Outdoor Retailer - March 2021 - 11

these areas. If you are losing sales, is it due
to sell-through and inventory issues? Is the
wrong item merchandised on the fixture?
Can you bring a stronger item to the surface
in order to generate more sales? If you are
gaining more than your average, why? Is the
storytelling strong? Is there a good balance
of higher price points vs. key items? Do you
need to swap out items on the surface due to
such a high-performing week? Asking these
questions will allow you to identify trends in
your business.

WORTH IT?
Calculate cost per surface
for all of your displays.

RETAIL 101

Know Your Worth
Learn which fixtures in your store are generating the most
sales dollars with this simple activity. by Jordan Martindell

Lauren Danilek

KNOWING WHERE AND HOW PRODUCTS ARE
moving out of your store makes the very best
merchants. I like to remind business owners
that " hope is not a business plan, " and one of
the best ways to drive business in a retail environment is to know your flow of product. This
can mean a lot of things, but one way to delve
into how your store is performing is by analyzing your cost per surface.
What is cost per surface? Cost per surface
equals the amount of sales generated on an individual surface/fixture. This could be a rack,
a table, a shelf, but typically these surfaces are
in visible, high-traffic areas where customer
conversion is frequent.
HOW?
Calculate cost per surface by taking all of the
items that sold from your surface in one week
and adding them together. Let's use a table
with a shirt ($58), sweater ($98), travel book
($19), and pair of pants ($118). If you sold 25

shirts, 35 sweaters, 5 books, and 15 pairs of
pants, you would calculate it like this: $58(25)
+ $98(35) + $19(5) + $118(15) = $6,745.
If your store generated $125,000 for the
week, that surface contributed 5% of your
sales.
Pick a few more key fixtures and determine
their cost per surface. You will want to do this
activity for about a month (or two) to get an
average number. This average will become
your expected goal number for each surface.
By knowing this number, you can set an expectation for this surface (its goal is to be 5%
of weekly sales, etc.).

WHY?
Knowing cost per surface allows you to get
a better sense of how your merchandising
and fixture real estate impacts your final
sales numbers. During store walkthroughs,
assess your top-selling fixtures and determine if you are losing or gaining sales in

TROUBLESHOOTING
What if my display is supposed to last for
multiple months? This is a question with
which a lot of retailers struggle and is a situation to which retailers should respond with
urgency. If your surface that is supposed to
generate 5% of your sales starts to underperform after a couple of weeks, you need
to change something fast. Do not waste a
strong piece of real estate on products that
have sold through and are piecey (no longer
have full size runs, color runs, etc.). Are there
similar items you can swap out that will yield
the same results? You can typically maintain
a well-selling surface for multiple weeks,
but, at some point, when you have sold
through much of the merchandise, retailers
should feel empowered to reimagine those
surfaces with a fresh perspective.
TAKEAWAYS
* You can't " hope " your way into strong sales
performance.
* Knowing which areas in your store
generate the most sales dollars can help
you make strong, impactful merchandising decisions.
* Identifying trends in overperforming/
underperforming fixtures gives you
information to apply to other areas of
your sales floor.
* Being a proactive merchandiser and
business leader can impact your sales
positively.
* After performing this activity in detail
for a few months, this information will
become intuitive. O.R.
March 2021 / OUTDOOR RETAILER 11

Outdoor Retailer - March 2021

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