Digital Tool Belt | TECH FEATURE W hile adverse economic conditions may have presented jewellery retailers with many challenges this year, in reality, there’s never been a better time to be in business. That might seem like an outrageous suggestion; however, it’s accurate. Indeed, the sky is the limit for retailers because of an ever-expanding arsenal of digital tools designed to take your business to the next level. In the not-so-distant past, jewellers faced many impositions without the support of the internet. Manufacturing tools were expensive and in short demand, and because the jewellery trade is so family-orientated, it wasn’t uncommon for hammers, saws, and clamps to be passed from one generation to the next. It was also difficult to ‘get the word out’ about your business and products. These same jewellers relied heavily on word-of-mouth marketing and the loyalty of local customers before the invention of print, radio, television, and online marketing. What about the organisation and administration of a business? Stock and sales were all documented and monitored with pen and paper – if at all – until the invention of computerised management programs. As the world became increasingly globalised and the influence of the internet increased, more effective solutions to the daily challenges faced by jewellers became available. The good news is that this access to the ‘problem solvers’ of the jewellery trade has only increased recently. Indeed, it’s showing no signs of slowing down and as US founding father Benjamin Franklin once said: “The best investment is in the tools of one’s own trade.” Profit in the fine print Whether it be sales documentation or inventory management, retailers collect a significant paper trail daily. Within this data is an opportunity to maximise the effectiveness of a business with thorough and dedicated analysis; however, because owners and managers are so often time-poor, it can be difficult to capitalise. Whether it be using the information to define strategies for improved sales in the future or simply reducing the costs associated with carrying slow-moving stock – the answer is A BRIEF TIMELINE Artifical Intelligence 1950 Written by Alan Turing, ‘Can Machines Think’ is published. 1955 The first AI program - Logic Theorists - is invented. 1980 First National Conference of the American Association for AI held in the US. 1997 The Deep Blue computer defeats Gary Kasparov in chess. 2022 ChatGPT becomes a household name worldwide. usually buried in a pile of paperwork or a cluttered desktop. Said another way, sales analysis is crucial to success; however, it’s time-consuming. Fortunately, there are businesses with a practical digital solution to this dilemma. An example is Retail Edge Consultants, a management consulting company that sourced impactful jewellery software due to demand from retailers dissatisfied with their existing practices. Retail Edge offers everything from electronic invoicing to trends and sales analysis, with the aim of taking the guesswork out of planning for the future. “As the world became increasingly globalised and the influence of the internet increased, more effective solutions to the daily challenges faced by jewellers became available.” Within the past year, the company introduced Edge Pulse – a mobile application that allows business owners to access all the vital information from devices away from the store. General manager Leon Van Megan explains that it’s a threestep process. Acquisition: Collecting the data via The Edge Point of Sale system. The system captures data from tickets scanned at POS or when the staff manually enters data. Information: Data is transformed into practical information when the data is analysed and collated into reports. The functionality in Edge Pulse has been refined to provide item-level detail for pricing, stock, units sold, sales, average sale, margins, discounting, goal setting, sales associate performance and much more. Action: Information itself only becomes useful when converted into action. Van Megen says that the results are precise – and claims that those who use the reports and convert that data and advice into action are more successful. “The ability to segment data and report by department, supplier, sales associate, and many other metrics is where the big benefits are,” he says. “For example, assessing margin performance by line, department, and supplier means an owner knows what is 48 | <strong>November</strong> <strong>2023</strong>
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