Talking with a newsagent the other day they mentioned their success with a product category they had rejected for several years. That category is now delivering close to $50,000 a year in good margin revenue to the business. Better still, it is attracting a category of shopper not common to their business.
They mentioned it because they heard me say to another retailer you are not your customer.
None of us in retail are our customers yet too often local small business retailers stock their shops with what they like, missing opportunities to give more local shoppers what they like.
Ranging new products is speculative, a risk. But, trying to attract new customers requires this type of risk taking, done carefully.
The key is the data analysis of the performance of what you have taken on, to measure whether it stays or goes. If it is working, the opportunity could be to expand into allied niche areas, to grow the opportunity further.
Accepting that you don’t know what you don’t know can free you to trial products you have rejected in the past and, through that, uncover valuable opportunities for your business.
My advice is to always have a modest inventory and space investment on the shop floor of new products that you would not usually carry. Let them show you if they work or not.
Very good points Mark.l This is perhaps the toughest area of our work – deciding what to take a risk on. We’ve done it with a few areas and have had great success, while others have crashed and burned!
We’re about to change our store layout for giftwares from wall and gondolas to purely giftware tables, which we hope will open up other opportunities for trying out new stock/suppliers/categories.
We have set ourselves a monthly budget of up to $1000 once the new look is in place, just to try new stock and suppliers. We’ll let you know how we go!