Not only do a majority of today’s shoppers use environmental sustainability to guide what they do or don’t purchase, but most are willing to pay more for those products. Shoppers know that an eco-minded retail operation has added costs such as buying carbon offsets, and these consumers have proven their willingness to put their wallet behind their ideals. Successful eco-friendly operations are a win for your business, your shoppers, and the planet.
For businesses just getting started, eco-friendly efforts involve direct work and trust-building. You’ll need to clearly demonstrate that you share your shoppers’ environmental goals and have taken real action to address them. This relies heavily on retail choreography practices of managing how people interact with you, enter your stores, and how they feel after the shopping experience. You want to get it right, so let’s get you started with some direct actionable steps.
1. Go digital and use what’s available
Paper creates waste. In the retail world, nearly every task has some paper associated with it. Visual merchandising comes with printouts, as does stock management and inventory training. Even one-off tasks and notes are usually written down on paper and posted around for shift managers or leads to see. All of that happens even when your store has a perfectly good computer sitting there and using energy no matter what.
Eliminate much of that waste by transitioning to retail choreography tools that include task management software features. This way, your leads can have all the information and requirements at their fingertips without you needing to add multiple recycling bins. You can even ensure you’re maintaining compliance through smart task scheduling, ensuring the safety and cleanliness of your store. Using digital tools can eliminate a variety of waste. Even better is adopting existing technologies instead of trying to develop your own. This reduces computing power, energy consumption, the need for additional servers, and much more.
These retail choreography options integrate with the activity customers need, too. You can use the same platforms to allow them to set appointments or ask questions. You can plan tasks and activities based on the queue of upcoming appointments, so customers are free to shop but never have to wait on your staff or idle their cars due to delays bringing them their orders. Their digital check-ins reduce phone calls, messages, and other back-and-forth that all consumes time and electricity.
2. Storage space and BOPIS for retail choreography
Slimming down your showroom space for physical retail locations can also be a big green move. The savings here happens when you take that extra space and use it for storage. Make enough room in your locations to accept freight-level shipments of inventory. That means getting in pallets or a large number of boxes when you restock.
Freight shipments move from the manufacturer to your location in fewer steps. The practice reduces the number of middlemen that will unpack pallets or containers, break down a big crate into smaller units, and then ship those small units to you. Each step you eliminate reduces the electricity and emissions from facilities as well as the trucks that go from points A to B to C, instead of directly from A to C.
This process gets even greener when you invite people to come into your store for their online purchases. Called “buy online, pickup in store” (BOPIS) or “click and collect,” your audience shops on your website or app and then picks up from you at their convenience. Retail choreography tools not only make this easy but allow people to schedule pickups so you can keep traffic moving. It gives your customers a better experience and eliminates trucks driving to their homes, reducing emissions.
It’s a simple fix that allows you to highlight one of the best parts about going green: customers can participate too. That’s great because some 88% of shoppers want brands to help them address their carbon footprint. Shopping with you limits their emissions and that makes them happy, enhancing loyalty and advocacy.
3. Reassess packaging
Packaging doesn’t need to be plastic that has to go in the garbage. You can avoid those terrible packing peanuts and other non-recyclable materials, while still offering a compelling experience. Corrugated inserts can keep items safe while adding a splash of color through customization, recyclable boxes are now standard, and you can shred torn cardboard to create box infill that’s fun to squeeze. It fits right in if your aesthetic is industrial, cottagecore, or rustic.
If you want to save money, consider looking into more size options for boxes. Slim down so that a box fits the size of the order as closely as possible, reducing the amount of infill you need to pad what’s inside. You’re spending less there and potentially reducing the weight of the box along with the size. That’s important because carriers will charge you based on either the physical weight or a specially calculated dimensional weight of the package — whichever is larger, of course.
