Keeping Your Stock Levels to the Minimum Required to Create Customer InterestBob Hutchinson, Eros Business Consulting This briefing follows on from our briefing on how to use a stock module as a tool on your PMS system to investigate better figures to improve your cost apportionment percentage for VAT attribution. Also to allow better categorisation to ensure the correct vat is being applied to each product type. Both actions can instantly add value on the bottom line. But in this briefing we are presenting ways that a stock module can be used to improve gross profits, practice security and create better stock mixes to increase footfall. Having your stock on file provides instant information on stock values so you can reduce the stock level to the minimum level in order to provide the necessary customer interest and best stock turnover allowing your stock to always look fresh. Removing old stock which has been on the bars for more than a year by repricing for promotions not only clears old stock but allows you to depreciate stock values and save on corporate or income tax. Many practices forget to re-order sold stock items that might well have been the season’s best repeat sellers, so their stock mix becomes skued towards poorer selling frames. Stock Mix Control (SMC) is the key to the most successful retail businesses as sales follow your stock merchandising. So why not review your frame sales by gender, price and material then you can then look at how your stock mix suits your sales history and customers’ selection. By adjusting your stock mix to suit your customer’s sales type, firstly you can affect their selection by having a greater selection in the frame types they like, now add a higher percentage increase in retail price mark to this “hot” selection and you will find that your clientele will follow your stock mix, accept the price range and your average sales will be improved. Sounds magical and it is. Looking at historical sales with net costs and retail sales exc. of VAT allows you to exactly measure gross profitability on individual frames and frame types and downloading this information to a spreadsheet allows you to play “if and what” planning for future price increases by virtually adjusting mark ups on different frame sectors using the numbers sold over a period for each frame or frame type. This will show how sliding scale price changes will affect future GP over the whole frame stock. This is a powerful tool when using stock mix decisions and price mark up allowing your stock to provide maximum GP without looking highly priced on the wall. Receiving new or replenished frames into a stock module asks the questions that are often overlooked such as: • Has the “cost in” changed since last time? Own more than one practice? Then stock tracking is essential for frame movements between practices and allows greater GP and sales comparisons between practices. It’s a must. Finally if you really want to measure your success or otherwise period by period (say quarterly) and not want to wait 18 months till your accountant provides the profit and loss information you need, you really should do a stock take. Simple stock take systems using stock modules take very little time to complete and allow opening and closing stock valuation figures to show exactly the cost of stock leaving the premises. This will therefore provide accurate GPs to show profitability. It also shows how many frames are being lost to pilfering when compared to known sales and how many frames are being wasted in the practice when parts are scavenged or cannibalised for repairs. In conclusion stock control modules are not a luxury but a vital part of a business’s armoury in ensuring for a profitable business.
Bob Hutchinson has been working in the centre of the optical sector since becoming an optometrist in the 70’s. Recently retiring from clinical optometry, he continues to act for many SMEs as well as larger groups in strategy, PR & marketing and financial advice with a specialism in optical VAT. His client base also includes large industrial companies in equipment and IT involved in the optical industry to name a few. Still involved in optical decision making his aim has always been to encourage regulators and negotiators to allow the sector to flourish, and to assist others to own and manage financially robust businesses. Eros Business Consulting
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