We’ve taken our experience managing a variety of company stores and put together some Best Practices to ensure success:
- Start small and manageable. If you are dipping your toes in the world of company stores for the first time, it’s best to start with a simple group of products to work out any kinks and gain employee buy-in: you can always add more as you go!
- Keep inventory fresh and update merchandise seasonally. We recommend adding new items every 3-4 months to keep employees coming back while removing stale items (you know the saying, “Out with the old, in with the new!”).
- Utilize back-end functions. Features like permissions and budgets can help streamline the ordering process and track spending. In addition, coupons and gift certificates can also be used as a great employee engagement tool!
- Consider ways to consistently drive buyers back to the site. This may include sales, promotions, coupons, etc.
- Understand your buyer demographic and company culture. Doing this up front will help you choose products that appropriately represent both. To do so, strategically gather feedback from a small focus group (emphasis on the “small” to avoid too many cooks in the kitchen).
- Offer a variety of price points. Not everyone has the same budget, and each need is different. Offering a variety of prices ensure everyone is included and able to purchase. (Helpful Hint: we’ve found the sweet spot for personal employee purchases is around $20.00).
- Consider departmental needs. It’s best to do this during the initial discovery and creation of a company store (uniforms/apparel, BD and sales, event giveaways, on-boarding, recruiting, etc).
These are just some of the basic tips to help kickstart your online store building process. It’s much easier and more cost effective than you might think – not to mention, you’ll have your own dedicated team to help streamline the process (that would be us – we are your dedicated team).
