Written by Christine D. Johnson
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Thursday, 10 June 2010 02:37 PM America/New_York |
by Mark Schoepke, owner and general manager, Tree of Life Christian Outlets/Parable Christian Stores Here are some of the ideas we have implemented that may help other stores:
- Pray with and for your staff
- Establish individual sales goals based on sales volume, average sale, number of items per transaction, and premium sales
- Always have premiums at point of sale; for example, $5 CDs or books
- Look for ways to bless your customers and staff: vendors will often help you if you ask
- Give away as much as you can; establish a public relations account to support local ministries like Young Life, Youth for Christ or whatever your area of concern is;
- Look for projects you can do with customers and staff to benefit Christian ministries. Our examples are the soccer ball and Bible drives for African outreaches
- Include your managers and employees in all major decisions and procedure changes you plan to make
- Use closeout, overstocks and special promotional buys to increase your gross profit
- Increase your gross profit through mark-ups, special purchases and buying from direct importers. Consider selling used music, used books and used DVDs. Look for products that increase gross profit margins
- Spend a reasonable percentage of your advertising money on acquiring new customers-don't spend it all on your existing customers. Use vendor co-op dollars to promote their special offers such as 40% off retail prices on Bibles, 50% off books, vendors' books of the month and other introductory offers
- Remain competitively priced in your market; shop and review what your competitors are doing-including mass marketers, big box stores and e-commerce sites. Subscribe to their mailing and email lists so that you know what they are selling, promoting and sale pricing
- Have some planned special events--tent sales, sidewalk sales, anniversary sales--but choose items you can sell profitably at discounted prices rather than discounting the entire store
- Make sure to take a complete inventory, including hand counts, and verify computerized numbers twice a year. We have seen three stores go out of business because they didn't know they were losing money. They all guessed at their gross profit margin for several years
- Make sure you know your conversion rate-the number of customers walking into the store versus the number of customers making a purchase. This number can change dramatically due to different staffing, too few associates on the sales floor and the time of year
- Where possible, involve talented people to help you direct your advertising dollars.
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