Many of us remember the many contributions Gerald Smith made to the advancement and education of the retail industry during his lifelong dedication to helping independent retailers make more money. He has always been my most respected retail guru and when Gerald speaks it’s always worth a listen! I asked Gerald to come out of […]
Creative Retail
Every industry and every store has good times and bad. When the industry tide is rising it is easy to be lulled into the belief that you are really doing the right things and making the right decisions. Too often that leads to complacency that translates, into a lack of vision, creativity and experimentation with […]
Effective Inventory Management – The Importance of Planning
The ongoing challenge for every independent specialty retailer is the constant need to increase sales, control expenses and improve profitability. Because of these key business factors it is more important than ever for today’s retailer to effectively manage their largest investment: inventory. Maximizing the return on inventory investment is the key to profitability in retailing. […]
How to Set Up a 4-5-4 Calendar
The 4-5-4 Calendar is ideal for merchandise analysis and planning as it divides the year into comparable periods of time. Rather than incrementing periods based on the Gregorian calendar, the 4-5-4 Calendar divides the year into four and five week periods. Unlike the Gregorian calendar, the 4-5-4 calendar assures that comparable periods always include not […]
A Formula In Need Is a Formula Indeed – Balancing Inventory Plans
Often times there is a need for an objective way to distribute inventory between two or more stores or departments or classes or sizes, etc. Rather than using a seat-of-the-pants or traditional method (we have always done it this way) there is a mathematical model to solve this dilemma. Let’s use some hypothetical statistics to […]
