Kevin Natapow Tracking sales and seeing if it makes the cut- it is a metric based on the % sales for the months you are carrying a new product. You should also do it for ALL items 2X's year So if you sell 20% of what you ordered of a new product
Kevin Natapow This relates to the earlier question about managing seasonal inventory. Again, before placing any holiday orders run a “best seller report” from January- August (typically 50% of annual sales but will depend on your individual sales percentages) by profit and determine which items make up top 20% of sales. Ideally, this
Kevin Natapow Balancing inventory during the holidays can be challenging and needs a lot of attention so you are not under/over inventoried. First off, assuming you do item evaluation in August/September and physical inventory as well and have cleaned everything up in terms of what is un-orderable and removed from the floor and all
Kevin Natapow 1.7 SKU’s per square feet is the general rule of thumb. For example if your sales floor (not your entire shop sq ft) is 1,000 sq ft you would ideally want around 1,700 individual SKU’s. Again, this is a goal and we often crept upwards of 1900-2000 and would get it
Kevin Natapow This would depend on how you set up departments, categories, etc. When you do item evaluation in Aug/Sept and again in January you will want to look at item performance by vendor as well as by category. Clothing is a good example as it takes up a lot of retail space
Kevin Natapow YES! Not only should it be done annually but you should do it at least twice a year, in August/September and again in January. This is your chance to do many things:1. Assuming you are doing excellent inventory control (hint hint), physical inventory keeps your computer system accurate so orders and
Kevin Natapow Somewhat… below is a general guideline for choosing initial mins/maxs for new products you are bringing into your inventory mix for the first time. Just a quick reminder that your goal is 1.7 SKU’s per sq ft of retail floor space so if you have 1,000 sq ft you should have
Kevin Natapow HUGE- many of you who have seen my presentation at FTF or elsewhere know that I put a huge emphasis on location (50% of your success) but that should be an easy one, which is another discussion. Customer service, and inventory control, which plays heavily into your customers overall experience are
KEVIN: What is most important is to see how each SKU does on its own merit, but it is good to have home accents, jewelry, accessories, bath and both, food, music, cards & stationary, kids clothing and toys, books, etc. You do not it much more broad than that and you should pay attention to
KEVIN: In terms of product mix, you always want to try and have something for everyone. Maybe you don’t carry clothing or some specific thing but it is good to have home accents, jewelry, accessories, bath and both, food, music, cards & stationary, kids clothing and toys, books, etc. Keeping things fresh is not so