On August 4, 2020, MBS in partnership with Toshiba hosted a webinar for system partners to go over the best retail practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. Toshiba Channel Sales Executive Lora Coggins joined MBS Store Technology Solutions Manager of Customer Education Wayne Jones to present what tier-one retailers are doing in these unprecedented times.
Ms. Coggins went over some retail best practices for college stores and shared the Toshiba Retail Store Reopening Guide with participants. The guide will help stores determine what in their stores might need to be updated or evolve as stores reopen. She also shared a cleaning guide for POS and checkout hardware to help stores protect their equipment while keeping customers and employees safe.
MBS systems customers can watch the full webinar here.
Check out three retail best practices for college stores
During the presentation, Ms. Coggins and Mr. Jones went over several best practices for college stores as they reopen. Below are some of the topics they covered.
Social distancing
- Clear signage
- Directional arrows to control customer flow
- Identifying clean and dirty shopping baskets
- Checkout spacing
- Standard hours of operation and specialized group hours
- Mask requirements
- Curbside pickup – store orders and web orders
- Buy online, pick up in store
- Curbside pickup logistics
- Smart locker fulfillment
- Ship to store
- Drop ship
- Delivery services
- Services that could help with online campus delivery
- Contactless Payment options
- Electronic payments to reduce contact exposure for employees
Keeping employees safe
- Outline safety measures to employees
- What you are doing to keep them safe
- Employee and customer interaction to reduce stress and anxiety
- Clear signage or a door greeter to help ensure customers are following the guidelines set up by your store
- Speak up, speak clearly and smile with the masks on
- Store hours
- Closing stores early to allow for extra cleaning
- Allow ample stocking time
- Cleaning touchless payment tools properly to avoid device failure
Store operations
- Incentivize customers to purchase
- Make sure return limitations are documented and the process is simple
- Consider how your store can do charitable contributions
- Improve throughput during high demand times
- Change the checkout process to allow for better distancing and faster lines
- Prepare to reopen stores with system software updates and hardware upgrades
There is a lot to consider with reopening your college store. Look at what other stores are doing and try to develop a comprehensive plan for how to reopen and what needs to be done after the store is open again. The presentation covered the above topics and more. MBS systems customers can view the complete webinar here.
