One successful and popular method of improving a business is called kaizen. It originated in Japan, and the word translates to mean change (kai) for good (zen). It works by using an approach of continuous, incremental improvement.
The idea of kaizen is that you work on making small improvements. Every day you fine-tune your processes and practice. What you are working for is continuous improvement and that over time, all of these incremental changes will add up, and make a significant positive impact on your business.
Now people often tell me that for some reason their retail shop cannot do what someone else in a similar retail shop is doing. For some reason, they are different. Okay, what about doing what you have done in the past with just a little better. That person you were had with similar resources to you now, a similar shop and customers? Ask yourself, what did your past self do better? What about competing with that person? Interested, if so, you are looking at kaizen.
What you do is use your historical reports in stock, sales trends, promotions and customer sales and now compare it to what you are doing now?
It is easy to do look at the calendar last year and find a date comparable to yesterday and now check your performance compared to their performance.
Now look at their tomorrow and see what they did then and how your shop looks for your tomorrow? It will be a massive benefit to you to try to predict what items will sell well and which probably won’t. What you are trying to do is your stock, get your prices right and guide your promotions (Father's Day coming). This can add up to running a profitable and successful small business.
Here is a start
Go to Register reports
Now select "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period"
Now the following popped up.
Put in *their* tomorrow
A report for the top sellers for today comes up.
Now, these need to be checked that you have enough stock because that is what they sold, why not you.
Also while you are at it, one point that comes up a lot in retail is a top seller today will be a good seller tomorrow. Technically its called decay. Typically in retail, what you expect to see is that an item that sells 50 today will sell about 66% of 50 or about 30 tomorrow and day after that 66% of 30 and so on. What you need to do is identify today what is selling well to check you have adequate stock for tomorrow.
Gives there two tips a shot, I am sure you will pick up some business.
