The Vitamin Shoppe streamlines store decision-making

The Vitamin Shoppe is making comprehensive traffic and performance data available to store managers.

The leading specialty health-and-wellness retailer is rolling out the RetailNext store analytics platform across its network of over 700 brick-and-mortar locations. Using RetailNext solution’s centralized data dashboard, The Vitamin Shoppe is attempting to overcome labor shortages and maximize payroll efficiency.

The Vitamin Shoppe can also instantly obtain and analyze store operations data, which has improved its payroll sales rate during the past two years. The retailer also reports it has received an in-store sales boost within the first seven months of deploying the platform, and has been able to deliver improved customer experience.

Specific new capabilities The Vitamin Shoppe obtains from its store analytics platform include upgrading from its previous manual scheduling approach to intelligent labor forecasting. This, in turn, drives performance gains, and improves profitability through the reallocation of labor based on traffic trends. The Vitamin Shoppe has been able to drive sales at stores with higher foot traffic while removing the expense of idle labor at lower-performing locations.

Store managers also now have access to daily data on store-traffic “power hours” when customer volume significantly increases, enabling more efficient staff scheduling and an improved payroll-to-sales percentage. Managers can also analyze data to tailor staffing levels according to the day of the week and their store’s location.

In addition, regional managers can obtain real-time visibility into network-wide performance, enabling them to use data-driven insights to determine which stores should open earlier, stay open later, or have additional weekend staffing.

[Read more: Exclusive: Q&A with Vitamin Shoppe CEO]

“For most retailers, labor is the largest controllable expense on a store’s profit and loss. With RetailNext’s intelligent shopper analytics platform, we have the ability to leverage the traffic data to drive sales and maximize every dollar of our payroll spend,” said Allison Timpson, director of financial planning and analysis at The Vitamin Shoppe. “Using the flexible platform, we’re able to move beyond that first level of traffic analysis to impact our business in a deeper, more meaningful way.

“Before, we were forced to rely on assumptions based on transaction data that didn’t really show us the whole picture,” said Timpson. “Knowing the truth about store traffic, sales, and conversions on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day, store-by-store basis has transformed the way our store managers and company leadership make decisions.”

“For 45 years, customers have turned to The Vitamin Shoppe to help them realize their potential. Now, RetailNext is supporting that mission by giving the company new tools to modernize its operations and deliver the best possible customer experience," said RetailNext CEO Alexei Agratchev. "Our fully integrated platform gives retailers a seamless solution for tracking mission-critical staffing and performance metrics. We’re thrilled to be helping The Vitamin Shoppe to optimize its scheduling and meet its performance goals.”