New York City is filled with all kinds of neat bakeries and little shops to please your palette.
What separates those who succeed and those who don’t succeed are two things. First, an executive and team who has the vision and passion to make a great product and treat customers well. Second, is the strategic use of technology to boost efficiency, save money and ensure overall business operations are humming along effectively.
I took a visit to Brooklyn and visited with the team at One Girl Cookies. Check out our video interview here or further below.
When Joel Branson, a manager, started working at One Girl Cookies they were using old school cash registers. Joel knew that if he was going to take the company to the next level he needed technology that could help him mange One Girl Cookies locations from anywhere – not just in the store.
Joel was looking for a solution to give him analytics and intelligence about what the numbers MEANT – such as how were sales this quarter compared to last quarter or what baked goods are most profitable during the day and which ones are better at night and all sorts of other intelligence.
In his search for a solution, he found Shop Keep POS an iPad based point of sale system all manged online – no software to install.
Using Shop Keep Joel could now know, how many staff he should have in the store at certain times, how many customers could he expect on the weekends, which products were most profitable and other data points to help him drive more revenue and lower costs.
For example, during Valentines day Joel’s point of sale analytics enabled him to sell out of all of his Valentines Day inventory – this is every retailer’s dream. Joel used very granular analytics to make an educated estimation of how to best prepare his store for the holidays – which basked items to have and which ones to NOT have.
While other retailers might have to GUESS in how to run their store – and waste time and money – One Girl Cookies efficient use of technology is making them a well run operation.
The Shop Keep point of sales system is not the only tool in One Girl Cookies tool kit. Joel explained how they use Evernote to closely communicate with other managers. The store also uses Sonos speakers to remotely control their customer entertainment from an iPhone.
Beyond technology, another lesson I learned while looking at One Girl Cookies is that not only does their store look great inside (well designed) but their web site is a delicious manifestation of One Girl Cookies attention to detail as well. (10WebSiteMusts.com is a great resource)
Finally their cookies and cupcakes taste great (make sure your product or service are awesome) and their customer service is simply splendid.
What does every retailer need to succeed
- Great product
- Great location
- Great customer service
- Great employees
- Great management with vision
- Awesome use of technology
PS – check out this image from ShopKeep which shows a sample screen of their analytics. Not only are analytics important for social media they’re also VERY important for retailers.
