The top 3 ways retailers combat the impact of unnecessary costs associated with wasteful ordering habits.

In the wise words of author Robert Burns, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley.” In English? No matter how carefully we plan things, sometimes, things still go wrong. At times in the alcohol industry, this saying can quickly become an unfortunate reality. You plan out your alcohol program with great care and train your staff to make ordering decisions that support the brand identity and protect profits. But at the end of the day, when you leave your employees to execute on their own, how are you sure your plans don’t go awry?

To attack this challenge, you need to begin at the one place that sets the pace for everything else – ordering. The total value of global retail eCommerce sales reached $3.45 trillion in 2019, and even alcohol delivery found its way into popular applications like Drizly and UberEats, so why are you still following outdated, inefficient, and costly ordering strategies in your locations? Because we work with thousands of retailers across the country, we understand the pitfalls of inefficient ordering habits and the impact of absorbing ordering fees that deplete margins.
Here, we’ve shared the top 3 ways our retailers combat the impact of unnecessary costs associated with wasteful ordering habits and ensure their beverage program goes according to plan:

Be Consistent

Those with successful business programs understand that an impactful step towards achieving your goals is to ensure certain consistencies that protect your brand and margins. You’ve worked diligently to layout a program that gives guests the “just right” experience while delivering the profits you desire, so implement practices that support this success. We are all familiar with the most commonly needed consistencies with things like drink pouring, employee training, product costs, and menu pricing, just to name a few. What we don’t realize is how much money we lose when we waste time on simple things like placing alcohol orders or trying to figure out which distributor delivers certain products. Not to mention the inevitable confusion that’s caused by different people placing alcohol orders for one location. Solve these challenges by standardizing the way you place orders! In the beverage alcohol industry, there are digital order management tools you can use that bring consistency to your team’s ordering process and allow you to control what is being purchased, ensuring you’re aligned with your program plans.

Set Restrictions

You’ve seen it happen – your team is ordering, and before you know it, inefficient ordering habits and unexpected costs have diminished your projected margins. Your menu prices are set competitively, and you can’t change prices every time you incur extra fees. While it may sound a bit harsh, placing restrictions can have a positive impact on your profits. Digital order management tools allow you to implement restrictions around distributor order minimums and split case purchases, so you know you’re minimizing margin eaters and saving money. You can even limit the brands available for your locations to order, so you have confidence that the items entering your store are those that support your program goals. By just making these small adjustments, retailers have reported significant savings and higher profits.

Tracking

To avoid ending up like mice and men in Burns’ poem, we need to be consistent and set appropriate restrictions, but we must also pay attention. Arguably one of the best ways to ensure your beverage program goes according to plan is to monitor it – tracking ordering habits and costs is key to correcting bad behaviors. Ensuring you have access to your complete order history, across your locations, is essential to managing your products and prices. Through digital tracking, you can guarantee that you’re not throwing money away on unexpected fees and ensure you’re purchasing products at the right price. When you select a digital order management tool, look for one that gives you high-level visibility across all your locations. That way, you have the opportunity to effectively monitor your beverage program, coach inefficient habits, and get in front of unexpected costs that could hurt your profits.

There is a lot of effort that goes into building a successful beverage program and instituting these guidelines for your ordering process is a great place to start. Fintech works with retailers nationwide to improve ordering habits and avoid unanticipated expenses through our digital order management tool, EZorder. EZorder allows users to place a single, online order for all their products and provides the control necessary to ensure beverage program plans go smoothly.

Want to learn more about Fintech or the topics covered in this blog? Contact us today!