Store audits may be time-consuming and difficult to do right, but when they are done right, they can help you take your company to entirely new heights.

One of the dangers of settling into running a company is that, sometimes, you don’t want change. An audit can force you to realize that certain habits and policies are entirely useless – forcing you back to the drawing board in an arduous process to rewrite and replace these habits. Audits, as per Chron, are necessary for financial accuracy, fraud prevention and making sure you’re on track.

But while that may be a daunting task, it’s the long-term here that truly matters. Through the use of a quality retail audit app, you can determine exactly where your store’s weak points are, and how to eliminate them quickly.

Improve Your Targeting

Not only can you eliminate your weak points through a store audit software by determining where your products are most effectively sold – you can also use mobile retail audits to get an updated general dossier on what kind of people come to visit your store, so you can better identify your target audience and demographics, and thus develop better marketing material for these people. Through big data and TechTarget’s 3Vs – volume, variety and velocity – modern data tools let you find out more about your business’ capabilities than ever before.

That means knowing how many of your customers are older than 25, in their 50s, or younger than 20 – it also means knowing the general gender make up of your customer base, determining their preferences and knowing what times of the day you get the most business.

Know who your perfect customer is. Know who your customers tend to be. And find the middle ground that appeals to both, and makes you the most money. That is why, as per Inc, big data is for everyone.

Better targeting in a physical location is analogous yet still different from its online counterpart – but with a proper mobile retail audit software, you can use the services of a company like 360 Field Reporting and massively improve your cost-effectiveness with the right ads.

Improve Your Product Placement

Part of a store’s challenges is knowing where products should be in order to have them be seen by customers, and thus land a profit. The worst thing you could do is provide your customers with an array of wonderful products that exactly match their needs, and then hide those products from them instead of displaying them where they’re most likely to be seen and bought.

Knowing how best to place products is an art. Supermarkets have many techniques up their sleeve to optimize their profits by adapting to the way people shop, from keeping candies, batteries and magazines near the checkout counter to having sweets at a child’s height and showcasing meats in flattering light.

But the real art lies in knowing what your customers buy most often, what your most profitable products are, and how customers tend to move around in your store. Through auditing software, you can collect and analyze the necessary data to figure out exactly how to work your customer base, and how to make the most of your investments into your store’s audit.