There is no better time to talk about grocery shopping and grocery shopping trends than around the holidays. Families across the United States will be gathering around dining tables piled high with everyone’s favorite dishes. Whether it’s green bean casserole, brown sugar basted ham, or cherry pie, there is always a favorite to remind one of good times and warm family cheer. Of course, what people often overlook is all the shopping and preparation that goes into preparing such a feast. For those time crunched families, which includes many, getting a little help from the local supermarket deli can be a wise strategic move. With the holiday rush and the increased reliance on prepared food from grocery stores, supermarket operators have to find new and more efficient ways to manage needs, crowds, and demand. JTECH’s ShopperPass™ is a logical solution to the growing demand – a demand that is only complicated by shoppers’ hurried lives.

While time is of the essence, especially during the busy holiday season, it is also a driving force for why people shop where they shop. Customers want to get in and get out in the least amount of time and with the least amount of hassle. ShopperPass enables customers to place an order at the deli counter, and be notified when their order is ready for pick-up. Gone are the days of the little red “take a number” dispensers. Today’s technological advances encourage more efficiency for shoppers and grocery operators. With ShopperPass, customers can work on satisfying the other items on their list while their deli order is being prepared. This results in a more pleasant shopping experience for customers, less chaos or crowdedness around the deli or meat counter, as well as greater sales resulting from browsing patrons. Further, ShopperPass is discreet, easy to install, easy to operate, and scalable in size.

Large discount stores have an opportunity to provide a great service and a unique level of convenience to their customers. However, there are pros and cons to having a store of such size and with such a varied product mix. One of the most frustrating things for consumers about big box stores is the inability to receive the level of service that is often provided in a smaller store. There are practical ways, though, for large discount stores to improve their customer service. One such way is to incorporate better communication between staff members, which allows customer needs to be met more efficiently.

JTECH offers a selection of Motorola two-way radios, including the popular CLS Series, and the more powerful RDX Series. The size of your store and the product features you require will determine whether CLS or RDX is right for you. With 1 watt and up to 4 channels, CLS is more compact and less expensive, and is ideal in stores up to 200,000 square feet. For larger spaces, RDX offers up to 4 Watts and 16 channels, and accommodates stores up to 350,000 square feet. Both CLS and RDX come equipped with lithium-ion batteries, to provide hours of continuous use. In addition, accessories such as headsets are great for enhancing communication privacy and reducing distraction for the customers.

One of the largest areas of financial waste is in underutilized employees. Many mangers have found it helpful to strategically equip specific employees with these two-way radios, to improve staff access, coordination and utilization. This enables managers to have the right people in the right place at the right time. JTECH’s suite of Motorola radio products helps facilitate merging the intimacy of a small store with the convenience of shopping at a large store.

Not all areas of a retail store have enough steady foot traffic to warrant full-time staffing in that particular location; however, they are still profitable departments to have. For example, the jewelry or camera counter might do fewer transactions in a given day versus other departments, but their ticket values are often higher and enough to offset the difference. Even so, it’s not always profitable to have a staff member standing there waiting for a customer to walk up. There is a solution – JTECH’s StaffComm™ push button messaging system allows you to place “push for service” transmitters in these key areas that then notify the necessary staff that a customer is waiting. This way you are maximizing the utilization of your sales staff while still quickly meeting the needs of your valuable customers. You can program the push button transmitters to alert just a single person or an entire group of people via the InstaCall™ alphanumeric pagers. This will result in your ability to service your customers quickly in the areas that they need you most. Little is more annoying than walking around a store looking for a staff member. Your customers will appreciate their ability to be serviced quickly with the simple push of a button.

As far as jewelry counters are concerned, despite the jump in silver prices, people are still buying. According to The Silver Institute, demand for silver jewelry hit new records last year. Point being, you don’t want to leave your purchase-hungry customers waiting alone at the jewelry counter. On another front, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, consumer electronics are projected to see an increase in 2011 as well. With the implementation of JTECH push button transmitters and pagers, you could essentially staff both the jewelry counter and the electronics counter with the same staff. StaffComm gets the right people to the right place at the right time, even if it means cross training employees in both TVs and diamonds.

Trends and business models are constantly evolving in this rapidly changing world, but one thing that’s not going anywhere anytime soon is the traditional grocery store. While we have successfully outsourced many facets of American life and culture, we still have to eat, thus the longevity of the supermarket. However, times are changing there as well. Amazingly, with all the advanced technology that was once touted as a means to simplifying life, we are a busier society than ever. People are strapped for time and low on energy. In a way, this has in fact changed the grocery industry significantly. People are more apt to purchase already prepared food at the grocery store as opposed to cooking a full meal from scratch at home to be eaten around the dinner table. Now, food is purchased from the deli counter and eaten in the car on the way to soccer practice. As a result, it’s ever more important that grocery stores can adapt to the needs of their time and energy strapped customers.

