Comments on: What would you do as new manager of a DIY store to improve the overall performance of Store?

By: Gear M

Gear M — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:40:27 +0000

ask your staff to be cheerful to customers it’s contagious

By: lmills148

lmills148 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:19:34 +0000

Stop giving advice. Diy store advice hurts people everyday, they should be held responsable for it.

By: Enoch Root

Enoch Root — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:02:40 +0000

Unless you can move it to any area where people are actually buying houses, you’re pretty stuck as regards to sales, but if you can improve sales turnover in some way, overall performance will surely follow too.

By: Tedruski

Tedruski — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:57:38 +0000

I would want to review sales reports from all departments for the last 12 months. Such as hardware,paint,tools,etc.
I would look at there ratio of % of total sales for the store.
Pay close attention to the time of year for each dept’s sales.
I would ask for list of inventory that has been on the sales floor for more than 60 days. This tells you that these items are not moving, you then need to find out why.
#1. Pricing? Is your store to high on pricing
#2 Appearance? Is the item no longer appealing due to dirty package, missing parts, only 1 item on rack. Inventory of only 1 item regardless of what it is signifies that no one wants to purchase this item – so I won’t buy it either. Have a minimum of 3 of everything.
#3. Is this merchandise in the wrong location in the store?
Some people especially regular customers have never seen all your store- By moving merchandise quarterly – Some of it – not all of it, you bring new items into view for those who either don’t have time to walk the entire store, or for those who always just buy bird seed.
Spend your first 3-4 months observing the store and the employees. Use this time to gather data like what I mentioned above. Check out your competition, do it early in the morning and see just how busy they are. count cars and trucks in the parking lot, you can do this with a good pair of binoculars each morning. You need to know your competition-this means their strengths and weaknesses.
Review employees and their performance and evaluation records. Is there a time clock? Do you have a pattern of tardiness in some employees? Do they take too long of a lunch or break? Do some like to have extended chats with customers?
Make it clear that everyone has a job to do. Store owners have a right to earn a profit from the money invested in this store, let your employees know that what they do or don’t do has an impact on the stores performance.
Remember the current employees will follow a good leader, even if they have to work a little harder and start coming to work on time.
Take pictures of the front of the store, the inside, displays,restrooms,etc., use these pictures to involve employees at your first company meeting – let employees suggest ways to clean up store appearance and image.
You have to pump new life into this store – employees also get burnt out if things stay the same for too long. Get them excited about coming to work again.

By: Jamie R

Jamie R — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:48:06 +0000

Fire most of the staff who seem to spend half the day avoiding doing anything that might be construed as work…
Then bring in people who would actually know what the hell they were talking about to customers….Most of them who work at B&Q have no idea at all….

By: Michael H. ID# 635700

Michael H. ID# 635700 — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:51:19 +0000

There is a lot you can do. Start by checking out your competition. See what they do or don’t do with there customers. Customer service should be your #1 priority. Make sure your employees greet each and every customer asking them if they can help. If they do not know the answer to the question then they should know who in your store can answer it. Make sure they are trained in customer service and the store.

Without customers there is no DIY store. Then focus on sales. Hire people with DIY experience or contractors such as plumbers, carpenters, electricians and so on. Keep your store clean and inviting. Remember, there are 2 things you have to watch, the first is your customers the second is your competition!

By: DIY Doc

DIY Doc — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:40:45 +0000

To just answer the Q directly, without the details you added, the key factor, as others have suggested is customer service. That would include knowledgable employees, either with specific knowledge of a dept. and context, or at least where things are in the store. OR, be able to admit they don’t know but will find someone who does know, what size Pipe, or where Pipe can be found.

Certainly a decent staff should know product, and applications of product, and in many cases be able to cross over, in some manner, from Paint, to Hardware, for example. Certainly having specialized staff would be ideal, but many stores don’t or can’t function that way.

I shop “hardware” stores, every day of my life, and I want decent customer service, even beyond stressing over any price, (which is often negligible in difference) in competitors operations. I want what I want and expect it to be available, or be available to order.

I want stores to better manage their merchandise, especially on the sales floor stock. That might mean having the cash out register, track inventory, and/or having someone on staff take regular walk throughs, checking for out of stock. One reason I say this is, through experience I often find something out of stock, ( I understand it) but the store, or its clerks seem to be unaware, or unaware more about whether or not that merchandise is in an upcoming shipment.

Accurate pricing is important to me, not in the sense of cost, but in the sense of being IN MY FACE so I know what an item costs. I don’t carry a bar code scanner with me to shop. I suggest too, that someone on staff PULL price specials signs, when a sale is over, or the merhandise runs out, and keep track of the merchandise that’s on clearance, discontinued, etc., for the benefit of the customer.

I’m adamant about being well taken care of for a valid reason. Example: I’m in FL. On my way to a job I pass a Lowes, new, clean, but nearly empty of staff. It happens to be on the same side of the highway as the direction I’m going. Opposite the Lowes, is a Home Depot. I could stop there as well, with some traffic management, or on my way from a job site. Further into my example, I may want a specific “WIDGET”, Lowes may or may not have it, but someone makes an effort to find it, or may call other stores for their stock, or order some after checking inventories and upcoming shipments, and I may leave, a happy customer. The same should be the case at their competitor, Home Depot, OR in Neither, or perhaps even in the smaller chains. Obviously that may not always be the case in a small operation, similar to Mom and Pop, independants, but even they should be hoping for return business.

If I’m not taken care of, it won’t matter how well staffed you are, how clean you are, how large and bright you are, how many yellow sales signs you post, OR even that your competition may charge more for an item,,, I’ll shop your competition.

This global economy is too IFFY to give up on service to the customer at this point.

Steven Wolf
Just my two “sense”