We are all becoming ever more aware of the so called “Data Deluge.” Most retailers and wholesalers are not suffering due to lack of data, but rather from an excess of data. But data resides in different systems, often poorly integrated. That is where Business Intelligence software and Business Intelligence tools come in handy. Typically, …
We have addressed the question “What is Business Intelligence Software?” in a related article, so here we will address the question “What are Business Intelligence Tools?” The short answer is that Business Intelligence Tools are used to extract, analyze and report on data in order to support fact based decision making. They allow users to …
An up-and-coming merchandise manager asked me recently regarding the pros and cons of merchandise purchased on Sale or Return (SOR) versus purchased outright. I asked her the reason for the question and it went something like this. She has a supplier who desperately wants their merchandise in her stores but they are invariably stonewalled by …
The department store model in Asia is almost always stores within stores. The department store owners are in effect landlords who provide the space, electricity, POS etc. The suppliers provide and own the stock and usually the fixtures and they always provide the staff. To a lesser degree we see shops within shops in Australia. One of …
Theoretically margin has to end at about 99.9%. At this point suppliers would be charging you $10 for an item that sells at $10,000. Your gross profit would be $9,990 and your markup would be 99,900%. Years ago a margin of 50% (or a markup of 100%) was pretty good on a lot of typical …
Inventory management is an art, not a science, and is a serious challenge for even the best retailers in the world. The permutations of items and stores every week are nigh on impossible to manage without a sophisticated inventory management system. Given that a significant portion of a retailer’s capital is tied up in inventory, …
Relationships between buyers and sellers have existed since humans began trading goods and services. These relationships developed in a natural way over time as the buyers and sellers developed trust and friendship. In the past thirty years the landscape has changed somewhat. In 1983, Purchasing, in its “Vendor Profile Forecast” predicted that within the following …
Sam Walton opened his first Walmart store on July 2, 1962, and within 5 years he owned 24 stores. The rest is history! The company now employs 2.2 million people and serves about 245 million customers each week. That’s about ten times the population of Australia. The culture of the company was built on the …
The Open to Buy is a highly effective blunt instrument used by most general merchandise retailers to plan their purchasing and control inventory. I am sure many of the readers of this article are familiar with this tool and it works pretty well – most of the time. Of course there are other ways to …
GMROII (Gross Margin Return on Inventory Investment) is one of those terms that is bandied about a lot, but yet is surprisingly poorly understood. The reason it is referred to regularly is because if well integrated into the thinking process, it is one of the most powerful KPIs by which to manage a retail business. …
