One of the best ways to take your store business smoothly is to create an opening and closing checklist. This will guide your business in the right way.
When you have the proper opening and closing checklist for your retail store, you can ensure that nothing gets neglected. Also, you can focus more on your in-store and the customers to increase the profit.
Opening and closing the checklist in the retail store is considered to be a vital part of every retail store.
Retail Store Opening Checklist
So, now it's time to create a retail store opening checklist. Whoever may be, the business owner, the store manager, or the salesperson, is responsible for checking and ticking the below list of items to manage the retail store smartly and easily.
Just go through the opening checklist at a glance and you can also adapt it to your retail store if required.
1. Security inspection
Theft in retail mostly happens during the retail store opening and closing. It might be either employee theft or buyer theft, preventing those will play one of the larger tasks. Ensure to have two employees while opening a retail store.
While opening, have look around your store and confirm that, nothing looks suspicious. Here are the number of questions that you have to ask yourself when your open your retail store.
Do every look good and nothing looks suspicious?
Do the windows look good or broken?
Do you find someone loitering around the respective shop area?
If you have an answer as "Yes" to any of the questions, your store might be in danger. Connect with the police immediately and be aware of your retail store.
If you find everything as normal,
Now enter your retail shop, if required you can disable the security alarm.
Shoppers must keep their store door open, only when the store is open for business.
It is also important to supervise the alarm and the security camera, whether it works properly.
2. Opening inspection and housekeeping
Followed by security inspection, you need to turn on all your retail store lights and check that there is no issue and that your employee has completed last night's closing checklist items.
Follow the below steps,
Have a glance at the wet spot on the walls, ceiling, and floor. If you found any wet spots, then it might be due to plumbing, cooling, or heating. Repair it as per your need.
Inspect for indications of pests or vermin. If you find so, contact the respective examiner.
Execute general cleaning for your retail store. It should include floor sweeping and ensuring that the fitting rooms are ready for your customers, and keeping all your store windows clean. It is also a good practice to make a note of the areas that want to be improved and share them with your cleaning staff.
3. Turn on the electronic system
Before showcasing the store to your customers, make sure that the below electronics are ON and properly works.
Check whether the POS system works well
Ensure your cash register is balanced, and you have sufficient cash on hand to offer for the upcoming customers who pay once they make a purchase.
Supervise that all the air conditioning, sound system, and TVs are turned on and working properly.
Simply, we can say as turn on all the electronic system and check it once whether it works in a right manner.
4. Visual Merchandising
As you have assured that all the essentials are functioning properly, now next is to check whether your store looks good and visually appealing, so that the customers can grab what they are looking for.
Here is the list of things to perform under visual merchandising,
Check whether all your retail products are organized well so that customers can grab what they need easily.
If you have any new inventory and if you need to showcase those inventory, unpack it.
Inspect whether all the required quantity of stock is out on the floor (that is - the correct SKU per style). This will vary and depends upon your retail store layout.
If you have any mannequins, dress them appropriately.
Ensure all your inventory is tagged with brand, price, size, and special price if available.
Always perform inventory counts on daily basis. This might look hard. But inventory management is one of the important parts of the business. You can also go for the right inventory management software with the accounting system to make business easy.
5. Signage and store-front
Whether your store is inside the shopping mall or a stand-alone store, the storefront will make people decide whether to get into the shop or jump to the other shop. Your storefronts should attract both customers and non-customers so that even the non-customers might get attracted and you can turn them into your customers.
Here is the list of things to perform,
Assure that you have the correct retail store signage.
Keep the storefront, store sidewalks, and windows neat and clean by wiping.
Though some of your inventories are covered by windows, you can also make your inventory appealing by cleaning the mirror and displaying it out with the most delinquent in-store.
6. Have a daily team meeting
Before your staff interacts with your customers, have a team meeting and motivate them to complete their sales goals. Additionally, enquire whether all the required information is known to all your staff to explain to the customer.
At every daily sales meeting, here is the list of things to perform.
Inspect every individual shift and the duties of every team. It will help people to know their responsibilities, do's and donts.
Review the staff's daily and weekly goals and study what each employee can perform to reach the target.
Have a discussion and share ideas to develop the business. Most of the time, employee ideas are valuable.
Have a plan and review the marketing ideas to promote your product and reach your profitable customers and target audience.
Retail store closing checklist
Similar to a retail store opening checklist, a closing checklist will also assist store owners to keep some basics keep in mind like turning off electronics and also it helps you to say that your stores are ready to open for the next day.
Now, let's discuss the retail store closing checklist. Here is the list of things to perform.
1. Store clearing
If it is a small retail or grocery store then this step might not help them. For a store like a supermarket, it is better to announce to people before 10 to 15 minutes that the shop is going to be closed. It will help people not to rush and they can move out patiently once they finish purchasing the product.
Once the closing time arrives,
Check all the rooms like bathrooms and other areas in your stores. It will make sure that everyone in the store has left.
Get back all the products which are outside the store and keep them ready for the next day.
Have an employee at the doorstep, to make the last-minute customers let them out.
Also, this is the time for customer or employee theft. So, ensure that customers take only the paid inventory to their homes.
2. Restock and Recovery
For the whole day, your items are moved around, left at the checkout counter, and sold hopefully. Here restocking will ensure that your retail store is ready for another day of selling.
If it is a clothing shop, then survey the trial room and outside, and make sure to get back all the items as it is on the shelf. It will help people to complete their retail store opening checklist easily and fast.
Make sure to fill the sold inventory place with the new stock. So that the customers can see and grab more products.
3. Daily close housekeeping
Here are some of the daily closing housekeeping duties or checklists to go through and accomplish before you leave.
Finish all the general cleaning of the store - like cleaning and wiping counters, cleaning mirrors, and so on
Dust down the display product.
Clean the trash and recycle it
Turn off all electronics
Make everything ready for the next day's opening.
4. Close registers and POS systems
Review and reconcile the whole day's sales before you close for the night. As this part is one of the crucial and essential tasks for business, you might work yourself or pick a manager to maintain or choose the long trustworthy employee.
The approach that you use will depend on the business size, yet it should be defined clearly. Here are some of the general steps to take,
Have a regular time to close the business register and count the cash. Perform this away from the lingering customers, checkout counter, and front door.
Place the cash register drawers safely, as much as possible.
Shut down the Point Of Sales system
Settle credit card machines.
5. Final walkthrough
This step might be common, and some may not perform. Make sure to have a habit of the final walk for the whole shop before you leave the store. Also, complete the closing checklist without any pending on your side. It will make you move your business in an effective way.
Here is the final walkthrough checklist.
Maintain a document and have a note of task which is not done during the day.
Turn off all the lights, turn off all the electronics, turn on the security alarm, and finally lock it.
Having two people while closing the door and locking is preferred. Finally, check twice whether the door is closed properly.
Why to have an opening and closing checklist?
Managing your retail business with the proper opening and closing checklist will help people to stay organized in business, and assist the staff accountable for what they have done. With the retail store opening and closing checklist, store managers can overview the team huddles. Finally, the checklist will make you perform all the prioritized tasks, without jumping.
Here are some of the other benefits if people perform an opening and closing checklist.
You have all things organized and you perform better for business execution.
Will have better communication between every staff and can be up to date.
You will improve security
And savings on costs.
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