Articles and News
One Smart Thing: Merchandising Strategy And Business Assessment | January 28, 2015 (0 comments)
Merrick, NY—Our fifth installment of One Smart Thing features Sherry Smith and Sally Furrer from The Edge Retail Academy, The Edge Retail Academy is a retail jewelry consulting company that examines all the pieces of your business puzzle then creates a customized strategic plan to grow your business. Their topic is an overall business assessment and merchandising strategy.
The Centurion: What's ONE smart thing a prestige jeweler can/should do to start off the year right?
Sherry Smith: All jewelers should do an overall data assessment to determine which suppliers and departments worked for them and which didn’t. This helps determine which suppliers the jeweler will be moving forward with and where they should focus their efforts. Typically 20% of their suppliers are generating 80% of their sales.
After assessing whether the jeweler hit or beat their targets, we set a sales plan/sales forecast for the upcoming year. This will not only include a gross sales figure, but it will include targets for units sold, average retail sale, and markup. Additionally, we do an overall operating cost analysis to determine that their expenses fall in the best practice ranges, specifically – employee wages, marketing & occupancy, etc. We set sales goals for the sales team, create a marketing budget and yearly plan.
I recommend to clients that they create a Marketing binder and a Meetings Binder. The marketing binder should have monthly tabs and sheet protectors. This is where they keep samples of all their hard copy advertising for each of their promotions and events. This allows them to easily reference the previous event, all the media they used for that event, and a worksheet that shows the profitability of the event. This is also the perfect place to make notes during and immediately following each event regarding what worked, what didn’t and what they need to tweak, etc.
The Meetings Binder should include the weekly agendas for their weekly staff meetings, and all documentation related to those meetings such as product knowledge, updates, ongoing marketing & promotional events, pricing & policy changes, etc. This way any employee that misses a meeting due to vacation or illness has a reference point to review what they missed and sign off on it.
Sally Furrer of The Edge Retail Academy.
Sally Furrer: Have a comprehensive Merchandising Strategy:
- What brands/lines do I want to discontinue? And, how will I get rid of the product?
- What brands/lines to I want to re-merchandise or expand?
- What brands/lines should I consider to create incremental sales?
Then create a sales plan for the year, by month, factoring average sale, units, and markup.
Missed the first three installments? Click here for Matthew Perosi on Marketing Bridal Jewelry Online and Jon Parker on Personnel and Ellen Fruchtman on Marketing and Dan and Lori Askew on Inventory Management.