If you want to sell gifts in your shop, you need to know how to tie a proper ribbon on a gift box. You want to look professional!

I remember my grandfather in his shop, teaching me. It took me quite a few attempts to get it right. Like so many things, it is easy to do once you get the hang of it. Note it would be best if you did it a few times as in retail you will need to be able to do it quick under pressure.

Your customers will often take it very seriously, so you need to do it right!

Here is a youtube that explains it very well a simple and good knot for you to start learning.

This is a common problem in retail having:

Slow stock does sell but only slowly.

Dead stock does not sell at all.

Both cost money to the retailers, costs cash flow, money and takes up space that should have stock that sells better.

Now in identifying your products that are slow or dead go to register reports > stock titled "Old Stock on hand by Date last received"

I tend to do it in two parts. I check the overall problem in the shop to see the scale of the problem. Then I go by department in detail as its people find it better to examine this way.

This gives you a listing of your stock based on when you received it. This stock is rarely doing you much good. As I stated, it costs you to keep it.

Now once you identified it, what are you going to do about it?

I would suggest firstly move it because maybe it was in the wrong area. Good clean and a nice presentation can do wonder.

If your decision is to minimise your losses on this stock by slashing the price and to move the stock here are some options.

1) Offload them on sites such as eBay.

2) Use it to make a bundle. Put an old stock item that does not sell with something that does sell and turn it into a bundle.

3) Make a bargain bin.

4) Use the stock for your loyalty marketing program.

5) Use them as specials when you have a marketing season.

Planning the layout of your store is quite an art. This video may give you some tips on how to improve your shop layout and design.

One point here is that Australians shoppers do move clockwise. That is why when we set sales budgets in our POS software, we make the left side of the shop more than the right side. If you are not doing this now, I suggest that you start now doing that now.

Near the front counter, the items with the highest return on investment should be there. It is easy to get a list of these go to

Cash register report > GMROI (see the selection highlighted) in your point of sale software in the reports here.

Ignore departments and see what they are. Now see how you can use them at the counter.

Say your supplier decided to make a marketing promotion and asked you to take part. Our client said yes. They went through quite a bit of trouble, and now they want to know how well the promotion did. They do not see much, yet the supplier does. So we are helping out.

The problem here is that no-one before it started thought to make any KPI. So what happened is that the operator adjusted the price with a discount. As there are a lot of discounts, it is hard to determine whether it was a promotion sale or not. Usually what we could do here is to try to determine what the usual amount of discounts are but now who knows what is typical.

What it shows is that it is crucial if you are promoting to make a KPI policy before starting.

Otherwise, it can be hard to determine whether the offer worked.

This woman has good ideas about how to package a gift bag, these gift bags do sell well but only if they look nice.

Here is how to make it look nice.

Social media like Facebook is no longer optional with this pandemic. In the past, I have felt that it was an excellent way for small business owners to connect with their customers. Now its a necessity. People no longer just walk past your shop, see it and come in. The best, cheapest and possibly only way to communicate today to these people is online with social media. 

Here are some key statistics

1. 85% of the eligible (age 13+) Australian population have active social media accounts, Source
2. Australians spend an average of 1 hour 47 minutes per day on social media, and this has been increasing slowly over the past 8 years. Source

I have been doing it for years successfully, studied on it and here is my latest qualification.

I will do a webinar on the basics of how to market your shop free online in your marketspace if there is enough interest.

This came up a few days ago, and what it has done is mucked up a shop's sales history file about profit.

Say the retail item cost is $10.00 and it costs you $5.00

What happens is you may decide to do a sales promotion in your shop, and it looks like this.

Here every pack sold means that each item sells at $6.66 and they cost you $5 each. So you have made $1.66 profit on each item. 

Now the retailers had some dead stock and wanted to get rid of some of it, so he introduces a new product into the mix. 

An item (B) that say also sells at $10.00 and costs them $5.00. I am trying to illustrate a point here. 

