Joanne has just finished grabbing a quick turkey wrap for lunch. She might have just enough time to run an errand before heading back to work.

Her goal - a new blouse for Friday’s presentation. She checks her watch. 32 minutes. It’s now or never. She’ll be working late on a deadline for the next few days.

Joanne walks briskly past a couple of the mall stores, giving them a quick glance. Not her style.

She walks into a familiar store. She’s scored a few good finds here in the past.

It’s still early - before the main lunchtime rush. A sales associate has a couple of boxes on the floor, and is hanging new stock. Joanne focuses on skirting around her and the boxes, heading further into the store.

Joanne thinks maybe she’ll be lucky and find a good deal on some recent markdowns. At the back of the store, she comes across a sale rounder. Draped over it is an unreconized garment, without a hanger, that a customer must have left behind.

The shelves behind the rack may have once held neat piles of sweaters and knit tops. Now they are a disheveled mess. Who know what’s there? Too much trouble to go through it.

Joanne turns and heads back the other way. On her way out of the store, she sees an attractive display of new merchandise on the wall.

A blouse catches her eye. She looks below the display to find one in her size. There are about a 1/2 dozen on the bar. They are not in any recognizable order. Joanne has to examine each tag to discover that none of them are the right size.

Joanne sighs. Once again she turns to leave.

On her way out, she glances at a 4-way rack. Another blouse. Wait a minute - it’s the same as the one on the wall. A whole bar full of them. She finds a tag that shows her size. She pulls out the hanger.

Oops! This hanger is not the one with the tag attached to it. The hangers are tangled up. Joanne struggles to get one hanger back onto the crowded rack, and pull out the one she wants.

Got it! Now to try it on.

She scans the room for a sales person. The one at the front is blissfully unaware of her. Still hanging stock. A cashier is on the phone.

Joanne heads to the fitting room, blouse in hand. She tries the first door. Locked.

She glances around. Finally a sales associate emerges from one of the fitting rooms with an armload of hangers.

After a room is unlocked for her, Joanne tries on the blouse and purchases it.

So what’s the problem?

The store still made the sale. If you’re still selling, you’re doing OK. Right?

Mmmm - maybe not.

This story is typical of the stories my retailing students are telling me about their mystery shop projects. In fact, this story would be one of the positive ones. My students are often saying, “The store I visited was a mess. No one helped me. But that was what I expected of that store. So I would go back.”

The problem is that these are fashion retailing students. They understand retailing more than many customers. They like shopping. They’re willing to work harder to find what they are looking for.

Some customers are like them.

Some customers do not want to work that hard. They want shopping to be enjoyable. Relaxing. They have stress & pressure at work & home. Shopping needs to be easier. It needs to fit into a deadline, or be a way to unwind.

Don’t wait until your sales start dropping.

A store that excels will reduce the little complications, or barriers for the customer. Make it easy to shop.

Stores that don’t make it easy, are opening the door to the competition. If someone opens a store down the street - an enjoyable, relaxing place to shop; where are your customers going to go?

If your customer learns a similar product can be ordered online, arriving directly to their door, what do you think they will do?

In an economic downturn, which stores are going to keep customers?

No one’s perfect.

Your store will sometimes be a wee bit untidy. Sometimes you’ll be out of stock.

The secret equation is to have more positive interactions than negative. Customers will forgive a few difficulties if most connections with you are enjoyable, engaging and rewarding.

What’s the equation in your store?

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If you’re like me you might have wondered why there are so many coupons distributed in the mail, by email, in the newspapers and so on. It might seem that marketers are going to a huge amount of trouble to give the consumer very little off often 10c or so, on their products. And coupons seem to apply to every kind of product from yoghurt to cutlery to socks. Why on earth do retailers do this?

Well, I spoke to a leading coupon guru who told me some interesting things about why top marketers believe in coupons and I’m going to tell you some of the reasons they use them and convey some tips on how to use them effectively as part of your marketing campaign. Firstly, lets define a coupon. Its a scrap of paper or a code you get electronically that you can exchange for a discount on the product or service concerned in order to save money.

