a Staff Training Plan for the New Ecommerce and Counterpoint Setup

Retailers across Australia are quietly closing one chapter and opening another. After NCR Retail Online was discontinued, store owners in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and beyond have migrated online storefronts to platforms like Magento and WooCommerce, then reconnected them to NCR Counterpoint through specialist partners. The technology switch is only half the story. The other half is the people who live with the new system during a Saturday rush at a Brunswick boutique or a late-night click-and-collect at a Perth electronics shop.

Local conditions shape how training should land. Australian retail teams juggle weekend trade, public holidays that swing between states, and GST compliance on every transaction. They also handle customer data under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, which means anyone touching the new ecommerce backend needs to understand what they can and cannot see. A training plan that ignores these rhythms tends to fall apart in the first fortnight of trading.

A structured plan does not need to be heavy. By breaking the rollout into phases, mapping roles to specific modules, and building in time for hands-on practice, a small team can be confident on the new ecommerce and Counterpoint setup within four to six weeks. The sections below walk through the steps in order, with practical pointers for stores operating under Australian conditions.

Audit Existing Skills Before You Write a Single Module

Before drafting a single training slide, walk the floor and write down what each person can already do. Some team members in Adelaide or Hobart will have grown up on the old NCR Retail Online back end and know its quirks. Others may have only ever used the till. A new hire at a Surry Hills homewares store might be fluent in Shopify from a previous job but know nothing about Counterpoint's inventory reconciliation. Capturing this baseline prevents over-training some staff and under-training others.

A useful audit method is a short one-on-one conversation, kept to fifteen minutes, where each team member rates their confidence on a scale of one to five across tasks like processing an online order, running a stock take, issuing a refund, or exporting a sales report. The answers quickly reveal where the gaps sit and which roles need the most support when the new ecommerce and Counterpoint setup goes live.

The audit should also record soft skills that affect how training lands. A casual team in a Fremantle surf shop may respond better to informal floor coaching than a formal classroom session, while a larger Sydney CBD operation might already have a training coordinator who can own the rollout.

Align Roles with Modules in the New Ecommerce and Counterpoint Setup

Once the audit is complete, map roles to specific system modules. A buyer at a Brisbane outdoor retailer needs purchase orders, supplier syncing and category management. A warehouse operator in Geelong needs pick, pack and ship workflows, plus how stock movements flow back into Counterpoint. A floor team member needs to look up an online order, take a deposit, and check whether a product is reserved for someone else.

Product knowledge ties into this mapping. When staff are being trained on category-specific selling, reviewing how the old platform handled its dining and entertaining range helps trainers identify which fields, attributes and images need replicating in the new storefront. This reference point turns abstract system training into something tangible.

It also helps to write a one-page role charter for each position. The charter lists the daily, weekly and monthly tasks the role performs in the new ecommerce and Counterpoint setup, and which module supports each task. New starters use the charter as a checklist, and managers use it to identify training priorities when someone moves into a new role.

Draft a Phased Schedule That Respects Store Hours

Australian retail rarely gives a quiet window to train. Saturday is peak trade for many independent stores, Sunday trading hours vary by state, and Boxing Day remains one of the biggest days on the calendar. A training schedule that ignores this reality will be skipped the moment a delivery van pulls up.

The most reliable approach is to split the rollout into three phases. Phase one covers the new ecommerce platform for one week, with short sessions held early in the morning or after close-of-trade reconciliation. Phase two covers the Counterpoint integration, including inventory sync and pricing rules, and lasts a second week. Phase three covers customer-facing scenarios such as click-and-collect, returns and exchanges, running for a third week with role-play sessions on the floor. Underpinning the rollout is a clear grasp of automated operations, because automation frees staff from manual reconciliation and lets them focus on selling.

Trainers should also plan around Australia Day, ANZAC Day and any local events that pull staff into other duties. Public holidays in late January and April, plus Easter in March or April depending on the year, often catch teams off guard when training is scheduled too close to those dates.

Document Standard Operating Procedures for Daily Tasks

Documentation is the part most teams skip, then regret six months later when a key person leaves. A short standard operating procedure for each frequent task — processing an online order, picking and packing, issuing a refund, running a daily stock sync, exporting end-of-day reports — keeps the new ecommerce and Counterpoint setup running even when experienced staff are away.

Each procedure should fit on a single page, written in plain English, with screenshots from the actual screens the team will use. Where Australian law touches the task, spell it out: GST must appear on tax invoices over $82.50, customer credit card data must be handled under the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and any personal information collected through the online store is covered by the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles.

Keep the documents in a shared folder with version numbers, and review them after the first month of trading. Counterpoint partners often release minor updates that change button placements or field names, and the procedures need to keep pace.

Reinforce Training with Real Transactions and Floor Walks

Classroom learning fades quickly without practice. The third week of any plan should include supervised live transactions, where a team member processes a real order while a trainer or experienced colleague watches and corrects. A floor walk through the store, opening each screen on the till and the back office, builds muscle memory that slides cannot.

Pair newer staff with confident users for two or three shifts after each phase. This buddy system works particularly well in regional towns like Ballarat or Launceston, where a quick question across the counter can solve a problem faster than a wiki page. Role-play is equally valuable for customer-facing scenarios, such as a click-and-collect handover, a refund where the customer argues the price, or a stock enquiry that requires checking the online platform, the Counterpoint back office and the physical shelf.

Measure Confidence and Refresh Skills After Go-Live

A training plan is not finished when the last session ends. Within the first month after the new ecommerce and Counterpoint setup goes live, measure confidence through short surveys and observation. Ask staff to rate how comfortable they feel with each module, watch how long it takes them to complete common tasks, and track error rates such as wrong shipments, missed GST fields or incorrect refunds.

Use these signals to schedule a refresher session about four weeks after launch, covering the topics where confidence is lowest. A lighter refresher at the three-month mark helps embed habits and catches any drift. Tracking these signals over time also gives the operations team a defensible record under Australian Consumer Law, since consistent training reduces misrepresentation or incorrect pricing at the till.

Training formats that suit retail teams in Australia

• Short pre-recorded video walk-throughs that staff can replay during a quiet moment on the floor
• Live virtual sessions scheduled before opening or after closing to avoid peak trade
• On-floor shadow shifts led by an experienced colleague for two to three days after each phase
• Written quick-reference cards taped beside each till or workstation

Signals your team is ready for the platform switch

• Staff can process a full sale-to-refund loop without asking for help
• Inventory discrepancies drop below one per cent week-on-week
• Customer questions about online stock are answered correctly the first time
• New starters complete onboarding in under two weeks on the new system

The single most useful step a store can take this week is to book a sixty-minute kickoff between the operations manager and the designated training lead, and lock in a hard deadline for completing the skills audit before any module training is scheduled.