So your promotion offer now is a “buy this item and the other item free”. 

Now should your sales and profit figures be recorded in your POS system? 

Method (1) The first item at full price. 

So each pack means that you have sold each one of them for $10.00. Their cost is $5.00 thus giving you $5.00 profit on each one. Item (B) is considered being given away for free.

Or

Method (2) All the items considered sold at $6.66. 

They all have a cost of $5 each. So you have made $1.66 profit on each item. 

You need to decide. 

What has happened here is that as a shop did not make a policy. Some people rang it up using the method (1) and others used method (2). 

Now what is showing in history is a higher sales margin on one item then there should have been. 

You need consistency in tracking promotions if you wish to correlate your sales.

Make a policy first.

Why identifying your top-selling items and you can do with this information!

This is widely used by our clients in music shops but it can be used by any business.

Well, who knows what sells well today! It is all different than it was! With COVID-19, your experience now works against you.

What you need to do is look at today, see what worked, and try to figure out why it worked. We can help you with this, and it is easy to do in our point-of-sale system.

Go to Register reports

Now select "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period"

Now in the form put in yesterday.

Now a report comes out that looks like this with your top sellers listed.

Now, these need to be reviewed to see what you did right here. Take your time.

Now the kicker in retail is a top seller today will often be a good seller tomorrow. Studies show that a top seller today will sell about 66% tomorrow. So you need to check if you have adequate stock for tomorrow. If not in that spot you will need a substitute. 

Give this a shot and tell me how you went.

I have spoken about click and collect a few times here over the past years. 

If you have not already done so, this is why you should look at Click and Collect!

Near me is a small strip shopping centre. I walked down the shopping centre what I discovered that every single shop in my centre had a sign in their window advertising their click and collect service. Looking at the cars coming and going, I could see it was in use. Some of the shops, its the only business they can have. 

Now, this is not a notable centre. Although new it is ordinary with a range of shops having small to large retailers. Clients are not computer savage or sophisticated. 

Let me start by saying that our POS system makes it very easy for you to set up and do click and collect, more about that later. 

Here are some reasons why you should consider doing this if you have not already done so.

-Many people now do not want to come to your shop because of COVID-19. To service these people as a retailer, you now have to look at alternatives or lose these people.

- Here is a costing from the USA costing out the alternatives by options. If you go through the list, you can see significant operational costs savings compared to delivery by click and collect. 

-For many small retailers, delivery in Australia is not worth it. You need as a rule orders of about $100, to make it worthwhile delivering. 

-Click and collect is much faster. Your customers can have their goods often in minutes. 

-In the click and collect model, the customers come to the shop to collect their purchases. Many, studies state that between 49% to 61%, make new unplanned purchases. These are often impulsive or forgotten items. You are not going to get much of this business from a delivery model.

-People are comfortable buying on click and collect, as they know you. They know if anything goes wrong with their purchase, they can go to your shop immediately. 

My advice is to try click and collect and see what happens. You can make adjustments as you go on, if it does not work, you can stop it.

If so, you want to do it. 

You need to make a clear strategy for your program! Go out of your shop, see what others are doing, check out the opposition and make a plan. 

- Do you want to introduce a fee? Can you?

-What packaging are you going to use?

-Where is going to be your collection point?

- How will the customer warn you that they are here?

 etc. 

Now once you are on your trial. 

Advertise it boldly in your window! There is a question often raised did "A tree did not fall if no-one heard it!", if you do not advertise "Click and Collect" you do not have it.

This is how I recommend doing it in our software. I would suggest using business invoicing with an A4 receipt in the cash register. It is easy to do. 

Look for the item, to click and collected. 
Click on the "Receipts" button. 
Find the receipt you would like to print.
Then select the "A4 Print" button as here.
 

Out will come an A4 receipt:

As always, please let me know your thoughts and how it goes. 

I got quite a few enquiries about my post on marketing face masks, so after talking to a few people here are my thoughts.

The spread of coronavirus is driving the demand for face masks. 