Packaging also allows you to adjust how you operate your business. For example, if you use retail choreography tools to book appointments, you’ll know more in advance about the customers entering your store. This means you can make several eco-friendly adjustments. After all, when you know which items your customers are interested in, less is usually more. You can more effectively showcase the products they want using fewer shelves and containers, cutting back on the materials you use. It also makes it easier to control inventory and reduce the need for plastics or wraps to help keep items separate on the floor or in the warehouse.
4. Add recycling and in-store returns
Let’s keep thinking about bridges between customers and staff activities.
Start with recycling on your premises. Some customers will make a purchase and then want to carry the item out or wear it out of your store. They may not want a bag (switch from plastic to paper!) or ask you to take off tags and packaging. That’s a great service for your customer. Help associates maintain eco-friendly practices by giving them recycling bins at checkout stations. Teach them which tags or items can be recycled. As a bonus, if you have your own packaging produced, add notes on it to display what’s recyclable. That’ll help your staff make smart choices or allow customers to recycle when they take an item home.
You can help customers reduce their emissions after purchase by accepting in-store returns — including items purchased online. Using retail choreography tools makes it easier to sell and grow across channels. Those systems also help you track every customer in a unified spot, so you can easily accept returns in stores. That gets goods back into your hands faster and avoids emissions-heavy shipments via carriers back to your fulfillment locations. Plus, you avoid the cost of paying for those shipping labels.
In-store returns have two more benefits. First, you get foot traffic and the chance for the customer to immediately make a new purchase. Second, your team can inspect returned items faster and get pristine items back into your inventory or on shelves faster. You protect your revenue stream and maximize the value of any individual product.
5. Distribute your inventory
If you have few retail locations or a geographically diverse audience, you won’t be able to get them all to come into a store for pickup. However, that doesn’t mean you’re stuck with an emissions-intensive process. Fulfillment can be eco-minded even as you work to deliver products to people in two or three days.
Your best option for going green here is to distribute your inventory to multiple locations. The goal is to get your audience within a ground-delivery radius of your fulfillment locations. Delivering via carrier trucks is not as emissions heavy as shipping via air (which then requires more trucks) to get orders to people quickly. Just having a few strategic fulfillment locations can keep the amount of goods you need to stock low, while still optimizing that final delivery. Even better, staging large inventories near your shoppers reduces the shipping costs of your operations.
6. Go big: Carbon offsets and more
If you really want to up your game and tackle the eco-friendly consumer market, consider taking a big swing and purchasing carbon offsets for your business. No matter how much you control and minimize in your stores, there are still many practices that will produce emissions. From some daily operations to the logistics involved with importing and delivering your goods, most operations themselves are not inherently carbon neutral.
Address this by purchasing carbon offsets and highlighting these efforts. Tools such as Carbonfund can help you calculate your business emissions and connect you with a list of carbon offset projects and energy options. This shows that your commitment to being eco-friendly is a driving force and not just marketing.
One benefit of that tool is it offers a consumer portal as well. You don’t have to share it with your shoppers, but you can use that service to estimate what their carbon footprint is when they shop with you. Knowing that you can even purchase corresponding offsets for the purchase of your goods and highlight this to your customer. You’ve likely seen this practice already — not always stated as an emissions effort — when someone plants a tree or donates to a carbon-focused charity for each purchase.
7. Ask others to join you
Customers come and go, partnerships form, and you rely on other brands to keep the beat going. Each customer and business partner are a potential eco-friendly champion that can join you. Providers may have carbon-neutral options or run their own offset programs. You can highlight their efforts as part of your larger supply chain or ecosystem. Encourage shoppers to find their own ways to give back or ask them for suggestions.
The world needs a greater focus on eco-friendly operations, and the best way to establish this as a viable business path forward is to have suppliers and customers on board. Get started with small initiatives in your store, but don’t be afraid to reach out for support.
About the Author
Jake Rheude is the Vice President of Marketing for Red Stag Fulfillment, an eCommerce fulfillment warehouse that was born out of eCommerce. He has years of experience in eCommerce and business development. In his free time, Jake enjoys reading about business and sharing his own experience with others.
