Home Center Merchant

Bill Fishman

Bill Fishman & Affiliates

'1 1650 lberia Place

San Diego, Ca. 92128 changes. Theycouldn't find'em. Instcad they faccd the same disgruntlcd salcs staff, the same poor housckccping and merchandising and the samc noncompctitive priccs. Many said goodbyc forever. This time we added a crcdibility gap to our other illnesscs.

ADVERTISING is the mosr exp€n- Isive and least productive cure for a sick store. I've been witness, and sometimes party, to increasing an ad budget in the attempt to bring thevolume and margins up to a store's projections. Alone, an increased ad budget never worked!

Many retailers look upon advertising as chicken soup, penicillin, the wonder ingredient that's going to bring in traffic and make customers buy. It won't. Advertising is the vehicle that carries a message about merchandising and services. No matter how fancy or powerful that vehicle, unless the store realistically presents those products and services, the advertising alone won't cure the ills.

During my days as director of sales pro' motion for a home center chain in the rnidwest, the fifth store we opened in town missed our first year's goals substantially. A task force moved in to uncover the problems. We found the manager was a close-minded, iron-fisted, do-it-my-way personality-and the rest of the store's management team was ineffective. There was much employee dissension. Customers felt uncomfortable shopping in the store. The out-of-stocks were at two or three times that of the other stores in the chain. And, we were not as competitively priced as the market area demanded.

Immediately we replaced the store manager with the best "people" man we had in the bull pen. Next we instituted a special promotion program in the immediate shopping area of the store. The finest sales letter I have ever written was part of that campaign. It was a simple letter. The top was adorned with a photo of our new, smartly attired manager. over his signature was an invitation to come in, see the changes, and shake his hand. The letter was warm, sincere Nnd inviting. But it was also too soon! The letter was a cure for the traffic ailment-but the patient almost died.

Our campaign brought back many customers who had previouslycommitted themselves never to shop there again. They shook the manager's hand, and then proceeded to seek out the promised

The store wcntually made it. It's now doing very niccly, thank you. But it took the third timearound for usto realizcthat it takes morc than words. It takes merchandising action. In-store merchandising. In-store action.

By the way, here are a few of the functions from a curcnt in-store mcrchandiser's action check list: o Maintaining an in-stock condition o Creating visual displays thar tate the customer through logical price steps o Mass displaying spccific products in conjunction with promotions o Signing the displays o Creating dual displays to crossreference specifirc product categories o Creating promotioDal signing during an event o Store-wide housckeeping o Rotating aged stock o Policing the price stickers to be assured that all pricing within the sane product, same model nrtmt)er is idcntical o Competitive shopping o Maintaining the invcntory of d-i-y instructions o Scheduling clinics and demonstrators o Communicating pricc changes to sclling force o Communicating promotional pricing and inventory location to storc pcrsonnel a Removal of expired signing

Most importantly we lcarned that we had to be specific in telling the sales force what is expected of them and how they can meet our expectations. Our ads talked about our "friendly, knowledgeable sales help." Too many times, however, our customers rGgognized that the guy behind the counter wasn't the guy who wrote the ad.

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