"The global face mask market size was valued at $1,523.0 million in 2019, and is estimated to reach $ 2,455.4 million by 2027 with a compound annual growth rate of 4.4% from 2021 to 2027."

The industry is looking at an annual growth rate for disposable face masks of 53% for the next few years. 

This is in a high growth rate industry with high margins! So as well as traditional brands like 3M, who are going flat out, many others are entering this space. If them, why not you too?

It sells in many shops.

Interested, then you should, of course, do some research first. 

Check out what is for sale in your local area, talk with your staff, customers, etc. Try to figure out your niche. Actually, why not try a few niche markets and see how they work out for you. the cost of entry is minimal. $30 can buy you 100 disposable masks, worst case your family can use them. 

Of course, common sense here is required when entering the market of where to buy and how to handle it. Worst case though if you get some stock that you cannot return, and have doubts. All you need to do is use a texture to cross out the claim, e.g. as above N95, and sell it as a face mask. If you are paying about a $1 for a disposable each and selling at $2.50, you have room to discount. 

Note although there is no legal rule for sales of face masks to the public now yet, you cannot make false claims. For example, you should not sell an N50 mask as an N95. I would advise you NOT to make any medical or health claims about your product even if you believe they are correct. However, if your face mask is washable, adjustable, or reversible, then YES talk about this.

As far as I know, there is only one Australian supplier of P2 (P2 is the Australian standard which is like N95 US standard) face masks.

If you are concerned about whether you are dealing in fake face masks, here is some information on how to check to spot a fake face mask {link removed} and Counterfeit face masks

As far as monitoring how sales are going in your shop, it is easy, make a new family, then every so often

Go to Register reports

Select the "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period"

Put in the appropriate options for this family and you get a report with the sales in order of what is selling. The rule is now, to concentrate on the top sellers.

In Victoria, face mask sales were high already, but now they have exploded. I have a client that sold out in hours his whole stock on the day it was annouced. Talking to a few of my clients interstate, they are selling well there too. 

So it is not surprising that a salesman contacts me, as wants me to use my users for marketing his company range of face masks. When I asked at a price, it became clear that the cost of his masks was higher than an online retailer. So I told him, no and to come back with a real price.

But I did some research. Here is some information that may be of interest to you if you are thinking of marketing face masks in your shops. 

There are two markets. The first is for people who want one urgently and those that want it in bulk. I am sure there would be good money in buying a packet say of 50 surgical masks, which on a quick look, I saw for under $30 on eBay with delivery and selling them individually at $2.50. Of course, do some research to see what the prices are in your area first if this interests you.

If you are looking to buy them to resell them here are some points. 

The gold standard is N95, in Australia but the problem is that it is somehow this standard is legally tied down by 3M. From what I can see, most Chinese and Australian companies use KN95, which is very similar.

N95 is the American accreditation 

KN95 is the open accreditation 

P2 is the Australian accreditation 

KMOEL is the Korean accreditation 

FFP2 is the European accreditation 

DS is the Japanese accreditation 

From what I can see, all accreditations are only slightly different, check them out here.

Of course, many people do not want an N95. Besides price and availability, many find it hard to breathe through an N95.  

And we do have a range of standards. In practice, according to studies, I saw even the lower grade are almost as good for the public. The problem here is that the Australian community looks at N95, so I would not rush to stock even a slightly inferior standard like the KN90.

Note some just use a scarf, in Victoria which is useful as you can avoid getting a $200 fine here. 

If you are interested in some history of the modern face mask, is considered to being a Chinese invention invented during the Manchurian plague of 1910. 

They were in many places mandatory during the Spanish flu too

and were as controversial then as now. 

I hope this helps and if you have any comments let me know.

Now is a perfect time to make a stocktake sale.

Please keep it simple and focused.

Concentrate on the stock that you need to clear. Then place them in a prominent position with a sign. Make sure that people outside your shop in front can see your stocktake sale sign.

