9 Retail Staff Training Tools to Train Employees (2025)

When it comes to tasks that take up significant time and energy, training new staff members certainly ranks toward the top of the list. Between finding, hiring, and preparing new workers, much of a merchant’s time can be spent simply getting staff up to speed.

It’s also costly to replace and train staff members. Replacing an employee can cost the equivalent of 6 to 9 months of their annual salary.

Retail staff training tools assist with the training process, ensuring your team hits the ground running, keeps tasks on track, and delivers customer service at its best. Here, we’ve rounded nine tools to guide you through the process of getting your new staff ready to work.

Retail staff training tools 

• POS system
• Elearning platforms
• Compliance training tools
• Customer feedback software
• Job shadowing tools
• Knowledge bases
• Project management software
• Product training and demos
• Mentoring and coaching platforms

Choosing the right retail staff training tools requires evaluating factors such as features, customization options, and cost. Here’s a look at some of the best tools available and why they stand out:

POS system

A key module of your training program should focus on mastering your store’s point-of-sale (POS) system. This ensures new employees can process transactions efficiently to prevent customer impatience and abandoned purchases. 

Shopify POS is a user-friendly and intuitive system that makes employee training easy and straightforward. It simplifies the staff training process through:

• Unified data: Integrates seamlessly with hardware like cash drawers and barcode scanners, so employees only need to learn one system. 
• Multistore capability: Ensures standardized training across all locations, creating consistency in operations. 
• PIN-protected access: The Shopify POS system is secure and requires PIN-protected access for each staff member. This ensures that only authorized personnel can process sales and manage transactions while protecting sensitive data.
• Tailored user permissions: New employees can start with profiles set to “Training” mode, allowing them to practice without affecting transaction history or inventory data. 
• Built-in help documentation: Shopify POS offers guides on how to use the app, troubleshoot issues, and manage your store's operations accessible directly in the Shopify POS app.

Pet supply retailer Tomlinson’s faced inefficiencies with their previous POS system, which required excessive manual work and slowed down store operations. This resulted in difficulty training new staff on the POS, longer checkout times, and complicated processes—all of which hindered productivity and customer satisfaction.

Switching to Shopify POS’s intuitive system and built-in onboarding resources and support, Tomlinson’s has reduced staff training time by 32%, resulting in faster onboarding and a smoother overall training experience.

“There was no downtime when we made the switch to Shopify POS,” says Kate Knecht, owner and operator. “We were able to train in a sandbox environment for a month and a half prior to the launch to allow our team to get used to the system.”

Elearning platforms

Elearning platforms make creating and distributing your own training courses simpler, so you can upskill and train employees wherever they are. 

You can create everything from a robust employee handbook up to a management training program with multiple lessons for particularly complicated topics. Then, add multimedia content with components like section quizzes, social learning, and webinars to make learning more engaging. 

Trainees can complete lessons in-person or virtually, so employees can access training modules from any device and location. This eliminates the need for merchants to restrict training to work hours—employees can review their assigned training material and check off what they complete every step of the way.

Some elearning platforms integrate with popular content creation systems, including Microsoft Office, YouTube, Canva, and Vimeo, so you can build a robust training program that supports employee growth and knowledge retention. AI-powered tools, like test questions, smart outlines, and AI-powered search offer fast, context-rich answers, making the overall training experience smoother for your staff.

Compliance training tools

Need to train your team on workplace safety, harassment prevention, or legal compliance but don’t have the time or expertise to create courses? 

Compliance training tools make creating retail-specific, modular compliance training programs seamless for retailers. You can create customizable courses packed with multimedia, quizzes, and certifications, and offer self-led learning or instructor-led training sessions tailored to meet your retail team’s needs. These tools also provide mobile access for on-the-go training and detailed reports that give you a clear view of your team’s progress. 

Customer feedback software

Whether it comes in the form of interviews, surveys, reviews, or ratings, customer feedback is a goldmine for retailers looking to improve the shopping experience. It reveals what’s working, existing gaps, and areas for improvement. 

