The Ultimate Guide to Retail Store Audit

Posted by Anup Sharma on August 24th, 2022

How many times have you been to a store and thought, what a waste of $$$ this place is? In order to mitigate risk of overspending, conducting a proper retail audit to investigate stores and make sure they're up to par can be invaluable. In this article, find out how to conduct a typical retail store audit and which areas are important for potential findings. We'll also share our views on the best retail store audit practices.

Let’s get started, 

What is a Retail Audit?

Retail store owners, franchises, and brands rely on outside data for their store audits. This information is used to streamline the processes in their stores, manage inventory, comply with brand guidelines, and more.

Retailer audits enable organizations to check numerous things concerning their retail strategy, such as sales levels and competitor activity. These audits give key information on inventory levels and store layout.

The Importance of Retail Audits

Retail is one of many businesses’ most important revenue sources, and for this reason, it's crucial to protect against fraud and theft. It's key to conduct a regular retail store audit. Here are some reasons why you should conduct one yourself.

1. Gather in-detail information about the store with parameters like store name, location, and more.

2. Report on inventory availability, brand sales and visibility, and more. 

3. Report on retail stores that are following brand promotion and display guidelines.

4. Customer feedback.

5. Monitor retail information.

What is the Difference Between a Retail Store Audit and a Visual Merchandising Audit?

A retail store audit is a comprehensive inspection of a retail store's physical condition and operations. A visual merchandising audit is an inspection of the design, layout, and presentation of merchandise in a retail store.

A retail store audit should assess all aspects of the store's operations, including inventory, sales techniques, pricing, and product assortment. A visual merchandising audit may also focus on specific areas such as merchandise displays and placement on the sales floor.

Tips to Effectively Perform Retail Store Audits

Retail store audits are an essential part of any business’s compliance program. They can help identify potential violations and ensure that your business is operating ethically and legally. Here are some tips to help you perform an effective audit:

1. Make sure you have the right tools

Getting a proper professional audit will require having the retail store correctly inspected. This process involves taking photos of the store, measuring tape, a calculator, and an essential app like Retail Audit  to record each observation.

These easy-to-use mobile apps will help you in performing numerous mobile retail audit-related activities such as:

•  Perform retail store audits and surveys. 

• Easily log information like store details, product availability & positioning, pricing details, inventory information, and more. 

• Establish Standard Operating Procedures ( SOPs) for the brand to comply with brand guidelines and more.

2. Plan your Visit Carefully

It’s important to give yourself enough time to inspect the entire store. Try not to rush through your visit; instead, take your time walking around and looking at everything. You’ll be able to identify any problems much faster this way.

3. Talk to the Employees

During your audit, you must talk to as many employees as possible. It will help you understand how the store is operated and whether any violations of company policy or law are occurring. Be sure to ask about specific issues.

4. Use Checklists to Ensure Compliances

Retail compliance audits can make a safer work environment, avoiding accidents, health issues, and fatalities. 

Some Commonly Used Retail Store Audit Checklists

Here are some retail store audit checklists organizations can use to conduct retail audits of their store employees. Axonator can help you convert all these checklists into mobile apps to help you comply with brand guidelines, establish SOPs, implement safety, and achieve operational excellence. 

Retail Store Operations Checklists

With this checklist, you can ensure that your retail store is operating efficiently and safely. This guideline has been developed by experts in the field and provides a useful resource for conducting retailer audits.

Retail Store Daily Checklists

Retail store checklists will help your company organize daily shop checks, store reviews, and compliance like product placement, price, sales data, etc. The COVID-19 compliance checklist is a standardized process for preparing for product recalls that ensures retailers are prepared to act when necessary.

Retail Store Daily Checklists - Opening & Closing

These checklists list the critical tasks that need to be completed before opening and closing a retail store. The checklists can be used to confirm the security of the products, to clean up the store, and more.

Retail Brand Compliance Checklists

Efficiently conduct promotional audits and holiday sale audits. Log in-depth information on promotion types, duration, placement, in-store positions, and sales numbers. 

Retail Partner Audit Checklists

Understand your retail partner better. Record information like location, branch name, consumer sentiments, store appearance, exterior façade, internal design, competing brands, and more. 

In-store Retail Audit Checklists

Efficiently perform in-store retail audits to ensure that retailers follow pricing, promotion, products, inventory, and placement guidelines. 

We at Axonator have developed a retail audit app that ensures the company will be meeting or exceeding all required standards for safe operation. We have created this checklist in collaboration with experts from the retail industry so that you can use it as a reference guide when conducting audits at your stores.

• Get your paper forms/checklists on mobile & tablet

• Access ready-to-use lists & customize them

• Experience the workflow automation

• Generate reports automatically

• Get a graphical dashboard for data visibility

• Integrate with 3rd party or legacy system seamlessly

Axonator for implementing Retail Audits

Retail organizations have been able to streamline the audit process with Axonator, a no-code platform that Fortune 500 firms have used to meet their needs. With tons of features, the platform will meet your end goal of assessing inventory risks and correlating them with business metrics.

Axonator has a variety of applications. Additionally, it can streamline processes like appraisals, inspections, compliance and more.

Numerous industries and organizations use Axonator to automate field workflows, achieving digital transformation in record time and cost.

Why Axonator?

• World’s first mobile-focused & Highly customizable no-code architecture to support real-world scenarios.

• Deploy enterprise-grade solutions rapidly as per unique requirements

• Achieve paperless retail audits.

• Generate reports automatically and automated data collection for trends and analytics

• Streamline processes and implements a fully automated system within weeks using Axonator’s MicroApp strategy.

Available on Android, iOS, and the web, Axonator is a highly customizable no-code field workflow automation platform mainly used to transform your paper and spreadsheet-based manual processes and maintain them across the retail business. 

Axonator offers several simple and ready-to-use enterprise-grade apps for field workflows like retail surveys, retail inventory management, and more. These apps can be used by organizations to replace paper and spreadsheet & cumbersome desktop-based manual processes with mobile & tablet apps.