Want some ideas of what stock to use, this is the report to use.

Go to Register reports > Stock > Slow-moving Stock lines

Now call it up here, you will get a screen like this

I am going to do it by the department because it is easier to assess and collect if you work in a logical order. Here I asked for anything that I had sold less than $100 in a year and am now stocking something.

Interestingly this shop when I ran the report had over $20,000 of worthless stock in just this department.

This is just one report in our point of sale software that can help you expand your business and grow.

The challenge retailers now face now is uncertainty. Consumer shopping habits have changed, for example, how now people are moving around the shop. In the past people wanted to browse, now you need to get their attention in a few seconds from the distance. This is the main comment people told me from yesterday's post.

What we need to do is see how shopping behavioural patterns have changed

As such now my article here on how to make up a shopping planogram can do it for you.

All you need is our software.

A big sheet of paper

A ruler

A black pen

Four marking pens - Red, Yellow, Green and Blue

20 minutes

Multiple discounts often called stackable or cumulative discounts is a common problem in retail. 

A typical example is that a person comes into a shop with a discount voucher that you have issued say to a nursing home nearby for 5% off (which by the way is a very effective form of advertising in local retailing). Now he comes and to buy an item on discount in the shop at 20% off. A typical response among retailers is to say we will give you the best discount, which is 20%. Then tell the customer this is a much better deal than the 5% on the voucher. 

But is it the best approach? Maybe? It saves 5%. However, I attended a webinar. There the speaker told us that you need to remember the 5% discount is what brought the customer to the shop. He then went on to say that adding many discounts was more effective than providing one discount. Then what he quoted was a rather exciting research. That in the above example, the discounts of 5% and 20%, which equal 25% were more effective than one voucher for 30% off. This is despite the fact the one discount is more. Have a chew about it. 

From the comments and discussions here are some thoughts people had about it.

People react better if the discounts are in order of lowest to highest. This is because here a 5% off does not look much after a 20% discount. It looks much better to say 5% off and then 20%. 

There can be problems if one discount is an amount and the other a rate. For example, if the nursing home discount is 5% off, and the item is $20 with $5 off. 

If the nursing home discount is first: 
The price is $20 less 5% discount less $5 = $14.
We now have $20 less $5 less 5% discount = $14.25 ( This is how our POS software works. )

Please let me know your thoughts.

Now I have noticed that people are starting to think of their shop of what it is and what they want to do with it.

You need a vision of why your target market should buy from you and not from your competitors.

This question is called your unique value proposition?

It does not have to be much.

It does not have to be great.

It does not have to be brilliant.

But it must be there.

Without it, you cannot even advertise.

It should contain all the following:

What you propose to do for your customers.

The relevance of your offer to your customers

Why your customers should take this offer from you instead of your competitors.

A very good place to start on this is to ask your top customers, why they buy off you.

As it needs to be clear, what I find good is to explain it to is an 8-year-old kid. somehow kids seem to be able to get to the heart of the matter better than adults with our preconceptions.

COVID-19 restrictions are being lifted, restaurants, cafes, pubs, travel etc. are open now, and soon the footy will come back in our lives again. To restart business many of my clients are launching campaigns or bootstrapping on someone else promotions.

This is easy to do as our software has many tools to help you to do promotional campaigns.

Every campaign needs to be measured.

This does not mean only looking at the sale of the promoted product. What you need to do is look at a campaign by analysing the total sales during the promotion. The targeted product was the enticement; what you often need to assess is the extra products that were not part of the promotion.

Now what you need is to compare these sales to some appropriate benchmark figure (budget), which is now a bit difficult to determine. Commonly used here is last year this time, plus or minus a suitable percent for your shop. Make sure that you determine this benchmark before, you do the comparisons.

Some KPIs, I would be looking at would be

#1 Sales Revenue

#2 Number of sales

#3 Basket value

#4 Gross Margins

All these come out of your software.

If you are not able to measure the results, you’ll never know how effective your promotion was, and most importantly, you will not know what works in your shop.

