Every store manager or supervisor must have a store diary. All key positions in the store should have his or her own diary. This journal contains all the daily happenings and events in the whole store or in the department where he or she is assigned. Why? This diary will connect the past, the present, and the future of the store. Let me give you an example...
In making sales analysis, the supervisor will need to answer why in a certain period that is his sales compared to the past year. Automatically he would need to look into the days within that period, that's where the diary comes in.
That's the Present. Then he would look what were the events the past year that contributed to a bigger sales or lower one compared to present. Maybe he would uncover that there was a wholesale last year leading to bigger sales or that the competitor had a sale event leading to lower sales.
That's the Past. Afterward, with the trending he can foresee that by next year this time the set up would be like this or that based on his data from the Past and Present.
Now, that's the Future.
Here are 12 things you should not miss in the store diary:
1. Sales of the day (A separate notebook for this would also do)
2. Customer Traffic (Shoppers vs. Buyers)
3. Wholesale Transactions
4. Store Events
5. Community Events (Holidays, Disaster, etc.)
6. Merchandising Issues
7. Logistic Issues
8. Visual Display Changes
9. New or Revised Policies
10. Projects (Established, Updates, Accomplishments)
11. Customer Concerns
12. Competitors Moves
You may not have all those within a day but any significant happenings should be jot downed in this diary. Surely, this simple notebook would be of great help to any manager as he would tackle down the different challenges of the store.
