Inside Outdoor Fall 2016

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Naturally, all of us would like
to sell everyone that ever shows
an interest in our products.
After all, that is exactly why we
are in business in the first place.
In the retail business, however,
trying to sell everyone that
comes into your store or finds
you on the Web is simply unreal-
istic, and you most likely would
go broke trying.
The old saying, “You can’t be
everything to everybody” comes
to mind. All good retailers
have an identity or image and
subsequently target a certain
demographic of likely custom-
ers. You certainly wouldn’t go
into a store specializing in work
boots looking for water sandals
just as you wouldn’t expect to
find cowboy boots in an out-
door store. Even the broadest
assortment that might be found
in an outdoor store carrying
many different departments is
governed to a certain extent by
consumer demographics, size
of store, or even the financial
strength of the owner.
Stores that attempt to
please everybody so as to not
miss a sale, over time end up
with a condition I refer to as “as-
sortment creep.” The symptoms
are easy to spot: lots of random
inventory, duplications, broken
sizes on popular styles, mark-
down opportunities from past
seasons that may have been
missed. In other words, a whole
lot of nothing. This is difficult to
spot on paper or by just review-
ing inventory reports. You may
observe that the stock levels are
over plan, but sales are slipping
for no obvious reason.
One solution I often share
with clients who are struggling
with this problem is the creation
of a “model stock.” The easiest
way to picture this is by start-
ing from scratch. Assume you
are opening a new location or
you have nothing at all in the
particular category. In the per-
fect world, you would map out
exactly the way this should look.
What lines you wish to carry, how
many styles, what sizes and col-
ors, a varied assortment of price
points, etc. Next, you will need
to extend out the dollars and see
how much you have at retail and
compare this number to your
open-to-buy plan. If you are way
over or short, you may have to
adjust the model by adding or
deleting. Congratulations, you
have just completed step one of
your assortment plan.
Step two is to compare your
“model” to what you currently
have. This is where the process
gets interesting. You will find
that over time, you have added
lines that perhaps now are not
important. You might find that
you have been filling into styles
that, once valid, are now slow
turning and may no longer
be relevant. You might even
discover that you have been
ordering too many sizes that in
reality end up on the sale rack
or, worse yet, are carried over
from year to year. What your
goal should be is simply to put
your inventory back into bal-
ance. In essence, this process
is much like rebalancing your
stock portfolio or 401k.
Once you have determined
where the holes in your plan ex-
ist, it is now time to correct the
problem. This is the final step in
the process. Now that you have
identified items that are not
part of your model plan, mark
them down immediately and
turn them into cash. Use the
funds generated by the cleanup
to reorder the sizes that may be
missing from the key styles that
you wish to go forward with.
Creating model stocks works
very well with almost every cate-
gory of merchandise that has the
ability to be reordered or filled
into. Try this concept if you find
yourself suffering from assort-
ment creep. You will be surprised
how many fewer customers walk
out empty handed.
Ritchie Sayner is the author
of “Retail Revelations-Strategies
for Improving Sales, Margins
and Turnover,” available on
Amazon. He can be reached at
“You can’t
be everything
to everybody.”
By Ritchie Sayner
Assortment Creep
Why you can’t afford to make every sale
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Inside Outdoor | Fall 2016 42