Consider this a consumer is expected to go through all these products to find the one that they want!. Is it any wonder that many experts say that modern retail today is confusing the consumer as it is giving them too many options. If you look through your POS software products, it is probably confusing to you also.
But here’s the extra problem
Each product you have has to be displayed, and if you have two or three similar products for basically the same potential market you need more display room, and you have more tied-up capital in stock.
Don’t worry. There’s a solution.
Reduce the range for that product mix and put in place products for with a new market for example instead of having five different hair brushes have two hair brushes, some clips, headbands etc.
To do this what you need to do is determine your poor selling items and consider whether to discontinue them intending to replacing them with other things. Because you want to buy more of a particular product, you may be able to buy better, plus you are freeing up capital tied up in low selling stock items.
It’s easier than you think
Go to Register reports
Now select "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period"
Now the following comes up.
I will select a day, for example, but you usually would put in a year, now select a department
Out comes a report with the top sellers
Now, everything on this list needs to be marked, everything *NOT* on this list consider *CULLING*
Now you’re set!
What I suggest is that every month you move a few items to a more prominent position, cull a few items and replace them with new test products. A buyer at Coles told me that at any time he wants about 12 new items in his department. I suggest using this figure as a benchmark.
