Without proper guidance and education, your retail employees can’t perform at the level you expect. It’s your responsibility to communicate with them effectively, and ensure they fully understand your expectations and their role in your shop.
In other words: The success of your business depends on your training and development program. However, 22% of retail employees say the training they received is inadequate—many more say they’re ill-equipped to deal with difficult situations.
This guide shares what to include in your retail employee training program, with ideas and examples on how to motivate staff to learn.
What is retail employee training?
Employee training and development programs give each team member the skills they need to perform a job to the best of their ability. They’re intensive training programs usually given when a new employee joins a company, but continues as they progress in their role.
Retailers can use staff training programs to fill knowledge gaps, teach staff how to use in-store equipment, and develop the soft skills they’ll need to communicate with customers effectively.
The importance of retail staff training
Employee training is critical to the success of your store, as your employees will be the people on the front lines, spending the most time with your customers. Proper training can result in the following:
- Increased revenue and productivity. Investing in an employee training program is exactly that: an investment. Well-trained employees know your store’s policies and procedures, and how to improve the shopping experiences—both of which help boost profits.
- Improved retention and morale. It’s estimated that retailers lose $10,000 each time they lose a frontline employee after accounting for the time investment of recruiting and training new staff. A comprehensive training program can convince retail staff to stick around—some 24% of staff would be willing to stay at a company that invested in their careers.
- More autonomy and less oversight. With proper employee training and development programs, you can give people the skills and knowledge they need to complete day-to-day tasks. That gives staff more autonomy over the work they do, and you the extra time to focus on bigger-picture strategies and business development.
Retail training checklist
A retail business has many moving parts, which can make the thought of a training program daunting. Here’s a condensed list of things to train your team on:
- Sales training. The overarching goal of your retail store is to make sales. Every customer-facing employee should receive sales training that teaches them how to offer advice and guide in-store shoppers toward a purchase.
- Customer service training. Sometimes customers visit your store without any intention to buy. Perhaps they’re returning a product or have a question about an item they bought online. Regardless, teach staff how to offer outstanding customer service. Emphasize traits such as empathy and active listening.
- Product knowledge training. Employees who are knowledgeable about the products they sell can answer questions confidently. Give them a crash course on your products—cover their key features, use cases, and pain points they solve. They can pass this knowledge onto customers and recommend a product they genuinely need.
- POS training. As part of your employee training program, teach cashiers how to operate your point-of-sale (POS) system—including any hardware, such as barcode scanners or receipt printers. Walk through common tasks such as ringing up an order, taking payment, retrieving inventory data, and referencing customer data.
- Safety and compliance training. Every business is legally required to protect data and keep employees safe. Educate employees on how to respond to emergencies, detect threats, and protect your business—such as locking the countertop POS terminal when not in use and keeping the store clean.
- Inventory management training. Accurate inventory counts prevent overstocking and help retailers make smarter restocking decisions. As part of your employee training, demonstrate how to conduct cycle counts and input the data into your POS. Apps like Stocky make this process easier.
- Policy and procedure training. Policies might not sound like the most exciting topic, but they’re crucial to keep your store operating efficiently. Communicate key policies—such as returns, clocking in and out, closing the store, etc.—when onboarding new team members.
13 retail staff training ideas and examples
1. Instructor-led training
Instructor-led training happens when an existing team member teaches new hires how to do a specific task. It’s a good option if you’re teaching hard skills with a strict process—like stocking inventory, using your POS system, or processing returns.
2. E-learning/web-based training
Do you want staff to continue your training and development program outside of the store? There’s the option to upload training courses to an online learning platform like Teachable or Podia. Retailers can also lean on professional online training resources, such as Shopify Academy.
Turning your development program into an online learning course makes it easily accessible. You can upload videos, transcripts, and audio clips to your program.
Each e-learning course can have different training modules for things that don’t need in-person tutoring. That could include information on improving product knowledge, understanding the psychology behind why people buy, and customer service best practices.
3. Hands-on or in-person training
Hands-on training is another method retailers can use to bring staff up to speed with best practices. Also known as experiential learning, it works by asking experienced employees to supervise new staff.
💡Pro tip: Create a new user in Shopify POS and toggle their mode to “Training.” This gives new hires the freedom to experiment with their new POS system without impacting your inventory data or processing orders.

4. Lectures
Lectures have a bad reputation of being long and boring. That can be true. However, retailers can use this type of oral presentation to deliver important information to a bigger team.
Lectures are used to deliver important information, answer questions, and have group discussions. You could use them to motivate staff to reach an upcoming goal, or to explain the strategy for a new pop-up store you’re opening in the local mall.
Just remember to keep them short and sweet. Within an hour, people won’t remember 50% of the information you gave them.
