It can be daunting to look at a tool that does a bunch of stuff and not be all that sure where to begin. As with most things, it’s best to have a good idea of what you want to do before you start. If you want to see where you’re overstocked, the Stock Analysis lane is your best bet. If you want to see titles you might be missing, the Most Popular Titles lane is a good place to start.
That said, having a consistent and logical schedule for each of the available tasks can help you be sure that you’re taking full advantage of the tools available to you, and are using them as efficiently as possible. Below, we’ll break down the different tools available with a suggested timeline for their use.
Daily
There aren’t necessarily any tasks that need to be performed on a daily basis. Many booksellers report that they tend to keep their Analytics tools open throughout the day, however, and take the opportunity to check the performance of different areas of the store as things come up. This can couple daily sorts of anecdotal and observed information with strong data, making for a sort of Super Bookseller–unstoppable and quite scary.
Weekly
Check the Most Popular Titles for briskly selling books you may be missing. You want to be out of these hot titles for the shortest possible amount or time, so as not to lose crucial sales of bestselling titles.
How often do you send out newsletters to your customers? Weekly, monthly, etc, Edelweiss360 helps you do it quickly.
Monthly
Check the Not Yet Released Titles for big books coming out next month that you may have missed.
The Historical Overview is a quick way to gauge the performance of your entire inventory, or even just specific chunks of it.
The Restock Support will help you with a quick sweep, making sure titles that have sold recently have been reordered when relevant.
Quarterly
Check Stock Analysis to facilitate a regular schedule of returns. Keeping a minimum number of stale titles on your shelves makes more room for titles your customers want.
The Category Performance Comparison is a great way to quickly pinpoint troubled areas of your store, and provides tools to fix those issues.
Your Shelf Report updates a few times a year and is a great way to get a “report card” of how your inventory is performing compared to your peers.
Yearly
Additional Stock Analysis to evaluate not only where your inventory might need thinning, but where it may need augmentation. Are your different categories sized appropriately? Are strong categories given their due? Should a few categories be moved, perhaps?
Catalog Analysis, checking how your store is doing with certain publishers, how your seasonal buys performed, giving you measurable information to improve those processes.