Your Passion Could Hurt Your Business

Many small retailers started their specialty retail business because that specialty was their passion. A golfer opened a golf shop; a skier opened a ski shop and so on. Those people are also probably early adaptors and would have bought almost anything if they thought it might enhance their performance. Unfortunately that might get in the way of understanding the assortment and amount of inventory to carry. They might not possess well-developed inventory management expertise. They invariably have a passionate commitment to the merchandise they are carrying, but a poor understanding of their customer’s needs and expectations. This is where they need to develop a plan from previous sales records pulled from their Point of Sale software. Effective inventory management is having the right products in the right place at the right time in the right quantities. It combines merchandising, operations, logistics, vendor management, in-depth quantitative analysis and a commitment to detailed planning. This planning can be accomplished with hours of painstaking work with spreadsheets or using retail software that does it for them. You need to do what you do best, be on the floor and sell, not a captive to your computer.