5. Group discussion and team-building activities
Team-building activities are powerful ways to bring your retail team together—especially when combined with training.
If you’re teaching them to create a visual merchandising display, for example, appeal to people’s competitive streaks by dividing your staff into teams. Give a reward to the team who makes the best storefront display.
Or, put staff into groups of two and turn your store into a “minefield.” Have one wear a blindfold and the other guide them from the door to the checkout desk. It’ll put their communication skills to the test.
6. Role playing
No two days are the same when you’re working in a retail store. But there are some common occurrences that retail staff should be trained to handle—especially when it comes to customer satisfaction.
Role playing happens when you act out a scenario. So, as part of your training program, have other team members act as difficult customers. This could be shoppers who:
- Ask for a return
- Complain about faulty products
- Ask to speak with a manager (who is unavailable)
- Need convincing on a product’s price
- Ask for a discount
New salespeople need to know how to handle those sales objections (and customer complaints). Giving them a trial run via role playing will help them prepare for any difficult conversations in the future.
7. Self-instruction
Ask a retail associate to explain why they do a certain task, and they’ll likely struggle—despite doing it every day. It’s easy to teach a repeatable process. But helping staff understand why it needs to be done that way? Not so much.
Self-instruction is a training method that works using self-talk. Include it as part of your employee training and development program by asking staff to talk through the steps they’re doing, and why. (Bonus if you can tie this in with another method, like mentorship.)
For example, if you have a retail associate who knows how to track inventory, ask them to walk through the process with new hires. Turning a mental to-do list into an explanation can help staff realize why it’s important.
8. Audiovisual training
It’s almost guaranteed that people on your team have different learning styles. Audiovisual training appeals to two of them—visual and auditory learners—using videos, slideshows, and audio files to teach.
You can tie audiovisual training into other delivery formats, like:
- Online video courses
- Lectures with presentations
- DVDs and movies
Granted, you’ll cater to different learning styles. But it’s not too different from watching a TV or movie—an activity most people enjoy doing.
9. Orientations
Brought a new team member on board? An orientation, also known as an onboarding program, is the fastest way to introduce them to the team and explain their new responsibilities.
Orientations are usually delivered on a one-to-one basis. Staff typically have a mentor who helps them out during their first few days, along with an information packet that explains key information like:
- How to clock in and out
- The company culture
- What their job responsibilities are
- Who to ask if they need help
- Where the bathroom is
Remember: The first impression you make on new hires has a huge impact on how long they’ll stick around. Most new employees decide whether they feel “at home” in a new job during their first few weeks. Make sure your training investment doesn’t go to waste.
10. Case studies
Case studies are real-life stories of how your products have helped a customer solve a problem or meet their goals. They’re not just good sales assets; case studies are fantastic assets for training your team.
Let’s put that into practice and say one of your customers wrote a review. It explained how your workout equipment helped them lose 11 pounds. Chances are, losing weight is a pain point most of your other customers have. So, give that information to your sales team and use it to inspire your training program.
Show them how to promote the case study to new shoppers who are on the fence about buying a treadmill. Have the salesperson who closed the original sale deliver mini-training on how they did it. It’s like giving staff a blueprint to make customers happy.
11. Job rotations and shadowing
On-the-job training is a quick way to bring new team members up to speed in a certain role. Shadowing is a technique you can use to do this. It partners new employees (or those wanting to move into a different role) with a team member already doing it.
The most popular shadowing partnership is with new sales associates. A new hire fresh out of college with no retail experience can follow an experienced assistant around the sales floor, for example. They’ll learn how to organize stock, talk to customers, and take payment at the checkout desk.
It’s also a great way to bring temporary staff who don’t necessarily need a lengthy onboarding process up to speed with their new responsibilities.
12. Simulations
Kinesthetic learners pick up new skills and information by doing something practical. Simulations give them a way to do that individually by simulating real-life situations they’ll likely handle in their role—like dealing with customer complaints—before it happens for real.
New technology is emerging that helps retailers train their staff with simulations. One of those technologies is augmented reality (AR)—a live video stream that overlays product information over items in your store. It’s a great way to educate retail associates about new products.
13. Mentoring and coaching
Direct mentoring of new retail staff can take time, but it’s a great way to bring them up to speed—especially if they’ve never worked in retail before. It works by partnering newer team members with experienced staff in a role they aspire to be in. Their mentor gives them guidance and feedback and shows them the ropes.
Retail employee training tips
Use technology to your advantage
Many retailers struggle with training staff on multiple disconnected systems. The average retailer has between seven and 10 systems to power their retail business. When these systems sit in silo and lack unification, your training program becomes much more complex. Staff need educating on how to operate each platform individually. This fragmentation not only complicates training but also increases the risk of errors and inefficiencies.
