Covid-19 Lock Down – Impact on Retail Business

Ever since the COVID-19 positive cases have increased in the country, retail stores witnessed a huge sales drop which affected their revenue. The COVID-19 has infected more than 70,000 people in India. Retailers in India which usually deal with non-essential items like consumer electronics, entertainment, beauty products and clothing have already suffered a huge loss of at least 75% due to lockdown.

Reports suggest that it will take approx. 2 to 5 months for India to recover completely from the coronavirus outbreak.

However, the food store and grocery retailers have witnessed a sudden demand as consumers have started panic-buying due to lockdown which creates low supply high demand issues because most of the Indians still rely on the Mohalla Kirana Stores which are way too unorganized and still using old conventional way to order the products from the dealer.

What Retailers can do in this situation?

Usually, food and grocery retailers have limited resources to fulfill the demand, due to the current outbreak they are getting high demand and with the limited resources they are incapable to process the order.

To deal with this situation retailers have to change their business approach so they can reach the supplier instantly for order fulfillment which is not the conventional way to do business. It creates a proper flow of high demand and high supply ratio.

For instance “Most of the departmental stores are still processing orders as they are using new ways to generate order and many more things”. 

This is very difficult and the best time to look at your business approach, create new ideas to cope with this situation which helps you and your business. 

How can Retailers update their business approach?

Till now most of the Mohalla Kirana Stores doing business on the conventional way with zero online connectivity, which bound them to use limited resources for their business day to day activity and for other operations. 

To use full resources retailers need to start using non-conventional things like an application, internet and etc which helps to generate online order and many more things.

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The best non-conventional things retailers can start using right now is the “e-Retail by MARG” to make their business more resourceful.

Why should retailers use e-Retail Apps?

As of now most of the retailers who deal with essential items do their regular order with the help of a salesman or visit personally to place the order.

But with the help of this e-Retail app, you don’t have to depend on the third person and no need to visit the distributor to place an order. You can create your own order according to the need anytime anywhere, your order details will be shared to the distributors for order fulfillment and you will receive your order, that’s it.

e-Retail App

e-Retail app is a Marg ERP integrated mobile application which facilitates retailers to place orders from the app to their suppliers online, search suppliers, check for the scheme, track status of orders, generate order bill, and dispatch details.

In short, it removes all the handles of the retailers so the retailer can order directly to the distributors with the help of the e-Retail App.

Features of e-Retail App

1. Ordering: In the e-retail app, a retailer can place orders to the distributor, search for the product, track orders. With the help of this app retailers don’t have to rely on salesmen for order placement and he can place orders anytime and anywhere.
2. Supplier Search: In the e-retail app, there is a search feature with these retailers that can search for the specific distributors for the order.
3. Pricing: In the e-retail app, the retailer can easily compare the pricing of the products, check the offers distributors are providing before placing the order
4. Dispatch Management: Retailers get notified when his order is dispatched, and they can get the real-time status of the order.
5. Inventory Check: Check your distributor stock before placing the order. Retailers can do a product search on the basis of Product name, Company name or Category and the result will let you know who is selling this product.
6. Extra Features: Generate Bill, Check your outstanding, record all your transactions, add multiple distributors, Stock Dashboard & Reports. 

How to start using e-Retail App

You need  to follow these steps to start using the e-Retail App:

Step 1  Download the e-Retail app from the Play Store or the iOS App Store.

Step 2 Select ‘New Registration’ and enter your mobile number or email ID for registration and Click ‘Agree & Continue’ enter ‘OTP’.

Step 3: Create your ‘Username’

Step 4: Click ‘Add Supplier’ by entering the details of suppliers.

Step 5: After adding the supplier’s details you will receive a unique code which you have to share with your distributors, so your app will link to the distributor’s software.

How Salesman can help retailers in this situation?

As we have discussed above, the retailer can create orders by himself with the help of e-Retailer app but in some cases, the retailer is unable to activate the app.

Then a salesman can help them by using the e-Ordering App, a salesman can create e-order for their retailer according to the retailers need, search for the products, check the best scheme and give all the info with the help of e-Ordering app 

• With this app, the Salesman can order from anywhere and anytime.
• Retailers can share the order information with the salesman so he can order on behalf of the retailer without visiting the store.
• Salesmen can provide all the scheme related information to the retailers, search the products with the help of e-Retail app.
• With the help of the app, a salesman can generate the bill, check due.

e-Ordering App

e-Ordering app connects to the distributors Marg software and helps salesmen to do all the things like collect order, enter the collection, check product stock many more things just with some clicks in the e-Retail app. So whatever the salesman is doing distributors can easily track with the help of Marg ERP software. 

How to get e-Retail App?

There are some apps which can do these things but currently, Marg ERP is offering Free e-Retail application plans due to this Current Situation of coronavirus. So the retailer can use it and change its business approach. 

Marg e-Retail App

Marg ERP Ltd is a company which offers software for retailers, distributors and manufacturers. They also offer an e-Retail application for Android & iOS specially designed to facilitate distributors.

You can download this app from here:

Play Store or the iOS App Store