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Declining store traffic is a problem. The Five-Star metric helps furniture retailers increase traffic, sales volume, store revenue and bottom line profitability.
Business Intelligence & Mobile Dashboards
No matter which software system you are running, you have thousands of report queries available. How you sift through this data and make sense of it all is the purpose of business intelligence or “BI”.
Gross Margin Is In Your Head
David McMahon presents proven strategies that can produce 50 to 60 percent gross margins even in highly competitive markets.
Think Profit! – Part 3: Cash Flow
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: your statement of cash flow.
Think Profit! -Part 2: Your Balance Sheet
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: the Balance Sheet.
Think Profit!: In-Depth P&L Analysis
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: the Profit and Loss.
iPad and App Revolution Coming To Furniture
99% of furniture retailers will have their own app within 5 years.
Flexible Budgeting For Furniture Retailers
Flexible Budgeting lets you ‘Flex’ your top line and observe the resulting operational effects on your P&L and operating income.
Create A Performance Scorecard For Your Business
A performance scorecard is used to measure your progress with respect to achieving goals. Those business people that do it properly have a significantly better chance of succeeding in their marketplace.
Retail Break Even Analysis
This article will demonstrate how to calculate your break-even point of sales. It also provides real world examples of ways smart retailers can reduce their break-even points and level of risk.
Five Smart Steps To e-Tail Inventory Management
Today, consumers initiate their shopping experience. If they find you through Google, you have a chance to get their business. Here’s how to manage your e-tail inventory to make the most of an initial website contact. Included is a 12-step process that will help to make their buying decision easier.
Get Furniture Store Employees to Do What YOU Want
Using rewards as enticements and threats of punishment are approaches aimed at obtaining obedience and compliance, but they can overpower, rather than empower.
Pay For Performance!
A prime reason why top performing companies out perform their average performing peers is because they pay people extra when they perform better. Here is how to go about taking this path to success.
Let’s Simplify Your Furniture Inventory – Part 2
This article is about selling more inventory and improving inventory buying. David McMahon presents a coordinated approach to age your inventory, mark it down and provide sales compensation incentives to improve profitability.
Let’s Simplify Your Inventory
David McMahon shows you the core practices that the most profitable businesses follow to achieve the highest return on their inventory investment.
Eight Techniques to Boost Profit in Tough Times
Some retailers seem to always manage to perform well. In this article David McMahon takes a close look at what those successful retailers do to cut costs during lean times and achieve maximum returns. Specific steps to cut fixed costs and make retail operations more responsive to cost cutting measures are examined.
Measure Gross Margin Return On Inventory
Track this inventory metric to understand your customer’s buying patterns, establish a more relevant product mix, satisfy more people and sell more.
7 Common Characteristics of Profitable Furniture Businesses
What are the characteristics that separate the best operations from the worst?
Harness The Power Of e-Marketing – Part 2
Old media techniques broadcast a campaign that is the same for everyone. Here’s how to target specific groups with messages they want to see, when they want to see them.
Boost Cash Flow & Generate Sales Now
This article tells the story of a furniture store owner in St. Augustine who used fresh tactics to beat last year’s numbers in November, December, and January. How he did it is instructive and worth your attention.
You Can Harness The Power of e-Marketing
New media is uncharted territory for many furniture retailers, but with a bit of knowledge you can be one of the first in our industry to do it right.
Modern Ways To Increase GMROI – Part 2
Part 2: Old school ways to increase this critical measure are just not enough anymore!
Modern Ways To Maximize Your GMROI – Part 1
This article will highlight some modern ways to increase your GMROI by using technology to pull in extra customers and move merchandise while minimizing costs.
Add 250,000 Gross Margin $$ Without Raising Prices!
Clearance sales may have their time and place, however, there are many other more productive ways to increase GMROI. You can do this without increasing prices or holding inventory clearance sales.
Markdown Strategies That Work!
Part 4 of the Dynamic Inventory Management Series presents the Five Golden Markdown Steps. This efficient markdown system has a considerable impact on profitability and cash flow because it greatly increases turns, improves gross margin, sales and cash flow.
Articles
Lean Techniques Part 3: Marketing
Every furniture store needs a strategy for implementing LEAN and applying it to the marketing. Here’s how.
Lean Techniques Part 2: Lean Sales force
Every furniture store needs a strategy for implementing LEAN and applying it to sales force management.
Lean Business Practices: An Introduction
LEAN practices allow businesses to realize their potential. First of a multi-part series.
Rebuying and New Buying: Two Different Mindsets
Executing these activities properly and coordinating them improves sales and profitability.
Improve Performance With Professional Financial Planning
It’s a fact that the FP&A process increases the odds of retail success, producing better profits and cash flow than if you ignored FP&A. Here’s how it works.
What To Do When The Competition Enters Your Market
Retailers across the country are asking what they should do to prepare for well known chain stores and others that are entering their marketplaces. Here’s the answer to those questions.
Reverse Supply Chain Logistics
Reverse supply chain logistics is the practice of controlling resources that are returned, repairable, reusable or recyclable. It’s a catchy phrase for business activities that turn normally wasteful occurrences into profit.
Seven Performance Indicators You Should Track
Here are seven indicators you can use to know your business better, plus how you can use this information to surpass your unfocused competitors.
Managing Change: The Transformative Power of Performance Group
This article describes a number of powerful practices that act as a catalyst for retail growth. Each can help make your business operations more efficient, and maximize sales, profitability, and cash flow.
Improve Merchandise Performance Using GMROI
Willingness to use GMROI as a tool is one factor that separates best performing stores from their peers.
Sales Volume Planning 2014
By using the break-even sales equation your business can see in advance what volume will be required to produce your desired profit. You will be able to create a meaningful strategy and plan better for the upcoming year.
Strategic Planning 2014
David McMahon outlines the advantages of putting in place a strategic growth plan for the new year. For your business, strategic growth planning is the GPS for your retail future. It helps your business stay on course.
Should We Meet?
Seven important meeting types that set the stage for retail success.
Dealing With Retail Bottlenecks
The difference between operations that run smoothly and those that are chaotic is often the number and severity of operational bottlenecks.
Eight Secrets of Successful Retailers
In this issue, David McMahon speaks about eight practices that separate successful home furnishings retailers from their struggling competitors.
Chain Of Operations 2013
David McMahon presents a checklist for eliminating weak links to help you improve retail furniture store efficiency in 2013
Business Intelligence & Mobile Dashboards
No matter which software system you are running, you have thousands of report queries available. How you sift through this data and make sense of it all is the purpose of business intelligence or “BI”.
Gross Margin Is In Your Head
David McMahon presents proven strategies that can produce 50 to 60 percent gross margins even in highly competitive markets.
Think Profit! – Part 3: Cash Flow
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: your statement of cash flow.
Think Profit! -Part 2: Your Balance Sheet
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: the Balance Sheet.
Think Profit!: In-Depth P&L Analysis
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: the Profit and Loss.
iPad and App Revolution Coming To Furniture
99% of furniture retailers will have their own app within 5 years.
Flexible Budgeting For Furniture Retailers
Flexible Budgeting lets you ‘Flex’ your top line and observe the resulting operational effects on your P&L and operating income.
Create A Performance Scorecard For Your Business
A performance scorecard is used to measure your progress with respect to achieving goals. Those business people that do it properly have a significantly better chance of succeeding in their marketplace.