Shopify takes a different approach. As the only Commerce Operating System with natively unified ecommerce and POS solutions, Shopify eliminates the complexity of maintaining multiple systems. This means staff only need to learn one platform that naturally connects all aspects of your retail operations—from point of sale and inventory to customer data and orders.
Research from a leading independent consulting firm shows this unified approach delivers significant benefits. Merchants using Shopify POS improve retail and staff productivity, saving the equivalent of 0.4 full-time employees per store location. These operational improvements enable up to 5% gross merchandise value (GMV) uplift while also offering a 20% faster implementation time.
Monos, for example, reduced POS training time to just half a day when migrating to Shopify. But the luggage retailer isn’t alone in its ability to speed up implementation.
“One of our greatest areas of efficiency improvement is the management of omnichannel orders,” says Jennifer Pearson, head of technology and ecommerce at Oak + Fort.
“We were able to cut down a three-step process to one action. This change has reduced approximately 50 hours/week in headquartered staff time, approximately 40 hours per week with customer experience teams, and approximately 10 hours per week from IT support. Across our 42 retail locations, we’re also saving approximately 80 hours per week of shop floor employee time.”
Refine your company culture
Company culture describes the values, beliefs, and attitudes your retail business has. Every employee needs to buy into company culture, not just to give consistent customer service, but so they feel like they’re working toward a bigger-picture vision.
For example, Shopify’s company culture focuses on five core values:
- People first
- Autonomy rules
- Conformity kills creativity
- Propelled by ambition
- Learn with the best
But developing a company culture starts long before your training program. It begins with choosing the right employees.
Align staff training with business goals
Goals can range anywhere from opening more than 50 global brick-and-mortar stores to giving in-store experiences that encourage customers to share their experience with friends and family. Each of these goals would need a slightly different development program, depending on the role your retail staff have.
If you’re focusing on opening more stores, for example, you’d likely need to invest more time in teaching staff how to manage a store without your guidance. On the other hand, if you’re prioritizing customer experiences, you’ll need to train employees on what those look like (and how to deliver them).
Regularly audit training gaps
A successful retail store balances many moving parts. It’s not uncommon for retailers to have staff who are experts in one skill, but not as strong in others.
Identify any needs and gaps in your current team. Can they use your POS system? Are they well educated on the products they’re selling? How well can they design a visual merchandising display? Each of those tasks has different skills—some of which your team could be lacking.
Solicit feedback from staff
As you start your training program, your staff might have ideas on how to improve the content, delivery, or format.
Solicit feedback from staff members to see if they have any ideas on how to improve—especially if they have experience working on other retail stores. Have they taken part in an employee training program at a previous retail job? What did they like (and not like) about it? The answers could help you build a training program that convinces employees to work for you, rather than a competitor with limited training.
Give constructive feedback
Feedback is a two-way street. A crucial part of your employee training and development program is to give (and receive) constructive feedback to people working through the course.
Set measurable goals
Once you’ve got feedback from your retail staff, think about how you can incorporate goal-setting into each team member’s development program.
If you have a new retail assistant, for example, their goal might be to give a short presentation to a co-worker on a product you stock to improve the co-worker’s knowledge. For experienced store managers looking for extra responsibility to manage another local store, that might be to increase foot traffic to their existing location by 20%.
Don’t let retail sales training fall on the back burner
There’s more to retail training than educating staff on company policies. Give mini-training sessions on how to use your order management system. Role play customer interactions. Train sales staff on the tactics it takes to turn first-time store visitors into repeat customers. The more you can set your staff up for success, the bigger the impact on your bottom line.
Read more
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- How to Build and Implement a Staff Hiring Plan for Your Retail Store
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- How To Prepare Your Retail Business For Your Absence
- Preventing Burnout: 10 Ways to Stay Productive Without Getting Overwhelmed
- The 7 Good Habits of Highly Successful Retailers
- Maintaining the Hustle: How to Stay Motivated as a Busy In-Person Seller
- The 5 Most Expensive Payroll Errors—and How to Avoid Them
- Product Knowledge in Retail: Importance, Types, Training, and Improvements
Retail employee training FAQ
What training do you need to work in retail?
To work in retail, you’ll need strong customer service skills, sales experience, knowledge of POS systems, cash handling experience, and good communication.
What skills do retail workers need?
Retail workers need a mix of technical and soft skills, including:
- Customer service
- Attention to detail
- Empathy
- Active listening skills
- Problem solving
- Resilience
- Time management
How do you coach retail staff?
Effective coaching strategies for retail staff include:
- Host product demonstrations.
- Offer mentoring opportunities.
- Showcase best practices.
- Walk through customer case studies.
- Explain why policies and procedures exist.
What happens in retail training?
A retail training program brings new hires up to speed with your business. It covers topics such as customer service, product knowledge, operating your POS system, and health and safety.