Increasing business revenue is always the best target for any growing business and what you look forward to. But do you know what the performance indicators are that you should focus on to make your business grow more? In this article, we discuss some of these retail KPIs for your retail business to increase profits from your customers.
What is a Retail KPIs?
Retail KPIs, short for Retail Key Performance Indicators, are important metrics that a business can measure to see how well its growth is. The good thing about these indicators is that they can graphically tell you which aspects you are lacking or which ones are doing better than others.
Once you can identify them, you can implement an action plan to enhance those that are doing well and mitigate the reasons for those fashion retail KPIs that are doing badly. All of these KPIs have actionable insights and goals that can be worked on.
Whether these KPIs are from the retailer’s side or towards the customers, you can build on them to gain more.
10 Retail KPIs & Metrics You Should Know in 2024
While you might think that there are a few true and tested retail KPIs that you can work on, and your job is done. That isn’t so. There are different KPIs for different aspects of your business. Hence, here are seven different categorized groups of KPIs in the retail industry.
⦁ KPIs for sales.
⦁ KPIs for customers.
⦁ KPIs for inventory management.
⦁ KPIs for your employees.
⦁ KPIs for marketing strategy and department.
⦁ KPIs for the financial side of things.
⦁ KPIs for managing merchandise
10 Key Retail Metrics
Let’s look into 10 of the most important retail KPIs as the best examples for you to look out for in 2024.
⦁ Sales per Square Foot
This metric is part of the Sales KPI and is really important if you are running a physical store, such as a shop, to show off your goods or deliver them physically to your customers. The basic premise of this metric is to understand how well you are using your physical space to maximize sales.
When looking at this metric, you have to strategize how to improve the outlook and layout of the physical space so your customers can easily see everything. The better sales of items in one section can help identify why other sections aren’t faring well, allowing you to cut your losses in the future.
Formula: GMROI = The gross profit of your business/The average cost of your inventory.
⦁ Customer Retention Rate
This KPI is from the Customer group and targets your customers’ habits and behavior. The retention rate is applicable to both physical and online stores. The metric evaluates the reasoning behind customer retention so that it can improve customer returns after the initial purchase.
Formula: Customer Retention Rate = ((The number of customers in a season – The total new customers during that season) / (The number of customers at the start of the season)) *100
⦁ Physical/Digital Traffic
The 2nd customer habit KPI looks at how many customers have visited your store online and mortar. It can be either because your brand is popular or you are targeting the right demographics to come and see. This metric helps you strategize better and target your good aspects.
⦁ Conversion Rate
Conversion rate KPI can be an important part of customer retention rate or vice versa and is part of the merchandising group. This metric will help a business understand what activities and visual stimulants attract customers who are just browsing into paying customers.
Keep in mind that no matter how many clicks you get to your business online or how hard you push your marketing, you need to have paid customers. So, consider why customers are likely to become paying ones and what efforts you need to take to convert them.
Formula: Conversion Rate = Number of Sales you made/The number of visitors you had.
⦁ Inventory Turnover
If you want your inventory to move fast and have the minimum dead items, you need to work on this metric. Each dead item loses you money by occupying space for something that can sell more and generate more profit. That’s why most retail stores sell off dead items with massive sales to increase this ratio. At large, this metric can help you understand the market trends early to make changes.
Formula: Inventory Turnover Ration = Cost of goods sold/The average at cost of your inventory.
⦁ OPEX – Operating Expense
When measuring the value of this KPI, you need to consider all the costs that your business incurs daily. Consider how much you pay for rent, utilities, insurance, employee salary, etc.; all of these are your expenses.
If these expenses are a big chunk of reducing your profit, you need to look at how it can be reduced. Sometimes, shifting to online stores or maximizing it can improve this KPI.
⦁ Year Over Year Sales
You will have to look at your quarterly sales to get a better picture of this KPI and then compare it with the previous period to see how well you are doing. Therefore, you should combine this metric with the reasons behind the increase or decrease in sales.
Formula: Year-over-year Sales number = ((Current period of sales – Sales during the last period)/ (Sales during the last period)) * 100
⦁ Customer Satisfaction
The more your customers are satisfied, the higher their retention rate and return ratio will be. Unfortunately, you can’t easily quantify this metric, and many companies and businesses note other metrics or observe the reaction on social media to get their numbers. Another method is to supply a survey and get answers to make a more nuanced analysis.
⦁ Stock to Sales Ratio
In any business, you don’t overorder or overstock lest items become dead or you incur a loss when selling them. You need to keep this number lower when comparing it with the number of sales in a designated period.
The ratio helps you maintain a good revenue ratio, so you have enough expendable income to invest in inventory and other aspects of your business, such as employees, customer extension programs, etc.
Formula: Stock to Sales Ratio = The average value of your inventory/the total number of sales in a period.
In any business, you don’t overorder or overstock lest items become dead or you incur a loss when selling them. You need to keep this number lower when comparing it with the number of sales in a designated period.
The ratio helps you maintain a good revenue ratio, so you have enough expendable income to invest in inventory and other aspects of your business, such as employees, customer extension programs, etc.
Formula: Stock to Sales Ratio = The average value of your inventory/the total number of sales in a period.
Retail KPIs Example
Consider the Customer Satisfaction KPI, as mentioned above. The number of customers at the start of the quarter was 1,000, while at the end, it increased to 1,200. Now, the number of new customers acquired in the same period is 300.
When inserting these values in the formula, we get a 90% customer retention rate which means the customers are loyal and we invested less costs to acquiring new customers. Thus, the overall impact is positive while generating a stable revenue.
However, a lower retention rate, let’s say near 50%, would necessitate a thorough review of the company’s policies. It would prompt them to enhance customer engagement in a way that fosters a lasting and fulfilling relationship.
Track Retail KPIs with NextSmartShip
Now that you understand some of the key retail KPIs, you will be thrilled to hear that you, as a business owner, don’t have to worry about all of them. For a small service fee, NextSmartShip can take most of it out of your hands.
NextSmartShip has automated fulfillment for your business to boost your sales with the Smart System and OMS that can integrate with your business ERP. Whether it is routing done by AI, syncing your inventory, tracking your sales, and more, NextSmartShip can easily handle all of these situations while you focus on your business.
Conclusion
The growth of your business relies on many factors, most of which can be quantized and controlled through measuring indicators such as fashion retail KPIs for a retail business. We shared some key ones in this article that you can target and control the outcome of your business.
If you are overwhelmed by too much information and management, why not offload some of that to NextSmartShip? This way, you can interact more with your customers and employees to build stronger relationships and grow together. Feel free to contact a NextSmartShip expert to learn more.
