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Gandlelight and roses

Ambiance is a word most of us associate with restaurants, not the retailing and wholesaling of building products.

Yet the sense, feel and atmosphere of a store or office can affect its profitability as surely as the inventory does.

Some questions: if your customers wear dirty boots should you add white carpet? Should a store like Home Depot? Would your female customers (especially) favor a return to the sawdusty counters of old? Would wallpaper and new lighting improve the morale and performance of your office staff and lumber traders? Does an all-dav coffee pot add to the friendliness of a store?

While the answers seem pretty obvious, we still visit too many stores and offices that ignore the common sense attributes of that fancy word ambiance. Neatness and cleanliness are frequently noticeable by their absence. Yet they are often the dynamic duo that can inexpensively produce an overnight change for the better. Fresh paint and bright, new signage can quickly add interest and sparkle to four dull walls.

DAVID CUTLER editor-publisher

Inherent in the questions asked above is another query. Do you know your customers well enough to be certain that the changes you are making will produce the response you want? The classic example is the funky, old-timey store that violates modern merchandising principles, yet the customers love it. When changed, the customers depart. So-called open offices, where employees are separated by a low partition or maybe just a potted plant, can rob productivity if the lack of privacy and the ease of interruption offset the benefits of the system. More than one company has retreated when it found that the open office the consultant loved, just wasn't livable or practical for the people who spent their day in it.

While many customers seemingly don't notice, your store atmosphere registers, whether they consciously realize it or not.

Professional design help is widely available. But first you have to be certain that any changes will be favorably received. Without that accurate information, whoever does the redesign is shooting in the dark.

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We'd like the opportunity to share the lifetime benefits a DMS+ system can provide your business. For more information, please fax in this page.

For more information, fax this page to 402-330-6737 lompey