One such way to make the shopping experience more efficient and more enjoyable is to integrate queue management techniques. The PeopleAlert™ messaging system with ShopperPass™ pagers allow for a more orderly operation of the deli and prepared food service counters. These are key areas of the store where demand and sales are increasing and greater needs are being expressed. Customer queues, lines and chaos around these service counters can be reduced or eliminated by using ShopperPass pagers. For example, pagers are a great way to manage a deli counter queue; take the customer’s order, hand the customer a pager, and allow them to finish the rest of their shopping while you prepare and package their food items. Your time strapped customers will thank you for your operational efficiency, and your staff will thank you for reducing the otherwise inherent chaos that otherwise surrounds the deli or prepared food counters.

Radio headsets are ideal for use in a retail setting. Having one’s hands free to assist customers replenish stock, and work the register is important for the operation of an efficient retail business. JTECH offers a number of hands-free headset solutions for maximum communication while maintaining the freedom to have ones’ hands free from a radio or walkie-talkie. Hands-free communication is ideal in bookstores, shoe stores, clothing stores, practically any store. In addition, an added unintended benefit of using two-way radio headsets is reduced theft. While these headsets result in better communication, they also give the impression of a more attentive staff. Shoppers see employees with two-way radio headsets and feel the presence of a connected enterprise. With retail shrinkage accounting for billions of dollars in lost merchandise, this is a very important topic of concern. Some of the highest shrinkage is found in apparel accessories and children’s wear. Other high shrinkage areas include fresh meat and perfumes. Clearly, with this diverse of a product mix, no merchandise or department is free from the concerns of theft.

Hands-free headsets are also very helpful for communication between the front of the store and the back. Two-way radio headsets are very handy when some employees are stationed in the stock room to gather needed product for the floor. This may include replenishing stock that has sold-out, or it may mean calling forth a member of the inventory team to help a customer with an alternate shoe size or product carry-out. Or, perhaps you are the owner or manager of an electronics store where big ticket items are not kept on the sales floor. In this case, JTECH two-way radios can assist staff with retrieving merchandise as it is sold and to have it brought to the front of the store for the customer to take home. Two-way radios result in the operation of a well-oiled retail machine.

Retailers struggle from time to time due to a lack of focus and attention to detail. This fact is noted as one of the top five reasons that retail locations fail. Primary focus always has to be on the customer, who they are, what they are buying, why they buy from you, and what they expect to receive in return. Being able to accommodate the multitude of customer needs can be overwhelming if not taken in stride and with the proper tools for success. JTECH’s alphanumeric pagers are simple to use but powerful in terms of accomplishing your direct and immediate need to service the customer. JTECH pagers put store owners and managers in the driver’s seat of staffing. For example, pagers are a great way to coordinate employees around the store to where the need is greatest. Sometimes this will entail paging additional staff support to the front of the store for the check-out process and other times this will include moving employees to the stock room for receiving of a shipment. Regardless, alphanumeric pagers are easy to use and represent function at its best.

JTECH pagers include date and time stamping on messages and have an unread message feature that alerts every three minutes. Indicators are also present for low battery and message sending error. Messages can be sent from the desktop transmitter, StaffComm transmitter or via the phone system. One of the other reasons given for retail failure was a lack of planning. Part of this includes not just a lack of planning, but a lack of implementation. Great ideas on paper are just that – great ideas on paper. Business success involves actionable decisions. Pagers put your employees in a state of action. Employees like customers are vital for your success. Idle time is little more than lost sales and lost profits.

Retail businesses really do have a lot going on at one time. Owners and managers have a lot of moving pieces to worry about, to plan for, and to coordinate. Inventories must be monitored, human resources must be overseen, and finances often require more than a hands-off approach. However, many of these things are taken care of behind the scenes without the customer ever even knowing. One thing that doesn’t go unnoticed though is when a store makes a visible change in an attempt to better meet the needs of their customers. Motorola® two-way business radios are an effective way to enhance your business operation while also sending a message to your customers that you care about providing them with the absolute best service possible. JTECH’s long-standing reputation as a premier reseller of Motorola two-way radios and their leadership role in delivering on-premise communication solutions overall makes them an ideal firm to consult about this opportunity.

