Home Center Merchant

Bill Fishman

Bill

Fisiman & Affiliates

11650 lberia Place

San Diego, Ca.9212t

I N fHe EARLY days of Hollywood I musicals, when money was needed to help pay for "mom's operation," the Mickey Rooney type would turn to the Judy Garland type and say, "Let's have a show." In fantasy it worked. The show was a quick cure to raise moneY. In retailing, advertising is the uJont the highest quolitg ovoiloble in CCR TVpe apparent quick cure. I recently attended a management meeting where it was decided to allocate an additional ad budget for a one-store promotion in an attempt to raise the sales volume. This is not always the best solution. I dug up a column written in l98l to highlight my view:

Advertising is the most exPensive and often least productive cure for a sick store. I've been witness, and sometimes party, to increasing an ad budget in the

Bulldlng Products Digest attempt to bring the volume 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 traflic and make customers buy. It won't. Ad' vertising is the vehicle that carries a message about merchandise and services. No matter how fancy or powerful that vehicle, unless the store realistically pres€nts those products and services, the advertising alone won't cure the ills.

During my days as director of sales promotion for a home center chain in the midwest. the fifth slore we opened in town missed our first year's goals substantially. A task force moved in to uncover the problems. We found the manag,er was a closed-minded,ironfisted, do-il-my-way personality and the rest of the store's management team was ineffective. There was much employee

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[Ue con fill oll Vour treoted lumber needs.. . londscope timbers, plywood, oll dimensionol lumber, 4r4 through l2rl2. On 616 ond forgor u;e hove lengths ronging up to 45 feet. Plus, ure nou, corrv in stock .60 FDN. tlJe olso hove our ouJn fleet of trucks to help yon solve ony delvery problems r/ou moy hove. Rl our moteriol is TPI grode morked. [Ue feoture the RIUPB quolity dissension. Customers felt uncomfortable shopping in the store. The out-ofstocks were at two or three times that of the other stores in the chain. Also, we were not as competitively priced as the market area demanded.

Immediately we replaced the store manger with the best "people" man we had in the bull peri. 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 and 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 previously committed themselves never to shop there again. They shook the manager's hand, and then proceeded to seek out the promised changes. They couldn't find 'em. Instead they faced the same disgruntled sales staff, the same poor housekeeping and merchandising and the same non-competitive prices. Many said goodbye forever. This time we added a credibility gap to our other illnesses.

The store eventually made it. It's now doing very nicely, thank you. But it took the third time around for us to realize that it takes more than words. It takes action, in-store merchandising and instore action.

Here are a few of the functions pulled from the in-store merchandiser's action check list:

. maintain an in-stock condition

Create visual displays that take the customer through logical price steps

Mass display products in conjunction with promotions create dual displays to cross-reference specific product categories

. Create promotional signing during a sales promotion event

Maintain the inventory of d-i-y instructions and books o Sign the displays o Supervise store-wide housekeeping

Communicate promotional pricing and inventory location to store personnel including part timers.

Rotate aged stock

. Schedule clinics and demonstrators

. Communicate price changes to selling force

. Remove expired signing o Police the price stickers ro be assured that all pricing within the same product, same model number is identical

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

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