Page 3 - Fall 2012 Hardlines Strategies
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Hardlines
Strategies
•
Fall 2012
3
Contents
On the Cover:
Brian Wendt (right) along with wife Kim
and father Mike of Anita Supply Center,
Anita, Iowa.
THE PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Advertising Information
Hardlines Strategies
is published twice every year
by Blish-Mize. Copyright 2012. For advertising rates
and deadlines, please contact:
Blish Connor
Blish-Mize
223 S. Fifth St., Box 249
Atchison, Kansas 66002
Toll free: (800) 995-0525
(913) 367-1250
(913) 375-2505 (cell)
(913) 367-0667 (fax)
e-mai
Blish-Mize isamember-owner
ofDistributionAmerica
Planning for Tomorrow
W
hen it comes to our personal lives, we’re well
acquainted with the language of planning
for the future. Retirement plans, college
funds for the kids, insurance—these are all meant to
give us a sense of financial security about the future.
So doesn’t it make sense that you should be doing
the same for your store? In retailing, being prepared
for the future means that every day you’re doing what
you need to do to ensure that the stuff you sell today is
still what people want to buy tomorrow. When your store begins to look a little
shabby, you start to notice merchandise on the shelf that’s getting dusty, or that
you’ve outgrown your retail space, it’s time to do something about it.
As you get ready to come to our Fall Buying Market, I encourage you
to take a good look at your store. Do your assortments need updating?
Are there holes in your merchandise mix? If you start losing customers
because you don’t have the right mix of products or services they want, then
unfortunately the future won’t be very bright for your business.
In this issue of
Hardlines Strategies
, you’ll read stories from some of our
customers who have had some great ideas of where they wanted their stores
to be in the future. They weren’t content just to let those ideas stay on the
drawing board, either. They got to work building better stores, whether that
meant resetting a single department, expanding their salesfloors or building
a brand new building.
They also asked for help. Just like we at Blish-Mize are here to help you get
the best prices on the products you buy, we also stand ready with the tools to
improve your operations. With our market-specific Retail Profit Management
program, we can help with retail pricing, plan your assortments and design
your store so you get maximum use out of every dollar you invest.
Take for example Gary and Larry Smith at Smith and Sons Building Center
in Oklahoma. Preparing for the future meant asking us to help with the
expansion of their salesfloor and review of their assortments.
Over at Anita Supply Center in Iowa, we helped Mike, Brian and Kim
Wendt plan a building for a second location. Together, we looked at every
four-foot section to make sure they were getting the products they needed.
One of the exciting things we’re doing at our Fall Buying Market is showing
you firsthand how we can improve two key categories that are seeing a lot of
growth in the market today: Paint and Paint Sundries and Lawn and Garden. In
our “mini-store” we want to give you a sampling of what we can do. As always,
we tailor our studies and recommendations to your own unique market.
We also keep our programs affordable. We know your dollars are valuable,
and you’re very careful about how they’re spent.
Don’t wait any longer to start putting into action all of the big ideas you
have for your store. Ask us what we can do, because we have a lot of tools
that can help build that dream store. We’ll have two seminars at the Market,
directed by our regional managers, that will help you understand more about
the store reset and planning process.
Let’s build the future together. I’ll see you at the Fall Market!
Jonathan D. Mize
President and COO