A recent study on shopper perception not surprisingly found that a shopper’s perception was the primary factor on retention. And a key factor in that perception was the store atmosphere. Two-way radios eliminate the need for an overhead PA systems –and create an atmosphere where shoppers can shop in peace, without the distraction of overhead noise. In addition, when a customer asks an employee a question and that employee can quickly get on a radio to secure an answer to that question, the customer has a much greater level of confidence in the store’s ability to meet their needs; both present and future. And that future confidence is what keeps customers coming back time and time again, thus increasing those ever-important retention rates.

In recent years a radical change has taken place as consumers have turned to the Internet for pre-shopping product research. In fact, Credit Suisse reports 87% of consumers now conduct product research online before buying in person.  U.S. in-store retail sale influenced by consumers doing online research is expected to reach 1.1 trillion dollars by 2012. This amounts to almost half of all retail sales. A well designed and implemented strategy of interactive marketing is critical to the success of retail businesses today. Wowing the customer is now a must, not just an aspiration. One way to do so is to integrate a paging system as part of your superior customer service plan.

JTECH’s alphanumeric pagers provide a simple, affordable solution for store owners, their managers and frontline employees to receive immediate and actionable messages. These messages can be sent from a unique single or 4-key StaffComm™ pushbutton instant notification device, or from a JTECH page-enabled computer application. JTECH’s easy-to-use pagers alert staff for immediate response to customers or other staff members. This supports exceptional responsiveness to exceed customer expectations distinguishing your business from your competitors. JTECH also offers numeric pagers for coded messages where appropriate.

In addition, today’s more tech-savvy consumers are used to multi-tasking in a variety of ways. JTECH customer paging solutions like ShopperPass™ pagers and Call4Sure™ cell phone paging allow shoppers the flexibility to accomplish other tasks while waiting for other services. These paging systems help retailers keep customers in the store shopping, while also helping consumers make the most of their valuable time.

Linda O’Boyle, owner of Metro Home Style, a store in Syracuse, NY, offers complimentary gift wrap to her customers. She says it offers her an edge. O’Boyle’s practice is shared by many other retailers, who routinely offer gift wrapping services to their customers. It’s considered a “value-added” service that keeps customers happy and coming back for more, experts say. Retail expert Gabriela Delworth, of Toronto, says “customers have less and less time to buy gifts.” She suggests saving your customers’ time and keeping them in the store a little longer by offering gift-wrapping services.

While offering gift wrap is often standard as a customer-service tool, some question its usefulness. Mike Kraus is a Los Angeles-based retail advisor for allbusiness.com, an online media and e-commerce company that serves as a resource for business professionals. He doesn’t believe in gift wrapping as a customer-service tool. His reasoning is that offering such a service may prove frustrating for customers who don’t wish to stand around and wait as packages are wrapped. This is where wireless pagers, such as those by JTECH, enable customers to both have their purchases wrapped and continue to browse. JTECH’s ShopperPass™ pagers are easy to operate and easy to install. No need to have customers inside your store simply waiting around the gift wrapping table. Hand them a wireless pager and send them back out on the sales floor where there is potential for impulse purchases and increased sales. Also reap the benefits like many other retailers who use gift packaging such as bags, wraps or boxes as an extension of their store’s marketing strategy and branding.

The retail industry is the second largest industry in the U.S. and is responsible for approximately 12% of all U.S. employment and over $3.8 trillion in annual sales. In the past ten years the Internet has changed the landscape of the retail industry by enabling consumers to shop for and purchase goods online from the comfort of their own homes. While online shopping may be a hit, brick and mortar stores aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Part of the attraction of a physical store front is having a place for the customer to go and interact in face-to-face communication with sales staff. By equipping your sales staff with the best tools available to meet the needs of customers, employers will increase their profit potentials over the long-term. E-commerce currently only represents approximately 2.7% of total retail industry revenue, thereby leaving a huge chunk of the pie on the table for traditional brick and mortar stores. By improving in-store staff efficiency, communicating with customers discreetly, and eliminating unnecessary and intrusive overhead paging, customers have a greater incentive to shop from a person as opposed to a computer. JTECH’s PeopleAlert™ pager enables more efficient communication between staff members and with customers while SmartAlert® with StaffComm™ wireless micro-transmitters and InstaCall™ alphanumeric pagers allow your staff to send pre-programmed messages from any phone.

When disposable income is low, such as in times of recessions or shorter economic downturns, affordable luxury retailers as a whole tend to suffer, but this doesn’t mean your store has to. Continuing to draw customers is dependent on differentiation and exceptional customer service. JTECH’s pagers and integrated communication systems help set you apart from the guy next door.