Fall 2013 Hardlines Strategies

STORE PROGRAMS

Your Year in Review New Tool Helps Blish-Mize Customers Create a Plan for Profitability

W hile the

performance of your business is

“The more you know about your busi- ness, the better prepared you are to make decisions that affect your overall profit- ability,” says Blish-Mize Vice President of Marketing Chuck Short. “The purpose of this report is to give you as much informa- tion about your business as we can. We’ll then use that information to help you iden- tify opportunities for the future.” At the end of every year, starting this year, your Blish-Mize sales representative will gen- erate a report, showing all of your purchases billed through Blish-Mize for 2013, and com- pare that to the same data for 2012. Using that year-end report, your sales representa- tive will then help you identify your store’s strengths as well as those areas that offer growth opportunities for the future. Best of all, while compiling and analyz- ing this type of report manually could take hours of your time, your Blish-Mize sales representative will provide the report to you at no charge, along with a consultation about how you can use it. Blish-Mize will offer you an Annual Review report to help you identify growth opportunities for your store. likely on your mind all year long, the beginning of a new year is always a good time to review where you’ve been and decide where you’re going. That’s why this year

pricing available from Blish-Mize. “A percentage that is too low indicates you are not taking advantage of all the opportunities we offer you to either promote products to your customers or to use special pricing to make a better margin,” says Short. “I encourage you to take advantage of the discounts and promotions we offer at the Buying Markets and throughout the year. They can make a difference.” Services and Sales Your Annual Report will also include a review of Blish-Mize programs and services, along with a schedule of promotions from Blish-Mize available to you for the upcom- ing year. Creating a list of promotions for the year will help you plot your advertising calen- dar and plan your Buying Market purchases. Your sales representative will review the programs and services Blish-Mize has to offer and answer questions you may have. For more information, please email Chuck Short at Chuck.Short@blishmize.com.

Here are some of the key elements of the report and how you can use them to improve your profits in the coming year. Product Category Analysis Each Annual Report will compare pur- chases of all products billed through Blish- Mize for two years. For example, in the 2013 report, you’ll be able to see purchases for 2013 as compared to 2012. The product category analysis portion will break down purchases by product group. In addition to showing your strengths, this portion of the report will identify those categories with possibilities for growth for the coming year. Your Blish-Mize sales representative will offer suggestions, such as revised assort- ments or a new merchandising plan, for improving those areas.

Promotions to Purchases/Sales

The promotions-to-sales number, based off your total purchases, will indicate how well you are taking advantage of promotional

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