The trend towards online shopping has been rising steadily especially with the pandemic-induced changes that forced businesses to invest in digital transformation. For retailers, there are many benefits to moving your store online for the long-run, but there are also challenges to come on your way because e-commerce and in-person retail offer different experiences.

But even if there are lots of differences in operating your business online and in-person, some things remain constant and one of those is the paperwork. Every industry uses forms to drive their business processes.

Since retailers shifted to online selling, it becomes harder for businesses to gather data using the traditional paper-based form. But there is an easy way to connect with your customers and do your paperwork without actually consuming a paper. 

A digital form is simply an electronic version of traditional paper-based forms that you use to collect and process data. Digital data collection is beneficial for retail businesses in gathering quantitative data while improving the quality of it and significantly reducing the labor burden caused by obtaining and analyzing that information.

This kind of data collection can help retailers to create invoices and connect with your customers especially now that holidays are coming and you are expecting more shoppers and more sales.

Benefits of using Digital Forms for Retailers

1. Collect orders online 

By using digital forms, you can reach a wider audience which could translate to more sales. Digital forms allow retailers to easily collect orders, receive feedback, and return requests from customers. It can also help customers to easily find you online, place an order, and communicate with you. Additionally, a digital form has an option to capture a wide array of information that does not exist with paper forms.

2. Save money

Budget is always at the top topic for discussions regardless of how big or small your business is. By replacing traditional paper forms and transitioning to digital one, you can save money on toner, paper, cartridges, printers, and maintenance of printers.

3. Save time

Creating and filing paper forms takes up a lot of time. After you gather the information you need from your customers using the paper-based forms, it must be manually entered into your system to be stored in archives and that also takes up a lot of your valuable time. Digitizing your forms will help you store all your collected data quickly in an organized manner.

Using digital tools, you can build complex forms in minutes. Digital forms have an easy-to-use feature like an intuitive drag-and-drop module that can help you create professional forms without worry. With this, you can add, edit, and delete entries easily and create and link multiple-page subforms. 

4. Operate Anywhere

Almost everyone was forced to do their work and even their shopping remotely when the COVID19 pandemic strikes. In line with the struggles of data collection brought by it, digital forms can be a great help for retailers to easily access the information you need anytime and anywhere. For those businesses that operate out of multiple locations, going digital can help you route your forms instantly from one location to another.

5. Data Quality

Digital data collection makes processing and auditing data much faster. With this, possible errors can be spotted and corrected quickly. Aside from that, paper forms can be lost and mishandled in multiple ways which may lead to problems in your business. On the other hand, digital data can be easily handled and backed up. 

6. Easy tracking

Digital forms have features such as in-form photos, in-form calculations, data validation, and GPS device tracking which can give you a glance at where the form has been and can help you track the history log of all changes. With the use of digital forms, you can easily organize necessary information from your customers according to variables like location, customer name, and expected date of delivery.

7. Environment Friendly

By using digital forms and going paperless, your business contributes to the sustainability of the environment. It helps reduce the rapid deforestation that has taken its toll over the last two decades and lessens the number of waste papers and cardboard.

Holiday is just around the corner while we continue to live under the new normal brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this season and even in the long-run, digital data collection is paramount for the retailers to be able to adapt in this era of digital transformation.

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