Display

1. In planning displays, do you devote the same care to the selection of merchandise, the use of effective lighting and arrangement, the evaluation of results, and the use of outside display aids that you do to advertising?

For many small stores, show window displays are more important than advertisements. They should be planned with care and executed with skill and imagination. But remember, the window                 is an important tool for selling not merely a stage for artistic effects.

2. Are your window displays planned to attract attention, develop interest, create desire, and prompt a customer to enter your store for a closer inspection?

Because display is a basic part of selling, it must carry the customer's mind through the psychological steps of a sale: attention, interest, desire, and action.

3. Do you change your window display frequently?

Frequent changes are especially important if your store is located where the same people pass often.

4. Do you give as much attention to your interior displays as to your windows?

As more and more merchants adopt the techniques of open display and self-selection, they find interior displays fully as important as show windows in attracting their customers' attention and interest.

Equipment And Layout

1. Are your fixtures and equipment adequate and up to date?

If changes are necessary, you should consider buying or leasing the equipment you need.

2. Is the layout of your selling floor planned for the convenience of the customer?

Related merchandise should be displayed close together; and customers should always be able to see where your different types of merchandise are.

3. Except for merchandise that needs special protection, does your layout encourage self-selection, making it easy for the customer to handle goods?

The current trend is to eliminate counters as a barrier between the customers and the goods on the shelves. Goods should be displayed where customers can handle them rather than having to ask a salesperson to show them. Self-selection and self-service fixtures not only save money; they also can enhance the display and sales of your stock.

4. Are your self-selection fixtures set up for customer convenience and to stimulate sales?

They should be designed with upper and lower tiers, if possible, to make maximum use of vertical space. However, take care that you don't have some goods virtually out of reach and out of sight, placed too near the floor or too far above the average person's line of vision.

5. Are goods that the customer may not be specifically looking for but is likely to buy on sight (impulse merchandise) displayed near your store entrances and at other points that have heavy traffic?

In fashion stores, customers should pass impulse goods on their way to inspect demand items. In food and variety stores, it is frequently a good idea to intersperse impulse good with demand items.

6. Are you continually on the lookout for opportunities to improve your layout and merchandise arrangement to expose more goods to customers in an attractive way?

Planning store layout is not a one time activity, but a continuing one. But if you have a steady repeat trade, avoid making frequent major changes that are likely to confuse customers.

7. Are your cash registers well located?

Locating your cash registers in the right places reduces the amount of walking your salespeople will have to do and provides greater control over the selling floor. It speeds the sale and leaves your salespeople more direct selling time.

8. Are non-selling and office activities kept out of valuable selling space?

Your non-selling and office activities should not encroach upon space that could more profitably be devoted to sales. Your business is selling. Supporting activities, though they are necessary, should be subordinated.

9. Are your stock areas as close as possible to the selling areas they serve?

Walking to a poorly located stockroom or reserve wastes your salespeople's selling time. Ideally, you should keep reserve stocks immediately behind the forward stock. In most new windowless stores, the perimeter of the store is used for storage.

10. Do you have flexible shelving and bin partitioning so that storage space can be properly adjusted to the merchandise?

Because merchandise categories must often be shifted, lack of flexibility in storage space causes unsightly crowding or results in wasted space.

11. Do you receive, check, and mark incoming goods at central points rather than on the selling floor?

In a very small store, there may not be enough room for a central receiving space. In such a business, the owner should make a particular effort to do the checking and marking somewhere other than on the selling floor. Not only will the appearance of the store be enhanced, but the checking and marking will be more accurate. Careless checking is a major source of loss and of unintentional acceptance of goods not ordered.

Why do some Business managers reach the profit target more often than others? They do it because they maintain their performance
pointed in this direction - management of profit earning. They never lose sight of this goal - to complete the year with a profit.

This guide Gives suggestions which should help an owner-manager to zero in on profit making. It points out that you must stay
informed, make timely decisions, and take action. In effect you need to control the actions of your organization rather than being
controlled by them.