Customer feedback tools like UserLoop and POWR integrate with your Shopify store and make it easy to collect and analyze customer insights. You can rely on these insights to shape retail training programs that improve shopping experiences. 

For example, you might learn that of the customers who wouldn’t recommend your store to a friend, the vast majority didn’t interact with a sales associate during their visit. Perhaps they didn’t feel welcomed in-store, or the purchase decision was too overwhelming—they were unsure on which product to buy. 

Fix this in your employee training program by reinforcing the importance of an in-store greeting. Teach retail staff how to reference data from the unified customer profile in your POS system to reduce more negative feedback from customers who might feel the same when left to their own devices in-store. 

Job shadowing tools

Job shadowing is a quick and cost-effective technique you can use to train staff. It pairs new hires, seasonal staff who need to get up to speed quickly, or employees exploring different roles with experienced team members. 

New hires can learn on the job, observing how experienced assistants manage POS systems, handle inventory, assist customers, and process payments at checkout. 

With job shadowing tools, you can scale your staff training efforts, develop top talent, and create a more knowledgeable and confident workforce. They provide structured mentorship programs, which give shadowers a glimpse into a new role and practice the tasks themselves to decide whether it might be a good fit. Plus, they help employees transition into leadership positions by matching them with the right mentors and tracking their progress. 

Knowledge bases

A knowledge base provides on-demand support and quick access to essential information. 

Apps like BetterDocs bring together data from all parts of your business including inventory, shopping history, preferences, and billing. And with data from a unified commerce system like Shopify, you can create a self-service resource, like an intranet or wiki, where employees can find answers to common questions and stay updated on products, processes, and policies. 

Some knowledge base tools even offer advanced analytics, which identify the resources your retail staff use most, so you can refine and improve training materials. 

Project management software

Project management platforms can turn your retail staff training program into an engaging, streamlined experience. They offer customizable features that make assigning and breaking down tasks, setting deadlines, and tracking progress easy. This keeps everything organized, so your team can jump right into the training materials without much hassle.

Seamless integrations with other workplace software allow staff to connect their preferred tools, while customizable templates help you design structured training programs with clear workflows and milestones that match your team’s learning needs.

Product training and demos

Tired of inadequate, slow, and costly traditional training methods? With pre-recorded or interactive training demos, you can easily explain complex processes and products to your team without disrupting their workflow. 

Product training and demo tools eliminate the hassle of manual setup, letting you create polished, engaging content on everything from new products to navigating POS systems and refining their customer service skills. Employees can revisit the training material anytime, ensuring they get what they need to stay up-to-date.

Plus, interactive features built into these tools, like transcripts, captions, comments, and emoji reactions, keep training fun and accessible, while driving learning and career growth. 

Mentoring and coaching platforms

Direct mentoring is a great way to guide new retail staff in a role they’re interested in. But it can be time-consuming if you're still using traditional coaching methods that overwhelm new hires with standard documentation. 

Mentoring and coaching tools help you create and facilitate mentorship-based programs to bring your team up to speed—especially if they’re new to the retail industry. You can pair mentors and mentees in a team based on skills, goals, and interests, and offer one-on-one, group, or reverse mentoring experiences that cater to your team’s needs and deliver the guidance they need to improve and thrive. 

With features like goal-setting, progress tracking, and regular check-ins, mentoring tools support both personal and professional development. They often include real-time messaging and scheduling features for seamless communication, resource libraries with access to guides, videos, and worksheets that enrich the mentoring experience, and robust tracking and reporting tools to monitor engagement and measure impact. 

Build your retail employee learning toolstack

Your retail team interacts the most with customers. With comprehensive training and coaching, you can motivate staff to optimize employee productivity, keep operations running smoothly, and drive shoppers back.

If you run a Shopify store, Shopify POS integrates everything to manage your retail business—from inventory management and checkout to integrated apps that help you train your retail team—it all happens one unified platform.