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:

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.

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.

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.

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Fall 2012 • Hardlines Strategies