Ten Profit Makers

Our friend, Gabe Trahan, was a speaker at the NCPA Annual Convention that concluded this week in Kansas City. While there, we asked Gabe to give us ten tips to share with Profit Makers readers. Here they are:

1. "Masking tape" - Place the date when an endcap, floor display, and/or counter display was first used on the sales floor on the back of the display with a piece of masking tape. If it hasn't produced any sales in 2 weeks, then relocate it or take it completely down. If sales slowly start to go down, give it 2 more weeks by relocating it.

2. "Calendar or a Planner" - With red ink, remind yourself of merchandising, marketing, and buying projects no less than one month ahead of time.

3. "Merchandising Bible" - Have your merchandiser keep a log of merchandising success and less than successes. The merchandising bible is the store owner's property! It is not to go with the merchandiser if they should change employers.

4. "Seasonal Worksheets" - Still available at https://ncpa.org/one-pager-tips-archive. These help you remember from year to year what worked and what didn't.

5. "Shopping Hand Baskets" Until all of our customers can learn to juggle, every store needs to make hand-baskets available. Baskets should be placed 9 steps from the entrance, not at the checkout counter! Medium to large stores should have them in 3 locations, front, middle and near the prescription department.

6. "Clip Strips" Great for garnishing impulse sales. Have at least two strips in the cough and cold section and 3 to 4 in your seasonal displays. Also, clip strips made with metal clips are great for displaying sales flyers (circulars).

7. "Shower Curtain Hook" - Great tool for hanging single copies of circulars, clip on the end of end caps and aisles.

8. "Power Wings" - Can be used as a good home for some floor displays and or uses as extended exposure for end caps. Use one if the aisle is at least 4ft wide, two if your aisle is at least 5ft wide.

9. "Want Book" - Get in the habit of asking your clients if they found everything they were looking for, remind them that you have 48-hour access to thousands of items. Think of your wholesaler's warehouse as your extended back room. Caution, you do not have to carry everything that someone asks for.

10. "Sign Holders" - One of my favorites! Sign holders only take the day off if there is no sign in them! Use them to promote pharmaceutical supplements and your private label.