Just recently a number of industry magazines have posited that inventory management is the key to surviving and recovering in this challenging economy. But surprisingly the point was not about reducing inventory, but making sure there is enough stock.
Warren Shoulberg, publisher of HFN and one of my favorite industry commentators, notes "stock outages, slipshod displays and just plain poor execution on the selling floor" at a chain whose stores usually look great. In Home Accents Today, Lisa Choate of CAS is quoted, "Wall décor is a business of choice, and if there isn’t a breadth of selection, the sales in the category will start to decline... The more that is stocked, the more that will sell."
Self-serving as it may be, I agree wholeheartedly. Empty shelves, messy displays, and tired same-old-same-old artwork give consumers no reason to buy. No question that wall décor is a notoriously difficult category to merchandise. How many times have you seen the wall décor section of a major chain store in shambles? At the other extreme, highly organized plan-a-gram peg-board walls make stock-outs stick out like a sore thumb.
Every product category surely has its own set of challenges. For retailers, framed art is still a great category – it takes relatively little space and generates high revenue per square foot, with good margin. Art is (duh) a visual product, and it’s gotta look good in the store. Tired, messy, and especially empty shelves & walls don’t look good.
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