Home Center Merchant

Bill Fishman

Bill

Fishman & Affiliates

11650 lberia Place San Diego, Ca.92128

I'U OfteN asked what does the term I"merchandising an ad" specifically mean? I answer this question with an instance that occurred over 15 years ago when I was the director of sales promotion for a national home center chain.

The buyer walked into my office and said, "Bill, I just gambled on a helluva buy. I'm bringing in acarload of vanities. There's no room in the warehouse and my goal is to move them all out over the weekend. I've negotiated for enough cooperative advertising funds to run a full-page ad but I need your help in working out a program to merchandise the ad . , . to be sure that we've got a sell-out. What do we do?"

Well, the first thing we did was schedule a two-color page ad in the Thursday nicht paper to run during the week that the merchandise hit the stores. We then arranged to have the center promotional aisles cleared for the total vanity display.

Fact tags and price tags were made to hang from each vanity showing the features, benefits, regular price and sale price. A banner was produced to hang above the entire vanity display. When the customers walked into the store they just couldn't miss this mass display down the center aisle.

The store received the proof of the ad so that they could grasp the size and dramatic presentation of it. The buyer then sent out bulletins telling all store personnel about his upcoming major event and what the store could expect in the way of vanity and accessory sales if they merchandised the ad correctly.

Before the ad actually ran, a telephone conference call was arranged to again emphasize the importance of this promotion and what it would mean to that department in the way of sales and profits.

Everyone from the receiving clerk to the cashier knew about the sales event and his role in keeping the floor inventory full and neat during this planned, three-day promotion. The store personnel were given an incentive program that all employees would share in if the store reached the total sell-out goal.

By Thursday evening the store was set and readyto greet the vanity customers. It worked. Monday morning the store reported a complete sell-out. It was one of the biggest weekends ever recorded for that key of the register.

What makes this story interesting is that the newspaper lost the ad. It never did run. Think about that for a minute. By the way, how ready is your store for next week's ad?

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