At first glance it might seem that companies use coupons to increase their revenue by encouraging people to buy their products. This is in fact a very small part of what coupon marketing is about. The main benefit of coupons is that it allows marketers to track where in world, the region, the country ones products are being sold. It can identify the stores they are being bought. Lets say one sells more butter in South Carolina than anywhere else and none in New Mexico and this you established by tracking your coupons. You can then use this information to sell more butter and to find out why practically no one in New Mexico is buying your butter.

From the consumer point of view a coupon works like this. A person looks through the Sunday paper and finds a coupon that says you can save 0.20c on you favorite ketchup. So the next time you go shopping you take the coupon along and buy the sauce at a discount. Two things have happened the consumer has had the satisfaction of saving money, although the amount it small. More importantly, the consumer has bought that brand of ketchup and no other. Because he had a coupon for that particular brand he wouldn’t consider buying another brand. Also the marketer is able to track the sale and draw valuable marketing data from the transaction. Please note that the money involved is really not the point. And yet the consumer perceives himself to have gained from the transaction and the marketer has garnered valuable information.

Marketers also use coupons to increase the client base. However, in this case the saving has to be considerable, not just a couple of cents. For instance, lets say you service cars at peoples homes. You normally charge 250 dollars for a basic service, but you offer a coupon stating you will service two cars for the price of one. That sounds like a massive decrease but you are gathering valuable information from the transaction. The tracking element is present here but more important the deal is getting you in front of people that may refer you to other prospective customers. So a coupon can have a viral marketing effect. Also, the marketer now has the customers contact information. Lets say the industry norm to service cars is every six months. Obviously you can do a six monthly mailing reminding customers to service their cars. This is a good way to ensure year round business with repeat customers.

In summary, coupons are a good way to help increase your customer base and stimulate revenue. There are also a wealth of creative ways you can use coupons to increase your business. Once you have discovered how to use them remember to always include coupons in your marketing strategy.

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If you are the owner of a small to medium-sized retail store (or stores), typically 75% of your investment is in inventory. In addition, except for add-on services and custom orders, nearly all sales revenue and profits are generated by your inventory. Most importantly, excess inventory can suck up all your cash, and force you to insolvency and closure.

Therefore, one of your primary goals is to maximize the return on your inventory.

The standard industry measure of how well you are accomplishing that is called “gross margin return on inventory investment,” or GMROI. GMROI is defined as:

(Sales - Cost of Goods Sold) / Average Inventory Value (at cost)

GMROI can be calculated for the whole store, for individual items, for departments, and for any arbitrary group of items.

The higher the GMROI, the more money you make for every dollar you have invested in inventory.

Retail consultants typically give the following advice:

• Calculate the GMROI of your inventory items
• Identify the items with the lowest GMROI, and those with the highest GMROI
• Look to replace the items with the lowest GMROI, with items more like those that have the highest GMROI

In principle, the above is very good advice. By focusing on the types of merchandise that yield the greatest profit, a retailer will be able to improve his cash flow and profits.

It therefore seems that all you have to do is to install a POS and inventory-management system that provides that type of information (a caveat - except for the very high end, most POS systems do NOT track average inventory, and therefore cannot compute GMROI or inventory turns at the item level).

In practice, however, the solution is not as easy as the above suggests. This is because an item’s GMROI is greatly affected by the retailer’s own actions. In many cases, to improve GMROI, what the retailer has to do is change his processes, not his merchandise!

Put it another way - no matter what you replace an item with, GMROI will remain low, if the underlying cause of the low GMROI is one of these:

• Excessive stocking of slower-moving items

If you carry the same average inventory of a slow-moving item as a fast-moving one, it will naturally have a lower GMROI. For example, we had a customer that would always purchase more of any item in one department, if his stock was down to 3 dozen of the item. For his top sellers, that represented only 1 week’s sales. But for the slower-moving ones, it would take more than a month to sell 3 dozen. Naturally, the GMROI of the slower-moving items were much less than the GMROI of the faster-selling ones.

