4 Ways Easy Technology Can Help Retailers Going Green in 2021
As of now, the retail market is still floating in uncharted waters. Because the pandemic forced rapid developments in technology and changed consumers’ priorities, retailers need new ways of connecting with their customers to not fall behind on the latest trends in the industry. One thing we’ve learned about consumers is that they want to support businesses that care about their health and safety, including their environmental health.
Minimizing your environmental footprint is a great way your retail business can stand out while also aligning your brand with consumers’ views. However, for retailers going green, this can seem like a considerable feat. There are several steps you can take to go green by simply using the technology you already have. This blog will outline 4 ways to use your point of sale (POS) technology to minimize your carbon footprint.
1. Reduce Spoilage with Inventory Management
Leveraging technology is an essential part of nearly every business, regardless of whether retailers are going green or not. It’s especially true for retail and grocery operations since these businesses have to manage and track a high volume of items. And yet, technology does more than make running your retail business more manageable: it can also help the environment.
An easy way to take your store green is to reduce and eliminate spoilage through your POS inventory management. See, a significant amount of spoilage is due to over-ordering. With an inventory management system that keeps you up to date in real-time, you can avoid over-ordering and human errors that fill the warehouse with goods that are likely to spoil before you can sell them. It’s the perfect solution for retailers going green and keeping operations running efficiently.
Automated inventory management systems deliver an accurate and fast count of what inventory is in stock so you can predict precisely how much fresh inventory you’ll need. For example, you can reduce excess ordering by using past sales data to forecast the number of items required for your business. And, with the help of your POS system, inventory management can help you utilize all of your inventory in-store, which means fewer deliveries reducing transportation costs and emissions.
2. Opt for Digital Receipts and Coupons
Another effective way to help retailers going green is by implementing digital quotes, invoices, and receipts. When you send customers their tickets exclusively through digital channels, not only are you cutting down on paper waste and saving trees, but you’re also saving more money. The associated costs of using paper receipts are estimated at 31 times the purchasing price, which is $40 on average. So, for every case of copy paper you avoid, you save around $1,200.
While going digital is an effective solution, there’s always a chance that some customers don’t want to convert to paperless receipts. Luckily, you can still cater to them with an eco-friendly printer that does both. When you opt for a digital e-receipt, your business can save on paper that will inevitably be thrown away or lost. Instead, you can provide customers with a receipt sent directly to them through email. Then, they can easily find their proof of purchase with a quick search in their messages or inbox.
In addition to eliminating paper receipts, retailers going green can terminate paper coupons and advertisements by supplying them through a customer loyalty program. Since customers are more accustomed to digital communication and ads now than ever, sending coupons via email is standard protocol. For example, you can send out the latest deals with regularly scheduled email newsletters, updates on your company’s website, and social media posts, all managed through your customer loyalty program.
3. Furthermore, Eliminate Paper Using The Cloud
On top of making receipts and coupons digital, retailers going green can further reduce paper waste by storing your business’s information on the cloud. In addition, you can help employees stay organized and minimize paper usage by giving them digital project management tools to schedule assignments, organize projects, and share links, documents, and media with other team members. With less paper to keep track of in your office, paper waste shrinks while simultaneously increasing employee productivity.
Once you’ve decided to go paperless, you might be ready to go a step further by replacing on-site hard drives with cloud storage. Using dedicated physical servers and external backups can be expensive, but it’s also complicated, tedious, and takes up much-needed real-world office space. However, for company IT experts, the rise of cloud computing has been a dream come true. You can switch your old server to a cloud storage service device and customize it to fit your specific requirements.
Also, many organizations pay for the amount of trash that needs to be discarded each month. Retailers going green can spend less on pens, paperclips, markers, and other items by moving onto a digital platform. It’s a win-win: less waste to deal with and more money in your pocket.
4. Use Renewable Energy
Time and time again, we’ve all heard that it’s time to invest in renewable energy, but one flickering light or leaky freezer adds up over time. You can boost your business’s energy efficiency by inspecting your establishment’s lights, water, faucets, and energy users.
In addition, retailers going green should consider replacing old, outdated systems with energy-efficient machines and hardware. These energy-saving updates are a god-send to many businesses, and they’re quickly being used by even the most prominent companies, like Toshiba, Epson, and HP.
As you can see, making your retail business more eco-friendly isn’t so impossible after all. With the help of retail technology, you can minimize spoilage in your inventory, reduce paper wastes with digital receipts and coupons, manage operations and store data on the cloud, and save energy with updated hardware.
Retailers going green aren’t just protecting the environment, but they’re also protecting their business, saving themselves time and money. At Auto-Star, we have the technology to help you accomplish your environmental and financial goals. Contact us today to learn more about our POS solutions if you’re ready to make our business green.
