Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a sales clerk and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.

A sales clerk is assigned the responsibility of performing retailing services to the company's or business customer to ensure that they get the best customer treatment while buying the products. He or she will engage the customers to ensure that they have the correct information to facilitate them make the best buying decision.

He or she also get to undertake the following roles; set up advertising displays, ensure that all the products have the correct pricing and tags, respond to customers questions, obtain and receive various client merchandise, manage selling point area, record and manage all sales records, handle and maintain all cash register, ensure that the clients receive their products in time and ensure proper stocking of all products.

Core Skills Required to be a Sales Clerk

Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.

Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.

A sales clerk should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.

Delegation:

Delegation is assigning responsibility or authority to another person a junior or subordinate to carry out specific activities while remaining accountable for the outcome.

A Sales Clerk must be equipped with skills on how to make the delegation work correctly to save the organization time and money and to allow the subordinate make wise decisions, skills, and motivation to become better and grow the company.

Enthusiasm:

Enthusiasm is an intense enjoyment or a lively interest in a certain thing with a zest and a strong belief that can be felt by those around you.

A Sales Clerk ought to be enthusiastic as well as create a friendly atmosphere that makes the staff comfortable with the surroundings, with the other employees to create a less passive working place.

Conceptual Thinking:

Conceptual Thinking is the ability to recognize a situation or problem by identifying patterns or connections while addressing the underlying issues.

A Sales Clerk must be a conceptual thinker who has a keen understanding of why things have to be done the way they are; he has to think at an abstract level and apply his insights to the situation across all facets to compete in the diverse and growing economy.

Personal Drive:

Personal Drive is a combination of desire and energy in its simplest form directed at achieving a goal in whatever you have set your heart to accomplish.

A Sales Clerk needs to creatively design ways that drive the staff to carry out their work without wasting time by helping them understand and develop their self-motivation skills that assist them to take control of many different viewpoints of their life.

Using Common Sense:

Using Common Sense is the ability to see what is missing in a situation or a project and supplying it without necessarily being assigned or asked to do it.

A Sales Clerk needs to creatively train his employees always to see the missing element that is typically crucial in any workplace or project and take the opportunity to do business out of it.

Long Range Planning:

Long Range Planning is setting long-term goals and objectives for your business or project to ensure its growth and sustainability is reached by all the employees.

A Sales Clerk needs creativity in defining long-term goals that ought to be proactive, putting together a full employee focused management strategy that analyzes the major initiatives and translates them into functional goals that employees handle.

Organizational Skills:

Organizational Skills is the ability to make use of time, energy and resources available in the most efficient manner to achieve their goal.

A Sales Clerk should organize the work for the employees to ensure overall organization, planning, time management, scheduling, coordinating resources and meeting deadlines is handled most efficiently by each employee for both personal and professional growth.

Quality of Work:

The quality of Work is the value of work or products produced by the employees as well as the work environment they are provided with.

A Sales Clerk needs creativity in assisting all teams in identifying characteristics that will result in a quality product and lead to greater efficiency and increased productivity by following the four critical outcomes of employee retention, customer satisfaction, profitability, and productivity.

Customer Service:

Customer Service is the ability to cater for the needs of the client by providing excellent customer service without compromise.

A Sales Clerk must understand that pleasing customers is directly connected to the success of the business, therefore, must create a superior customer experience culture in the company that every employee should follow in ensuring all the customers are treated as they should.

Analytical Skills:

Analytical Skills is the ability to collect and analyze information, solve problems and make decisions according to the policies and regulations of the business.

A Sales Clerk should hire employees who use clear, logical steps and excellent judgment to understand an issue from all angles before executing an action depending on the objective and the methodical approaches to benefit a company's productivity.

Hard Skills Required to be a Sales Clerk

Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.

Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.

A sales clerk should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.

Sales Clerk: Hard skills list

Advertising Displays
Analytical
Backstock Management
Balance Cash and Receipts
Business Awareness
Buying
Cash Accountability
Cash Handling
Cash Management
Cash Registers
Cashiering
Check Approval
Check Processing
Close Outs
Communication
Competitive Analysis
Computer
Coupons
Credit
Credit Approval
Credit Cards
Credit Management
Customer Complaints
Customer First Mindset
Customer Focus
Customer Relations
Customer Service
Customer Satisfaction
Demonstrate Products
Design
Discounts
Displays
Electronic Scanners
Frequent Shopper Programs
Information Technology (IT)
Inventory
Inventory Control Procedures
Inventory Management
Loss Prevention
Management
Marketing
Math
Merchandise Control
Merchandise Presentation
Merchandising Techniques
Merchandising
Money Handling
Numeracy
Operations
Ordering
Order Taking
Payroll
Planning
Pos (point of service) Computers
Point of Sale Systems (POS)
Positive Attitude
Pricing
Price Markdowns
Price Merchandise
Process credit or debit card transactions
Product Knowledge
Product Sourcing
Purchasing
Receiving
Restocking
Sales
Sales Contracts
Sales Goals
Sales Techniques
Sell products
Set up and maintain merchandise displays
Shipping
Stock Checking
Stock, Organize and Clean Shelves
Visual Merchandising
Window Displays
Retail Sales
Merchandising
Weigh and Package Products

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