A guy chops wood daylight to dark seven days a week just to survive. One day a neighbor says

Hmmm, wood chopper or axe sharpener that’s the question!

This could be the Retail Store Owner anthem, and it could even be funny if it wasn’t so true. So often in any shopping expedition you can come across way too many stores who unfortunately live the above mantra. Chopping wood is great, it makes you feel busy and useful. It saves your wages bill because hey, no one will work cheaper than you for the business. But chopping wood makes you tired and those day to day tasks just keep piling up. But it feels so busy and valuable!

Then again, I could always sharpen my axe by using all 4 buying/selling opportunities in any store visit by a potential customer?

The pre-sell, the sell, the upsell and the post-sell. There are super simple strategies and systems to use every one of those 4 profit powerhouses.And it’s so simple to train staff to do it to. It can be almost automatic. Every time someone walks in there are 4 opportunities to get them to buy!
How many bites at the cherry could I actually get?

But there’s so much wood to chop!

Or I could always sharpen my axe, and get a people counter which is the most efficient weapon a retailer can have, link it to a P.O.S. system and theres an arsenal so powerful you can live the pulse of your business and use it to make more money than a bull can crap!

But a people counter costs a few hundred bucks and maybe takes a couple of hours to set up. And then of course manage a few reports each week and month and that takes an hour or two. But the knowledge and power I would gain is almost immeasurable!

I could compare time periods for traffic flow and adjust staffing to suit saving and making money. Understanding the sales conversion rate is gold and using it to train staff and motivate them is so easy! Knowing the average sale size would motivate me to use all 4 sales opportunities and even a dollar or two increase over a year can mean a new car, no problem.

But hey, there’s all that wood to chop!

I could always sharpen my axe by collecting a databse of customer details on the P.O.S. This is dynamite and makes marketing to my customers as simple as ABC. Sure it takes an extra minute or two at the time of sale but suddenly I know who bought purple extra small widgets in July and when I have a special on purple extra small widgets who am I gunna call? But before I know it thousands of people have all supplied me with the shopping data you need to be a marketing wizard.

Then again that wood pile needs chopping!

I could Sharpen that axe by making sure all the fast movers are in stock at all times, creating a buying system to make sure the stock is counted and merchandised regularly. Drawing up checklists so it’s easy to remember and easy to allocate to staff on a daily/weekly basis.But it will take a bit of effort and time away from the woodpile

And there’s so much wood to chop!

Creating a buying plan saves money, makes money and increases customer satisfaction, but know what? It takes time researching what the best sellers areformulating stock models and forecasting using past history….

And that woodpile just doesn’t seem to be getting smaller.

The woodpile will never get smaller until I decide to do something about it and do the fabled “work ON the business”

It takes a decision and an act of will to take that step to get out the back
and do some real axe sharpening, but thats where the payoff is.

Try this, monitor what you do instore for a week and give yourself a title: Woodchopper or Axe sharpener?
If you want to sharpen your own or your staff selling skills check out This

When looking at survey results and even comments on various business news/blog sites an overwhelming theme is customers whinging about lack of knowledgable service, stock availability and of course price. I’ll leave price out for now because if you follow that logic through, there will only be one surviving “cheapest” retailer on the planet, Because someone bigger and cheaper will always come along until one day they are the last man /woman standing.

BUT lets look at something we can control and this article is about stock availability. It’s not the customers fault you don’t have it in the size, colour and style they want. It’s yours, and here’s why. Fistly it’s too easy to try and be all things to all people and that leads to pleasing no-one. Pick a niche and be GREAT at it. And by being great at it I mean having what those niche customers want when they come in. STOCK! This means you can narrow down your stock holding and be a little bit more special.

I have lost count of the times I walk into the hardware store to buy a D Shackle for example. They have 10 different sizes and guess what. The one I want is gone and even the two sizes either side! Why? Because they are the most popular and sell well, but not today because there anren’t any on the hook. I wonder for how long they are out of stock, or have been out of stock. I go elsewhere. And I also buy all the other more expensive stuff that was going with the $2.99 D Shackle elsewhere when I find it.

Now why do stores continually order the same number of items no matter what their size? Why would you bother to barcode the product if you never look in your computer system to see how many you sell and how quick they sell and then adjust an order to suit.

Oh, I’m not picking on Hardware stores, I have been forced to buy ELSEWHERE and ONLINE in Marine stores with Anti Foul Paint, Polish and Fittings. Big Marine stores too! Sports stores for attachments to the Training watches they sell and stock, training shoes. Shop fitting stores for COATHANGERS for christ sake! I went to a specialist chair shop  to buy a $500 chair. They had 20 chairs on display and they only sell chairs. BUT they did not have the chair in stock, but I could order it. They only carry 20 chairs!!!!

Well HELLO! I can order stuff myself and did and bought it elsewhere, so can and do your customers. I don’t need a catalogue I can get that online. When I drive into your store I want to give you money and BUY IT NOW! Did I mention I drove 300 kilometres to go to that “specialist” chair shop?

Why shouldn’t our customers go online and shop when this is how we treat them! I am going online after writing this as the BIG CITY shop fitting store I rang yesterday could only send me 50 coathangers. I want hundreds and I’ll buy them online and may never go back to that store, Because I can order myself.

Are you getting the picture? If you proclaim to be a some sort of shop, then have the stock the customers want.

Here’s how to do it:

Search your top 10 money making categories, then search the top 5-10 products within those categories and stock up! The consumer has told you what they want from you in that search of your categories, so give it to them! Don’t fill the shop with all the crap no one is buying.

Lat year I sold 80 of a certain brand ladies Jumper because that was all I had. It was a great sell through. This year I sold over 400 of the same Jumper! Because I kept giving the customer what they wanted and re ordering, Oh and I had 6 left over this year. Which trading year would you rather?

The Havaianas (most popular thong ever) rep told me that last summer the public were flat out phoning her asking where to buy a slim black thong (the most popular style) in South Australia. She rattled off the names of all the big and small stores and the public kept telling her “sorry tried there”. So here you have the best selling style of the best selling thong brand OUT OF STOCK in retailers stores yet the wholesaler had plenty of stock.

I bet if you looked at the thong areas of many of those stores they would have looked like they had plenty of thongs, but not the most popular thong! And missed a heap of sales.

Lesson: Know your top 10 categories and know the top ten styles/colours sizes in those categories and make sure you have plenty of stock! Oh, and did I mention once you have the stock, count it and then refill. It sold for a reason, it’s popular! You won’t get it right 100% of the time but most of the time will be good enough to see your sales grow and keep the customers coming back, because they know you have it in stock.

Why do this! Because I really want to buy from you and so do your regular customers but if you keep turning them away by not having what they want then don’t blame them for shopping elsewhere/online.