If you can reduce your stocking level of a slow-moving item, you will increase its GMROI. That’s because your average investment will be lower. In general, you don’t have to replace merchandise with a low GMROI, if you can reduce its average inventory without reducing its sales.

• Buying overly large lots at a time

You may be buying large quantities of an item because you get a volume discount, or because the vendor convinced you to stock up on it. For example, one of our retailers was tempted by a vendor’s volume discounts. He would purchase quantities large enough to get to the discount level of much larger stores than his. Unfortunately, those orders were so large they would take over 6 months to sell. As a result, his cash flow suffered greatly, and the GMROI of those items was very low.

The good news is that you don’t have to look for replacements for items with this problem. All you need to do is exercise cash-flow discipline, and order smaller quantities more frequently. GMROI will rise proportionately, and you will find yourself with more cash.

• Extreme markdowns

You may be using an item as a “loss-leader” by pricing it at cost, or even lower. Or, the selling season may have been shorter or less pronounced than normal, and you ended up having to offer a drastic clearance sale on the seasonal items. Either one of those will cause the items to have a low measured GMROI.

Again, the good news is that you don’t have to replace the merchandise. Just ignore the apparently low GMROI - the profitability is actually higher than your calculations indicate. If you are using the item as a loss-leader, you should charge the losses to marketing. If you had offered a clearance sale on seasonal items, resolve to be more conservative next time. The point is: if you manage the item’s pricing the same way you do your other items, its GMROI will be higher, and you may not have to replace it, after all.

• Moving items to slow-moving display locations

In any store, the merchandise in some parts of the store move faster simply because of their location. Island displays, eye-level shelves, the front of the store - merchandise in those areas will sell more than the merchandise in other areas. If an item is not in those high-traffic areas, expect its sales to be lower than if the item were displayed in the high-traffic areas. That will bring GMROI lower.

Replacing those items won’t be likely to raise your sales, profits, or GMROI. Any replacement item you place in a low-traffic area will still have lower sales than if it were in the high-traffic areas.

Unfortunately, the high-traffic area of any store is limited. So, you can’t put all of your merchandise in high-traffic areas.

The solution is to keep less stock of the items you place in the low-traffic areas. By lowering average inventory in proportion to the lower sales volume, you will be able to free up cash and raise the GMROI.

As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why GMROI can be lower for some items than others. You should first try to pinpoint why the GMROI is lower, and to try ways to bring it up. Ask how to have your system calculate the “potential GMROI” of an item, which is what it will be after you make all the adjustments suggested above. You should only replace items if their “potential GMROI” is still low.

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You can understand how envious a proprietor of a small firm might be when shopping at a retail chain shop and noticing their advanced stock control system. A clerk who is asked about the currently available quantity of a given item only has to scan that item’s bar code. That sort of inventory management is still not being used by numerous smaller or mid-sized firms, but their owners would like it to be.

That color green, which is often associated with envy and jealousy, can turn to ‘tickled pink’, even for those who might think that stock tracking is beyond their reach both competitively and financially. The reason for this is that there is now reasonably priced stock software, with systems for capture and tracking, that are ready to use as soon as you take them out of their packaging. This stock control software allows the business owner with the right tools for managing any type of product stock. Check items in and out with ease, locate items with no trouble, and your stock is constantly maintained and up to date. This can all be accomplished only a few minutes after initial program start up.

Because the micro-business world is expanding like never before, the market for stocking systems is better than ever. The smart businessman will snap up this new technology. You can track your inventory in myriad ways, such as by ID numbers, lots, pallets, purchase orders, or date codes. You can create a stock label or custom label and print bar codes as part of the entire stock control software system. Any number of reports can be generated to help with stock management using easy to use tracking systems. You will get all of these goodies for a lot less than you might think.

