Page 22 - Spring 2013 Hardlines Strategies

22 Spring 2013 • Hardlines Strategies
STORE OPERATIONS
Merchandise Review
Building Your Perfect Product Mix Starts
at the Blish-Mize Mini-Store
P roduct assortment
and merchandising
go hand-in-hand in
creating a successful retail
strategy. Your assortments
need to be relevant
and up-to-date, but the
merchandising and signage
in your store also need
to be arranged in such a
way that they encourage
shoppers to shop more.
Last year Blish-Mize introduced a mini-
store layout at the front of the Spring
Buying Market to show you profitable
assortments in key categories and to get
you thinking about the important elements
of an effective retail presentation, such as
clear signage and promotional displays.
As you take the time to browse the
mini-store at the Spring Market, use it as a
springboard for asking yourself questions
about the product assortment and presen-
tation at your own store. Look for ways to
make improvements this year.
As I determine my product
mix, am I listening to my
pro customers?
If you’re going to build an excellent
assortment of products, start by listening
to your pro customers. Marvin Munger,
owner of Munger Paint and Wallpaper in
Oklahoma City, Okla., for example, didn’t
build a successful paint store overnight.
He’s had more than 35 years of listening to
customers, asking them what brand names
they prefer, what tools work best and what
specialty products they need for certain jobs.
“We can’t stock everything,” Munger
says, “so we listen to our professional cus-
tomers and see what they use and find out
why they like that particular tool. That’s
what we stock, and usually when our do-it-
yourselfer customers find out that’s the tool
the pros use, they want to use it too.”
Have I used Blish-Mize’s
RMS tool?
Not everyone has the advantage of
Munger’s years of experience, however,
so that’s why he believes Blish-Mize has
the tools to help find the right product
mix for a store. “Blish-Mize has people on
staff with expertise in specific categories.
If you tell Blish-Mize you want to develop
your paint department (for example), then
they will make the commitment to help
you do that.”
When Home Hardware reset its store
in Great Bend, Kan., store manager Vince
Friess says Blish-Mize helped his store
plan out every assortment so it would
fit the needs of the local market. “We
went over every category, line by line,”
he says. “We ended up expanding several
categories to better serve the needs of
our customers. We wouldn’t have been
able to do any of this without help from
Blish-Mize.”
Blish-Mize offers this help with the
Retail Merchandising System (RMS)
assortment planning tool. This tool gives
At the Buying Market last fall, the mini-store included vendor-focused assortments in the paint
category. This spring, the mini-store will focus on the plumbing and electrical categories.