Create Retail ‘Happy Hour’ in Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics supports any number of discount scenarios to meet practically every retailer’s business needs.
By Andrew Reeck, Microsoft Dynamics Implementation Consultant
Happy Hour pricing is a great way to drive customer business to certain days of the week or times using incentive pricing and or other benefits. Happy Hour is typically considered a pricing strategy exclusive for bars and restaurants but retailers are finding innovative ways to implement happy hour pricing in all types of store and are seeing great results:
• Build brand awareness and marketing buzz
• Attract new customers
• Drive customers to slower ‘off-peak’ business hours such as after work or late night
• Encourage repeat customer visits
• Incrementally increase sales on developing departments or high gross margin products
Microsoft Dynamics supports any number of discount scenarios to meet practically every retailer’s business needs. One particularly powerful feature is time-based discounts which is often used for happy hour or other time restrictive discount schemes. Using time based discounts; a retailer could setup these discounts for example:
• 20% Off Every Thursday for Employees
• 10% 8 AM – 10 AM for all Customers Every Thursday
• Happy Hour pricing with different specials each day, M-F, 4 PM – 6 PM
These unique time based discounts can be applied to any retail channel and leverage all the different discount types in Microsoft Dynamics including quantity, threshold and mix-and-match.
Retailers take the happy hour pricing strategy to the next level by combining elements of loyalty schemes, targeted marketing, receipt messaging, coupon integration and analytics to maximize profits and drive repeat business.
A challenge with happy hour pricing for retailers is maintaining accurate inventory and margin figures. The key to success is ensuring the POS solution is powerful enough to support many different pricing and discount strategies simultaneously against standard retail items.
In the age of shrinking retail margins, brick-and-motor innovation is more important than ever. Leveraging the experience and expertise of a Microsoft Partner, retailers can maximize their investment in Microsoft Dynamics and take their businesses to new heights.
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Andrew Reeck serves as a key member of the New West Dynamics Implementation team and is based out of New York City. Leveraging over fifteen years of retail operational experience with the world’s largest retailers, Andrew boasts a unique functional-technical perspective on retail implementations. Andrew earned his MBA with a specialization in Technology Management from Rollins College. His free time is spent doing what he loves most, traveling and playing outside with his Chihuahua.
