Bob Phibbs, AKA “The Retail Doctor,” has decades of experience in the industry and runs one of the web’s leading retail blogs.

On his website, he has been running a survey called “The Retail Assessment Tool.” It’s a set of basic questions about a retailer.

For example, do you know the conversion rate of online shoppers to customers?

According to his survey, 55% of retailers don’t.

It’s the most critical online success metric to track. Because, if you know your conversion rate, you can test promotions, design approaches, and whatever else you want to figure out how to optimize your online sales.

Many leading retailers pay millions to agencies who optimize this metric on their website. Or, they have their own in-house teams responsible for monitoring their conversion rate.

Take a look at some of the other highlights Bob found:

1. Many Retail Stores are Dirty

No joke here. 56% of his survey’s respondents found dust on their product after running a white glove across it.

Employees rarely do this on their own, even though they’re perfectly capable.

So, you have to find a system of training and perhaps offering rewards to your team for keeping your retail space clean.

2. Most Retailers Don’t Know How To Optimally Restock

An astonishing 69% of survey respondents did not have any plan for tracking product sales and replenishing as needed.

POS and ERP software makes this relatively easy nowadays.

Having the right amount of product in stock at the right time keeps your sales and margins high, and your storage and dead inventory costs low.

If you’re not doing this yourself, what’s stopping you?

3. Most Retailers Don’t Consistently Communicate with Their Customers

Probably the most scalable and profitable way to drive more online sales is to create a newsletter.

Write a quick email in perhaps an hour or so. Send it out. And then watch the customers roll in.

But, 60% of surveyed respondents don’t do this at least once per month.

Customers who join your email newsletter love you the most. They’ve bought into your company and are eager to buy.

So take the time to create a simple email newsletter your customers can join. And feed them sales, promotions, and useful content a few times per month.

No need for an artistic masterpiece to start. Just get the word out there and fine-tune as you go along.

4. Most Retailers Don’t Pay to Train Their Employees to Sell

76%! Yes, 76% of retailers do not pay for retail sales training for their employees. Most see sales training as an expense, rather than an ROI-generating investment.

How are your employees supposed to sell more if they don’t have the knowledge?

Remember that what’s also important is a system for ensuring the training continues to get used in the months and years ahead.

The leading problem with training is that it simply happens once, gets used for a while, and then becomes forgotten.

Reinforce your employees success by offering rewards at certain increased sales levels, for example.

…And these are just a few of the shocking stats Bob presented! There’s more.

You can read the full story here.