Topnotch Functionality in golfing, shooting, and fishing demands knowledge, practice, and endurance.

Likewise in Small businesses, year-end profit arrives to the owner-manager who strives for topnotch performance. You achieve
profit making targets by understanding your operation, by practicing the art of making timely, balanced decisions and by
controlling the company's activities.

Adapt the Suggestions in this manual to your circumstance. They ought to allow you to call the shots to maintain your business
headed in the right direction - toward profit making.

First Rule of Profit Making: Know Your Small Business. The Time-honored truth"Knowledge is power" is particularly pertinent to
this owner-manager of a small business. To maintain your company pointed toward profit you need to keep yourself well informed
about it. You must be aware of how the company is doing before you can enhance its performance. You must know its weak points
until you can correct them. Some of the knowledge you need you pick up from day-to-day personal observation, but records should be
your principal source of information about gains, costs, and earnings.

Know Your Gain. The gain and loss statement (or income Statement) prepared frequently each month or each quarter from your
accountant is one of the most vital indicators of your company's value and health. You need to be sure that this statement
contains all of the facts you will need for evaluating your profit. This statement must pinpoint each earnings and price area. For
example, it should show the gain and loss for each of your products and product lines as well as the gain and loss for your whole
operation.

It is a good Idea to have your own profit and loss statement prepared so that it shows every single item for the current interval,
for the same period last year, and for your current year-to-date. For example, a P&L statement for the month of November would
reveal expenses and income for the current month, for November this past year, and prices for the eleven months of the present
year. Many corporations publish their annual reports with a few previous years therefore stockholders can compare earnings.

Comparison is The key to utilizing your P&L statement. If your accountant is not already furnishing figures which you can compare,
you need to discuss the possibility of having them supplied.

Financial Ratios from the balance sheet also help you to understand if your profit is what it should be. For example, the
proportion of net worth (return on investment ratio) shows what the company brought on the equity capital invested.

Know Your Costs. An owner-manager ought to know prices in detail. Following that, you can compare your price figures as a
proportion of sales (operating ratio). Be sure your costs are itemized so you can set your fingers on the ones that appear to be
climbing or falling according to your experience and the cost figures of your industry. When costs are itemized, you are able to
spot the culprit once the overall figure is higher than what you'd budgeted. Take advertising costs for example. It's possible to
catch the offender should you split out your advertising expenses by product lines and by media. In addition, a thorough check of
inquiry yields from advertising will help avoid unproductive publications.

In knowing your Prices, remember that the formula for gain is: Profit equals Sales minus Costs.

Know Your Product Markup. Be sure That the pricing of your products provides a markup adequate for the sort of profit you expect
to achieve. You must keep constantly informed on pricing because you have to adjust for increasing costs and at the same time keep
prices competitive. Knowledge on your markup also helps you to run close outs with your eyes open. Continuing to generate
something that just a few clients desire is an effective merchandising tool just when you use it on goal - for example, to hold or
draw buyers to other high markup solutions. Don't be afraid to drop a loser from online.

Garbage-In, Garbage-Out. An Owner-manager shouldn't fudge the documents. The acronym GIGO that the computer business uses is
accurate with manually stored records in addition to with machine-processed ones. When an owner-manager allows"garbage" to go into
the records, the reports will contain"garbage" Reports need not be extensive but they must be accurate.

Search For Trends. Try not to look at a single month's sales or Profit picture alone. The characters on your operating statements
are significant only when you set the image in the ideal framework - that is, take a look at your figures from the context of
what's happened and what is likely to take place. In that manner, you grab a downward trend before it gets out of hand.

You should also Concern yourself with all the figures behind the bucks - for example, the number Of units sold or the number of
orders. Insist on cost-per-unit figures. The Fluctuation of the cost-per-unit can be much more meaningful than just looking At the
dollar figures alone. Another idea would be to display these comparative Figures on charts so that significant trends can be
viewed readily.

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