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4 Processes Retailers Should Consider Automating In-Store for 2025
May 30, 2025 / 6 minute read / By Nick Borowitz

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The retail world has transformed dramatically over the past few years. It continues to move at a breakneck speed as we move into 2025.
What started as a simple process for any number of tasks necessary to keep a small to medium retailer running smoothly now involves a sophisticated system of integrated technologies, real-time data analysis, and automated workflows designed to enhance operational efficiency and customer experience.
An integrated all-in-one retail technology system, like what Celerant offers, has become essential for retailers looking to survive and thrive in this new landscape.
By centralizing retail operations through a comprehensive platform that combines point of sale, inventory management, eCommerce, and business intelligence capabilities, retailers can eliminate silos, reduce manual processes, and gain valuable insights that drive strategic decision-making.
Drop shipping is more than outsourcing order fulfillment; it’s about precision, speed, and the opportunity to offer merchandise beyond what you might physically stock for your small to medium retail business. Modern platforms now integrate real-time inventory updates and predictive logistics powered by AI.
Retailers can connect seamlessly with vendors using intelligent fulfillment networks to determine the optimal shipping routes. With automated alerts and dynamic route planning, you reduce delivery delays, optimize working capital, and improve customer satisfaction.
Other ways that drop shipping can you expand beyond your store’s walls are:
To streamline your order fulfillment process, automate from order placement to real-time tracking. Automation ensures accurate, prompt order fulfillment, reducing the risk of errors and delays. Additionally, inventory management software helps monitor stock levels across multiple suppliers, avoiding the sale of out-of-stock items and maintaining a smooth customer experience.
Today’s brick-and-mortar locations have evolved into micro-fulfillment centers powered by advanced automation. Integrated retail systems weigh proximity, stock levels, local promotions, and environmental variables to designate the best store for fulfilling your orders.
Technology further streamlines in-store processes from intelligent picking systems to automated packing stations, ensuring that your physical locations work harmoniously with your online operations.
Whether customers expect certain conveniences or require them for safety reasons, you must offer the fulfillment methods that meet your customers’ needs. Here are six fulfillment options for retailers to consider:
Curbside pickup: This method allows customers to pick up their order without entering your store. To help streamline the process, Celerant developed a Curbside Pickup Application that organizes your orders and communicates the status of each order with each customer.
In-home delivery: Customers who cannot, or are reluctant to leave home, will prefer home delivery. You can offer this method over the phone by adding this option to the checkout process on your eCommerce website.
Same-day pickup: To provide same-day pickup, customers must be able to access their local store’s live inventory. With Celerant’s Virtual Store, you can easily display each of your stores’ live inventory online. The virtual store pulls product data from the point of sale database, allowing you to begin offering same-day pickup with accurate inventory levels quickly.
Free delivery: Some consumers are willing to shop for the best deals, including free shipping. This order fulfillment option can help you remain competitive, primarily if you compete with Amazon Prime or your competitors offer it. Look online to see what your competitors offer!
Drop shipping: Offloading order fulfillment to a 3rd party lets you focus more on your customers. Orders can be delivered to your customer’s home or your store for pickup.
Buy Online, Pickup In Store (BOPIS): Buy online and pick up in store provide customers with the convenience of online shopping without the hassle of paying for, or waiting on, shipping.
The revolutionary aspect of modern vendor integration is how it transforms vendor relationships. Gone are the days of evaluations based on gut feelings or personal connections.
Now, retailers can access multi-dimensional performance metrics that track everything from shipping times to product quality, communication effectiveness, and innovation potential. The impact extends far beyond operational efficiencies. Retailers using advanced vendor integration technologies report numerous improvements across their businesses.
Key benefits of automated purchase orders and vendor management include:
Function | Benefit |
---|---|
Automated Reordering | When inventory levels drop below predetermined thresholds, the system automatically generates purchase orders, ensuring you never run out of bestselling products while minimizing excess inventory costs. |
Enhanced Forecasting | Advanced vendor management systems can accurately predict future inventory needs by analyzing historical sales data, seasonal patterns, and current market trends. |
Streamlined Receiving | Barcode scanning and automated reconciliation against purchase orders dramatically reduce the time and errors of receiving new inventory. |
Vendor Performance Analytics | Track key metrics like fill rates, on-time delivery percentages, and quality issues over time to make data-driven decisions about vendor relationships. |
Automated Communications | From order confirmations to shipping notifications, automated systems keep all parties informed without requiring manual follow-up. |
Operating costs decrease through automation. Revenue increases through better inventory availability, and customer satisfaction soars due to more accurate information and reliable fulfillment.
These systems have become essential infrastructure for competitive retail operations. They enable small businesses to compete with larger competitors by providing tools previously available only to enterprise-level retailers.
Gone are the days of manually reconciling sales data with outdated POS software. Today’s cloud-based accounting platforms integrate seamlessly with your POS and ERP systems, automating everything from real-time sales reconciliation to dynamic tax adjustments.
As businesses grow and evolve, scalability and flexibility become critical factors. Integrating accounting software with the point of sale system provides businesses with the flexibility to adapt to changing requirements.
Retail management software that includes robust financial management capabilities transforms how retailers handle their accounting processes:
Automated Daily Reconciliation: Each day’s transactions, including sales, returns, discounts, and gift card activities, are automatically balanced and prepared for review, dramatically reducing the time spent on end-of-day procedures.
Integrated Payment Processing: With Celerant’s integrated payment solutions, transaction data flows directly into your accounting system, eliminating double-entry and reducing reconciliation errors by up to 95%.
Multi-Location Financial Management: The system consolidates financial data for retailers with multiple stores while maintaining location-specific reporting capabilities, giving you both the big picture and granular insights.
Customizable Financial Dashboards: Create personalized financial reports and KPI trackers that highlight the metrics most important to your business, from gross margin by department to inventory turn rates and staff productivity.
Streamlined Tax Compliance: Automated tax rate updates and built-in reporting tools simplify tax season preparation and help ensure compliance with local, state, and federal requirements.
Payroll Integration: Connect your time-keeping system with payroll processing to automate wage calculations, including commissions and bonuses based on sales performance.
This system should accommodate the scalability needs of growing businesses, offering customization options to tailor financial reporting and analysis. This flexibility ensures the integrated system remains adaptable and responsive to retailers’ evolving needs.
Advanced integrations reduce human error, accelerate financial reporting, and provide actionable insights through data analytics dashboards, helping you make informed strategic decisions in real time.
Beyond having sales data immediately available for viewing and analysis, retailers must ensure their reporting software is accurate. An easy-to-navigate interface with extensive functionality from a POS system provider that can fine-tune your reporting should be at the top of the list. A bonus is a retail software with a custom report designer, in which you can create any financial report, on the fly, to help you better track your company’s performance.
As retail continues to evolve, it’s reshaping customer expectations. Automating these four processes reduces manual intervention and gains a competitive edge in today’s fast-paced market.
Retailers who remain agile by adopting these dynamic, data-driven systems will find that automation is not a threat to the human touch, but an enhancement. Stay mindful of your unique business needs, invest in robust integrations, and watch as each optimized process increases satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability.
Ready to take your retail operations to the next frontier? There’s never been a better time than 2025 to embrace the full spectrum of automation innovation with an integrated retail management system like Celerant’s.
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