Deadly Efficiency

    Crossover technology, suppliers of the highly regarded XPos electronic point of sale systems, has conceived a five-point plan to help customers fully utilise their XPos system, and ultimately, to improve efficiency and profit. ‘Point 1’ of this plan is to ‘Reduce Dead Stock’, as Phil Barnard, managing director of Crossover, explains…

    Crossover technology, suppliers of the highly regarded XPos electronic point of sale systems, has conceived a five-point plan to help customers fully utilise their XPos system, and ultimately, to improve efficiency and profit. ‘Point 1’ of this plan is to ‘Reduce Dead Stock’, as Phil Barnard, managing director of Crossover, explains

    hen we asked our customers how Crossover Technology could help to boost their business efficiency, we expected to receive calls for improved functionality and further technological advancement. We were surprised when the most popular response was a request for guidance to ensure pros were getting the most out of their XPos system.

    Crossover XPos 2

    To achieve this, we thought of a ‘5 Point Plan’ of best business practices that club pros could follow, with each segment of the plan enabled in various ways by the XPos system, as follows:

    1. Reduce Dead Stock

    Clear out stock that is over a certain age to get cash back in to the business.

    2. Buy Better

    Monitor past performance to evaluate which products and suppliers should be carried forward to next year.

    3. Stock Better

    Establish better stocking and identification of products, in order to better analyse and control stock

    4. Motivate Staff

    Establish reporting to monitor staff performance, incentivise sales and reduce discounts

    5. Motivate Customers

    Actively collect customer data and monitor customer sales activity, to better promote services to customers.

    For this article I will focus on point one: Reduce Dead Stock.

    ‘Dead stock’ is product that has not sold out of the shop over the year. It is one of the biggest problems facing pro shops, especially after poor sales in 2012. Dead stock is a problem as it is money that is tied up: a retailer has invested but has not been able to recoup the cash. Dead stock could also be taking up retail space that could be occupied by products that do sell.

    The first job here is to identify what products IS the dead stock. For a pro working with XPos, this is easily achieved by calling up an ‘Unpopular Products’ report within XPos. This highlights individual items that are not selling, how many are in stock, when they were last sold and what they cost. The identity of unpopular products often surprises retailers, but once it is earmarked, retailers need to rid themselves of that dead stock as efficiently as possible.

    Limited time is money

    Professionals need to hold a sale. It sounds obvious, but a well-constructed, limited-time sale can actually increase footfall and provide a long-term boost to business. It MUST be limited in its time scale – that way professionals can increase the urgency factor, and it prevents having rails with old stock clogging up the shop. Anything that doesn’t sell can go on EBay or Amazon as a last resort, just to get something for it.

    Reducing dead stock has been very successful with XPos users – once they were motivated to give it a go. Most of our shops had not used the ‘Unpopular products’ report before, but one of the first participants to run such a sale cleared over £6,500 worth of stock that had just been gathering dust.

    One way or another, the dead stock has got to go.

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    Miles is the Owner and Managing Director of Robel Media, and the award winning GOLF RETAILING Magazine. With over 25 years in the media business, Miles has a wealth of experience in magazine publishing, digital media and live events. HANDICAP - 7.2