A look at how product education works in retail settings. Based on my experience as a retail trainer and 3rd party product trainer.

1. Product Education for
Adult Learners
In Retail Environments

2. What is Retail Training?
Retail Training is focusing on the education of retail workers on a specific topic. It is unique in that the
background of trainees tends to be incredibly diverse and that retail environments tend to have faster
turnover than a standard classroom (Roth).
Retail Training with technology is a newer field, and many companies are just starting to catch on to
the fact that it is indeed important to train their employees with a variety of methods to keep them
engaged.

3. How has it changed?
Retail training has existed for some time in various forms. Companies needed to train their employees
on processes and procedures as well as on product knowledge. Ten years ago, this would have
involved mostly paperwork, manuals and shadowing...possibly a video if a company valued
modernization. In the past few years, with the rise of greater connectivity and the need to create or
retain a customer base, employers have no option but to provide training if they want employees who
will effectively engage customers (Roth).
Fewer people are looking for careers in retail as a long-term solution (Derby). To keep an employee,
companies must invest in them to not only give them knowledge, but make them feel valued and
appreciated. Retailers will have to continue training with the current available technology. An employee
who watches a 1990s video about Loss Prevention is going to feel much less invested in the topic than
an employee who is allowed to go through an interactive, feedback-driven discussion with multimedia.

4. What’s involved?
Retail Training on products (my focus) is typically made up of product knowledge as well as “soft skills”
or customer service.
The soft skills of how employees relate to the customer tend to be the foundational pieces of effective
retail training. If employees know how to appropriately handle difficult situations or assist customers,
they will be more eager to go on to the sales floor willing to learn.
After soft skills are built, layers of product knowledge are the next pieces in constructing a training
strategy. With a foundation of how to interact, employees will more likely be able to place product
knowledge components into real life situations.

5. Why is it important?
Employers who continue to emphasize customer service and good relationships among employees
are the most likely to creative environments conducive to learning (and the desire to learn).
If companies fail to value training past the basics of customer service, they give their employees a
confusing message - that training is important in some aspects, but that they are not willing to fully
equip employees for the challenges they will encounter on the job.

6. What are the
challenges?
Many companies have not only retail employees to train, but corporate employees as well. There can
be some overlap between the training given to both groups such as HR required modules.
Retail training is often placed as a category under Human Resources. This tends to be where it
resides unless a change is made to separate a retail division into its own HR subset.
Retail is changing as many young people no longer aspire to work in retail, but rather see it as a stop-
gap as they make their ways toward other careers.

7. why this topic?

8. Retail is a tricky environment for training. In my current job, I work for a third party vendor
who sells products at a retail store environment. It’s often a challenge to access employees
to train them on our products. I have to come up with solutions to relate to these learners
and provide them with adequate information on my product. I also have to be mindful and
respectful of the companies where our products are sold so that I don’t encroach on their
main focus of sales. I have to maintain relationships with our retail partners and must work
with them at times to create experiences that are mutually beneficial and meet all their
policies for vendors.
I wanted to explore ways to better connect with the retail employees who are on the front
lines of selling our product. To do that, I have to understand retail.

9. my learning objectives

10. 1. Identify how to engage employees in
a retail environment
Employees will be engaged if they can tie in the workshop subjects with personal goals or values
Appeal to the most employees by appealing to the common motivators in retail (sales numbers,
positive feedback, promotions)
I will be able to evaluate employee engagement in a few ways
1.The obvious signs of paying attention and interaction in a group setting. Are they asking/answering
questions and contributing
2.Are they following up with training campaigns or via email?
3.Are the sales of product going up?

11. 2. Determine when to use e-learning
vs. in-person platforms
Strategy on learning platforms can be gathered depending on which company I am working with to
create training.
I will have employees participating in both types of training.
I will be able to validate decisions on platforms by:
1.Getting feedback from employees on which methodologies “stick” better
2.Creating a control group of those who use only e-learning vs. those who use in-person and those who
do both
3.Evaluate sales in these three groups to compare effectiveness

12. 3. Create incentives for learning that
are relevant and applicable
I need to know which incentives will be valuable/relevant to employees. If the incentives correlate with
motivations, they’ll be more successful
I will be able to evaluate the success of incentives in the following ways:
1.Increased sales will show a push by learners to educate customers about product to achieve
incentives
2.Learner response to incentives in email or verbal feedback.

13. 4. Form a holistic mission for training that combines
all learning platforms
Strategies will be to work with employers to find if they are willing to integrate information between
multiple forums...eg: will Company A allow a questions Wiki to be shared with Company B
Companies will provide me with access to all learning platforms (e-learning and in-person). Employees
will use both methodologies
I can evaluate how well our integration is working by doing evaluations of employees.
-I will create feedback forms
-I will look at the difference of sales between the times we’ve done holistic training and un-combined
training.