One Strategy That Cuts Dollar Store Costs While Building Dollar Store Sales

When you start a dollar store there is a great deal of pre-planning and work required before a single shopper even walks through the door. While some of this effort is just laying the groundwork for opening, other actions can have a profound impact on costs and sales for your business. It is those few high leverage actions that cannot be overlooked. They must be performed and then supported for as long as you are in business. In this article I discuss one of the easiest yet impactful actions you can take when you start a dollar store. This one action can both reduce dollar store costs while building sale levels for your business.

So what is this one action that both saves money and generates sales for your store? It is as easy as creating overhead sales area on the gondola fixtures of your store. This can be done by either adding extenders to existing fixtures if they are too short, or by simply adding shelving at the top if they are of the right height.

Build sales as shoppers remove items from the overhead area. That's right shoppers will reach overhead and select items off of these storage shelves; even when the same items are displayed below. Of course that means you will need to place the excess merchandise as if the items were being displayed to be sold sale.

Build sales as employees quickly refill partially empty displays. With excess merchandise stored immediately above the already displayed items, your store will always look fully stocked. There is no reason employees who are straightening the store can't quickly reach up and restock from the overhead merchandise as they proceed through the store.

Reduce costs for labor. Not only will your store look fully stocked, but when you start a dollar store this strategy is a great labor and payroll saver. No longer must employees look on the sales floor for merchandise needing replenishment and then proceed to the stock room to sort through excess merchandise trying to find the right items. No more needing to haul the right number of replenishment items to the sales floor to restock. The merchandise is immediately above the area need replenishment.

Reduce dollar store costs by reducing back stock storage space. With the majority of the excess merchandise overhead on the sales floor there is an opportunity to reduce the space for back stock. When you start a dollar store this space can be eliminated entirely, or it can be turned into addition sales floor area to generate even more sales.

Reduce dollar store costs by not having merchandise overlooked. One of the biggest problems associated with maintaining a back room area for excess merchandise is the merchandise in this area does not make you money while it sits out of the shoppers' view. Even worse is having the merchandise, but not knowing it. Possibly a carton has fallen behind a storage shelf. The bottom line is this overlooked merchandise cannot be used as replenishment for the sales floor.