The greatest advantage of stock software is its ease of use. Small business owners rarely have any extraneous minutes in a day to devote to a new product, let alone to a new stock system. That’s why stock control software is such a plus for the small or medium sized establishment. It saves time immediately. Improved stock control frequently translates to increased sales and more revenue, particularly in today’s electronic age, which has elevated client expectations for immediate delivery. Maintaining up-to the minute stock control, knowing where stock is located, on or offsite, and what the on-hand amounts are improves distribution and customer response time. A good user-friendly system will feature a graphic-oriented, simple-to-use interface that makes the whole process a snap.

Large companies are no longer the only companies that can reap the rewards of high-tech stock control. There is no reason for a small or medium-sized business to be jealous of its larger competitors, because new stock software suites allow them to have the same inventory management systems. It may take just a few minutes to install the new software and to bring a company’s stock management into the 21st century.

See how stock tracking software can benefit your business. Control your assets with the most efficient stock control software and asset tracking systems - Article marketing programs.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Howard_Brule

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How many of you that stop at a gas station or convenience store actually remember anything about it? If you get gas at the same place you probably remember some of the people that work there, especially if you live in a more rural area. How many of you remember the gas station or convenience store because it was COOL? Can I see by a raise of hands? I can’t say that I see any outstretched hands! Gas stations and convenience stores are for the most part BORING. Other than fuel, cigarettes, sodas and packaged beverages (and lottery tickets if it’s in your State) will always be the best sellers and that probably won’t change for years to come.

I’d like to illustrate a point that not only are most gas stations and convenience stores BORING, they don’t sell to their market. Recently in the same month, I was in Danbury CT and I made it a point to stop in quite a few convenience stores. There is a large Brazilian population in Danbury. I went into a lot of convenience stores and how many stores did I find that had Brazilian stuff? None. Not one Renaldo jersey, not one Brazilian soccer schedule, nada. I’m quite sure that there is a store or two that caters to the Brazilian market, but I also observed quite a few people who were Brazilian in the stores and they were purchasing their coffees, their cigarettes and other items. How many sales did they lose from not having merchandise for them?

In the same month I was in a convenience store near Daytona Beach, FL. The store was next to a retirement community of mobile homes. I walked in expecting to see items for senior citizens but boy was I wrong. I saw Pac Sun stuff all over the place. I couldn’t find anything that appeared to be geared at that community.

Many owners of gas stations and convenience stores have been so programmed by the vendor reps in terms of what items to carry and where to carry them that their stores have never developed a “personality.”

There are some general rules of the road about always having a clean store, especially having a clean bathroom. We know that women tend to buy at gas stations that have flowers. These are a given.

But again, I ask you the question that I started with. How many of you can remember going into a station that was COOL? Probably nobody.

I like to go into truck stops and travel plazas because the larger ones have stores for truckers. You’ll find CB radios, scanners and other things like that. I like to go in because I like gadgets and I can always find a gadget.

If you’ve ever gone into a mall where there is a Spencer’s gift shop, you’ll know why. You go there because it’s cool! You should make YOUR store cool!

Even though it may not appear like it because the price of fuel is so high, but many gas station and convenience store owners are struggling. Their profit margin is going down to absorb the rise in prices and they’re selling less fuel, even though they’re bringing in more revenues. If you’re going to stay in business, you need to develop a unique plan on bringing people into your store. Make sure you know your nearby demographics and cater it to that crowd. And for Pete’s sake, make your store cool!

Harold Jaynes is with PetroMAC, the premier source of financing gas stations and convenience stores. If you want more information about financing a business, come to the professionals. You can view more information at http://petromac.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Harold_Jaynes

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Importing wholesale skateboard decks from China can bring you high profit margin but working with suppliers from China is far from a walk in the park. There are pitfalls and traps and if you are not careful, it is easy to get scammed by companies claiming to be wholesalers but never fulfill their order. Also the language barrier is a problem when you need to negotiate for special requests or tailored deals, thus hampering your business operation. Some of the issues can be addressed while others are here to stay.

