Retail TNT

If there is only one way to describe what technology and the internet has done for our lives, it would be the fact that it has made our lives easier. Be it for communication purposes, research, work related needs, and even leisure, the internet has positively affected our lives one way or the other. Information is readily available at a single click of the mouse, and a lot of the things we do – paying bills, keeping in touch with friends and family, and even making purchases can easily be completed online.

With the busy lives we lead on a daily basis, a lot of people do not have that much time to go to actual stores to browse products and make purchases. Most people, who only have a few hours of rest after work, prefer to go online shopping and just have the items shipped to their home rather than spend hours walking and window shopping before finally deciding to buy. As such, a lot of business owners now have online versions of their stores available to cater to these customers.

Since the sale transaction will be completed over the internet, how exactly do you process payments, given that you and the customer will not be physically there to collect payment and hand over the goods? This is exactly where retail software comes in.

What is Retail Software?

Having retail EPoS (or electronic point of sale system) is a must for any online business owner. This software is actually built in or integrated into your website, and it allows customers to “checkout” of your website, the virtual equivalent of falling in line in the cashier in an actual store to pay for the items they ordered. This software allows you to accept different forms of payment, and your customers to pay you with their choice of credit card, debit card, and PayPal.

Some retail software also helps business owners in more ways aside from accepting payments. Some keep an accurate count of the inventory of items being sold, send out invoices automatically after every transaction, allows business owners to process refunds, and also allows business owners to send out email updates to the customers they have on their database for future promotions and announcements.

What Retail Software Can Do for your Business

Since your business website is available any time, with the EPoS software built into it, you are literally never closed. Customers can drop by any time they want to purchase items and have these shipped to their home. This flexibility allows you to cater to customers in different time zones, as you are now available longer than regular business hours. Plus, you will also be able to accept international orders as they can literally visit your website to order your products without having to call and speak with a live person to complete their order.

Retail EPoS not only benefits businesses, but their customers as well. Let’s face it – there will be times when we as human beings make mistakes in computing prices and order totals, and the software eliminates that error for us. Retail EPoS can compute for sales taxes, shipping fees, and keep track of all the prices of different products (in case you are selling several items), not to mention compute for the total price of the order accurately. Customers are assured that they are paying no more and no less than what they should be.

Retail banking has also faced challenges in the matter of measuring abstract and quantifiable indicators. Performance metrics in retail banking can be done using KPI. The retail bank KPI can be utilized to measure the progress of a certain organization belonging to the retail banking industry. This measure is intended to help retail banks improve their progress towards the achievement of their organizational goals.

What are the key performance indicators of a retail bank?

The KPI in retail banking may include the factors that have links to the performance of a retail bank. There may be several KPI to measure the retail banks performance. However, it is important to keep the number of KPI to a minimum and to choose KPIs that have direct attributes to its performance.

The total cash deposits held in a month and the average annual deposits held can be used as KPIs, to measure the performance of a retail bank in the matter of attracting deposits from customers.

Other factors that may be considered as KPIs in retail bank:

1) Average number of depositors per retail bank branch

2) Average withdrawals made by each depositor

3) Ratio of active depositor to dormant depositor

4) Average number of default borrowers in a year

5) Average number of credit cards issued by the retail bank

6) Rate of borrowing risk

7) Rate of default risk

8) Average number of customers served in a day

9) Average number of closed bank accounts

Income, cost, investment returns, interest margin, and company assets are other retail bank KPIs. Retail banks may have their own system for recognizing KPI. The KPIs are measurable and quantifiable and must be identified to assess the performance of retail banks.

Certain attributes are also considered to recognize a measurable factor for performance evaluation as KPI. Identifying KPIs is crucial and must be taken into careful consideration before they can be used as objects for performance measurement. The acronym SMART can be used for identifying KPIs. KPIS must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

Aside from the aforementioned KPIs that can be used for performance measure, one of the measurement framework used in financial institutions is the risk-adjusted return on capital.

The risk-adjusted return on capital or RAROC can be utilized to make analysis on risk-adjusted financial performance. It is the ratio of return to capital with adjustment on certain risks involved in the process. As it is known in the financial world, capital invested on high-risk form of investment is likely to yield higher returns than risk-free investments.

RAROC can be used as a retail bank KPI alongside with other indicators.

The retail bank has an exact environment to identify KPI. Normally, banks are organized financial institutions that abide the law in making transactions with depositors, clients, and customers. And normally, the KPI is used to detect problems so the entity can formulate solutions based on the given indicators used to measure its performance.

Top management of retail banks analyze KPIs to accurately measure the performance. Retail bank KPI;s can be financial or non-financial metrics. There may be involvement of demographics of clients and depositors, rates of turnovers, backgrounds of bank personnel, and technology used.