conclusion
It’s important to transparently execute your policies for your customers and train your employees on how to enforce them. We hope that this article can help you to come up with the most effective retail policies for your business.
ConnectPOS is a point-of-sale system for retail businesses. If you have any questions about our system or anything related to online business operations, don’t hesitate to contact us.
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