Here are some of the key changes I made in 2012 to increase profitability in my department, some of these things might seem very basic, but a solid foundation can make all the difference, Apologies for the length, I’m just passionate about what I do!
Increasing sales
-Very strong merchandising, I believe this accounts for a lot of the success.
- I reviewed every PLU to ensure accurate cost and retail pricing (a lot of items were very popular but were making nothing or selling at a negative margin due to recent cost increases, I’m looking at you fresh beef and chicken!)
-Removed slow moving items, did not bring in any oddball items except if customer wants an entire case (that is items like: Scottish haggis, lutefisk, flank steak, corned beef in a bag, navel beef in a tub) yes one or two people want these items, but you don’t want any dead zones in your case, I carried 10 units of navel beef for two months, the week after I threw 8 of them away somebody wanted it and it was hard to say no but I did.
-Utilized every square inch of display space for product, this meant constant changes for a few months until we found the best product mix
-A large increase in manager specials- if you are giving away t-bone’s for almost nothing, make everything you can out of that item and aggressively advertise with a sale sign and word of mouth, customers are still getting a deal on marinated steak, just not the same as a warehouse pack
Increasing Margin
-This was the first year exceeding budget after slow increases over the last year
-Focus on: Consistency
-My team have always done an excellent job, but some items needed to be filled daily, consistently. For value added (breading, marinades) I came up with a plan to focus on only 4 big selling, high margin items, but keep them in stock all the time
-Also focused on in store sausage making being more consistent, this meant small changes like reducing the variety to focus on having the product available everyday
-Again, reviewing all items in the dept on a regular basis
-More consistency:
-Everyone on the team continued to produce above average fresh product, we kept running out of very fresh looking items that weren’t even on sale!
Expense Control
my ordering has improved greatly after a few bumps in the road (sorry Lee for that extra 1000 lbs of pork trim)
-Pretend every dollar is your own money, don’t waste even $1.00 on something that you can’t move through quickly before expiry
-Review every single expense and find ways to reduce costs, last year I discovered that we were getting charged too much for laundry, I then found out it was from using too many cleaning cleaning rags, when I dug deeper I found out another department had never paid for cleaning rags for years and all this time we were paying the bill!
Scheduling
-Utilize your staff to their fullest potential, find out what their strengths are and build from that
-Delegate! !! my entire in-store made sausage program is the responsibility of one staffer, and he has done an excellent job making it his own baby, staff do not want you watching over their every move, give them some responsibility and they will appreciate it
-Schedule based on the needs of the business, and be flexible with what your staff want, I work 3 out of 4 weekends a month simply because I prefer Monday and Tuesday off to be with my family, and those are the days that work the best.
Thanks!!
P.S. what do you guys think, anything you want to add?
I worked for a boss who almost always had the highest gross in the company. At the time they had 27 stores I think. In addition to having a high gross, he almost always had the lowest inventory. One very effective method he used was he went out of his way to discourage the sale of sale items. He'd make as small a display as possible instead of high stacked double rows. Or he'd put nothing out and force people who read the ad to ask for the item. Then he'd bring them one or two to choose from. He'd remove or never put up the sign. You didn't get an ad item by accident or random. You had to ask for it. So he sold more high profit items and less low profit items.
In addition to that, he used lower tares than the other stores. Our scales were pre programmed for correct tares on everything. However, they could be changed as needed. For frozen items that might bleed. For double soakers. For a tray change, etc. Our ground beef had a .03, or .04 tare. I forget exactly. But I caught him using .01 That was actually enough because we used the old cards underneath. Not trays. However, it didn't allow for any bleeding and Weights & Measures will bust you for that. Getting that extra .02, or .03 per package really can make a difference
AND one time we were mistakenly given our deli load and another stores deli load too. A double order. He immediately saw the problem and put the entire wrong load in our wall deli and crushed the boxes (which had the store number on it). He destroyed the evidence and lied about it when the supervisor called him asking if he got the wrong load. The supervisor called at least twice, knowing we had it. He told my boss to check and check again. He was proud of this and laughed about it for about a week.
So in addition to being very good, he cheated. Day in, day out month after month the best gross in the company.