One of the major things troubling importers of wholesale skateboard decks from China is how to determine the actual credentials of the company listed online before doing business with them. You can minimize the surprise factor by first contacting them through telephone or email. Check that the telephone number provided online is valid and is a land line instead of a cell phone. Also, if you can, verify that the address given is not a fake. Most of the time, verbal communication may not be possible so you will need to make use of emails and subsequently chat tools like MSN or Yahoo! Messenger to communicate with your prospective supplier. It will help you get to know the distributor of wholesale skateboard decks better and get faster response.

It is not enough to just contact them. China exporters will all have a Certificate of Import & Export issued by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. They are also required to register with the Chinese Customs Office and obtain a registration number from Business Information Centre (BIC). Ask for a copy of the certificate and registration number issued by BIC from the wholesalers.

Another major problem is the issue of quality. Request for a sample from the wholesalers so as to ascertain the kind of goods you are getting from them. Pay for them if necessary. Any serious and reputable wholesalers will not hesitate to do that.

Secured payment modes like credit cards and PayPal are, unfortunately, unavailable to most of the Chinese wholesalers. It is relatively difficult to obtain a credit card and that is why the exporters do not have the facility due to low usage. Most of the time, wired transfer and Western Union are the only payment options available. You can minimize your risk by ordering is smaller quantity for first few shipments and increase gradually.

Nothing beats reviews and feedback from peers in the same trade on distributors of wholesale skateboard decks. You can find them on online wholesalers’ directories. These will help you make better informed decision. Go for paid directories as the free ones may not restrict who can post comments and hence may not provide accurate feedbacks.

George Tho is a webmaster and reviewer of online services. Read his review on an online directory with a database of over 4000 reviewed suppliers and wholesalers in different trades together with a lively forum filled with retailers that will help you source for wholesale skateboard decks here

Author’s review website on Clickbank products: http://www.clickbankproductreview.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=George_Tho

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So you want to know how barcode scanners work. Well, we first want to narrow down which type of barcode scanner we are talking about. There are many types of barcode scanners from laser scanners, CCD barcode scanners, imager type scanners, and more. Our first focus will be on how a CCD barcode scanner works.

The CCD barcode scanner is a scanner that has no moving parts. CCD stands for Charged-Coupled Devise Scanner. The scanner has a light source that when pointed to an object or barcode, it illuminates that image. The image is usually a barcode. Once the barcode is illuminated, a reflection is created and the barcode scanner reads that image.

How does the barcode scanner read the image? Well, there is a linear photodiode within the scanner head. This photodiode can read the reflected light off the lines on the barcode. This reflection is a digital image that is then scanned electronically within the devise. When the image is scanned electronically, each bar on the barcode is converted to the corresponding number or letter.

The barcode scanner is connected to a PC or Mac and the CCD scanner then sends the sequence of numbers and/or letters to the PC or Mac to populate the field of entry. This connection can be made in a number of ways. On way is with a keyboard wedge. This is a Y connection where one end of the Y connects to the keyboard and the other end of the Y connects to the scanner with the bottom of the Y plugging into the PC where the keyboard would normally connect. This method is used many times when the PC does not have enough interfaces. Serial is another connection method and works with just a straight serial cable from the barcode scanner directly to the PC serial connection. USB is now about the most popular method, because most PC’s and Mac’s today have many USB ports. Just plug and play!

Now we can look at how a laser barcode scanner works. The laser scanner works by sending a low energy light beam or laser beam to read the spacing between a pattern on the image one space at a time. The beam is moving back and forth by using a mobile mirror which causes a blinking effect. You can usually see the read line moving over the barcode. The reflection comes back and is then read by the fixed mirror in the scanner. The scanner then generates analog and digital signals that match the pattern. A barcode reader decoder then processes the information and sends it through the data communications interface.

Wala! Knowing how a barcode scanner works answers a lot of questions about where you can use a barcode scanner. They are becoming so popular now, you can find them everywhere in retail stores scanning items.

John Barth founded Adazon Labels and Barcode Equipment http://www.adazonusa.com in 2003 and has a wealth of information in the barcode arena from over 20 years of experience in distribution. John’s experience allows companies to cut costs on barcode scanners, custom labels and total barcode solutions. Call 847-235-2700 for more info.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Barth

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