Page 10 - Fall 2012 Hardlines Strategies

10 Fall 2012 • Hardlines Strategies
STORE PROGRAMS
Common Signs You’re Ready for a Reset
It’s easy to let your store become so familiar that
you don’t notice when inventory begins to get stale
or assortments get thin. Use your Blish-Mize sales
representative or another retailer as a resource to
look at your store through a fresh pair of eyes. Here
are three common signs it may be time to change a
department or even the entire store:
You haven’t changed the store in a while. Industry
standards in chain stores use a five-year timeframe for
resetting the entire store. Keeping assortments fresh
for shoppers doesn’t mean you have to rearrange the
store layout, but it does mean you should make sure the
product mix you have is still relevant and complete.
Your product mix has changed significantly.
Whenever 10 percent or more of the product mix
changes, or when vendors consolidate product, it’s
time to redo the department. Assortments need
to flow and seem complete to the customer. Too
many changes mean you need to reconsider the
presentation and may need to add items.
Your sales begin to drop. If sales in one area begin
to drop substantially, it’s an indicator you may not
have the right product mix. Maybe customers’ needs
have changed or there are trends in the market you
need to consider. A reset of the category can get it
back on track.
prices the market would bear while still
allowing him to be competitive. “The
Price Sensitivity Ratings were particularly
useful to us because they allowed us
to maintain higher markups on certain
classes of product that we might not have
done otherwise,” he says.
Pulling It All Together:
The Store Setup
When the assortment planning process
is finished, Blish-Mize can then offer
suggestions for how the aisles should be
arranged. During the recent expansion, Blish-
Mize helped Smith reset the entire store so
departments would be better merchandised.
For example, Smith expanded the paint
department and created a store-within-
a-store concept to draw special attention
to it. “We’re getting a lot more female
customers coming in now, too,” Smith
says. “Blish-Mize helped us put together
the whole store, and it all has a good
flow to it that makes it easy to shop.”
Once those plans are ready to move
from the drawing board to the store floor,
Blish-Mize offers all the help you need.
“We have a team to help do the setup,”
Short says. “We also recommend you take
a careful look at the fixtures and make
sure they will present the product well.
A better visual presentation will produce
more sales.”
Of course, don’t assume that just because
the right products are on your shelves, you’ll
suddenly get customers in the door. You have
to tell them about what you have. Blish-
Mize’s Custom Advertising Program allows
you to tell your public all about your new
store and make that ad unique to your own
product mix. For more information, read
“Take Control of Your Advertising,” Page 34.
Finally, one of the best improvements
you can make to your store after a reset
is upgrading your cash register to a POS
system. That was the decision Witt made
after he started getting more customers and
dealing with more inventory because of the
reset at Mora Valley Supply.
“At first, we didn’t want to spend
the money on something that might not
be necessary. But as we gained more
experience, more inventory items and more
customers, hand-writing receipts became a
bottleneck,” he says.
“Our POS system is faster and more
accurate and allows for instant category and
department sales and inventory information.
I recommend spending the money to install
a POS. It is relatively inexpensive and a
worthwhile investment.”
Mora Valley Ranch Supply in Mora Valley, N.M., is about 30 miles from the nearest competitor, so owners
stock a range of products beyond the standard hardlines categories, such as ranch and pet supplies.