With your Customer relationship management (CRM), why not now offer an extended birthday reward?

People respond positively to birthday greetings with a positive reaction, surveys show up to 88%. This is when people do some self-indulgence and spend. It possibly the most important marketing holiday in retail as nothing else seems to bring people in like a birthday offer. Here is a screenshot of a study.

According to a study, 51 percent of consumers do feel special if a retailer acknowledges their birthday, and 40 percent are more likely to shop at a retailer that recognises their birthday. I believe that as nothing seems to bring people into a shop than a birthday offer.

With our point of sale software, Birthday offers record typically of about 25% success.

Now because of the COVID-19, many people have missed their birthday and only now starting to come out. Why not offer an extended period on a birthday offer now? What you are saying is that we know you could not celebrate it then but now we are getting back to normal your reward is waiting for you to use.

Here is how it works and it is easy to set up, when you are entering a VIP customer, simply put in their birthday. It is much better if they use their real birthday but if not, put in their join date. You can always correct it later if they point it out.

Overall now, I estimate from our client base that general retail is down about 30%, much less in essential retail shops but there is another effect of this virus in that people are changing their spending patterns.

This is where your experience tends to work against you. What you are used too often does not apply in times of crisis like this one. 

Here is a report that can help you, 

Go to Register reports

Now select "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period"

Now select yesterday

Out will comes a report with the top sellers for yesterday and it will look like this.

Now, these need to be checked that you have enough stock now as this is now what is selling.

Give it a shot and see how you go.

It is a good idea every morning now to run this report.

PS If you haven’t already, consider setting up new buying options for your customers such as home delivery and click & collect.

Right now, when people go to a shop, consumers know what they want, they plan their trip carefully. Shopping is not a social activity now. If they browse, it is online. They know what they want, and they go straight in for it. They do not look right and they do not look left. 

If you want them to come to your shop you have to make sure that people online can find you and they are clear about what you have.

We call this type of online activity - The local Web. I think it is worthwhile studying this diagram because this is where you need to be now.

Here is what I suggest you do, imagine you are a consumer and you are looking for a product or service that you are in, do an online search for the product and try and find yourself?  Make sure you look up google, bing and yahoo.

Why not ask your customers if you were looking for XYZ product how they would look? 

Do you have a google business page? Google is by far the biggest search engine in Australia if you do not have a Google Business Page you are in trouble. Why not get it as it is free? Click here.

Google will be pushing people to these businesses.

Do you have a Facebook page? If no, why not again it is free?  Facebook has an estimated 16,000,000 Monthly Active Australian Users. If you think about it, there are 25 million Australians, so we are talking 60% of all Australians. The percentage is higher with shoppers.

While you are at it, why not check out your competitors online on social media platforms. Look for their Facebook page, what are they doing?

There are many more social media sites to review; here is a March 2020 list {removed} rated by importance to Australians.

PS All retailers that are doing well have websites; please do no longer consider it an optional extra. Its is not that hard to start, use your top-selling reports to put in your top-selling items, you do not need that many to start as a rule the ten stock lines do about 33% of the shop sales. The key things for each product should be readily available, and off you go.

Rethink your marketing

Whatever debates people have had in the past about marketing, e.g. social media, discount vouchers vs loyalty programs. The reality is now that the only form of marketing now is online, and the only growing market is online.  The debate is over for the next six months may be longer.

People are stuck at home. They are bored. They use online to buy. Whatever else is happening, sales online is holding up.

Do you have a digital strategy?

Do you have a Facebook page for your business, if so you need to use it now? If you do not have one, then I suggest you start now. Note we do offer a free Facebook advice line to our clients if you need some help there.

Do you have a loyalty club with email addresses, if so you need to start a regular email newsletter to your clients as we have been suggesting to our clients for years to do, well use it?

Do you have a website, now you need one. 

If you have a website, I hope you have a click and collect or delivery service options.

My advice is to revamp your online now.