McMahon's Retail Finance & Inventory Articles
Financial management and inventory control articles for furniture stores by retail consultant David McMahon.
Funnels create customer experience paths that boost retention, generate positive word of mouth marketing and turn more customers into repeat customers.
Why is there a huge variation in the open service per million dollars in sales volume metric among furniture retailers? And, what can be done about it?
Most retail businesses have systems in place to attract external customers.
Why should processes to attract and keep employees be much different?
Retailers use CXM to automate sales and service processes. Automation triggers save time and produce meaningful results quicker.
CXM is a tool that will help you to grow your furniture business and outperform competitors large and small.
Twelve cash flow enhancing ideas for managing your retail furniture store pipeline in these chaotic times.
Guide non-physical leads into a funnel of care that will deliver the highest level of service you are capable of providing.
The new front door was not invented during the pandemic; however, it has become critically important for furniture retailers over the past few months.
Here's how one retailer adopted product family reporting to seize control of its inventory and increase GMROI.
How one retailer used the GROW and Cascade of Change models to improve sales performance.
Tracking employee turnover will lead to greater sales and profit.
Retailer "A" has a bigger ad budget. Retailer "B" uses more digital media. Which one gets better returns?
How one retailer grew sales volume by creating a strategy and a company-wide laser-focus based on average sale improvement.
Why a formal valuation process can help to maximize long-term value.
30 Supplier Criteria that should be considered for potential suppliers.
Downturns can be times of opportunity, and it's best to prepare for uncertain economic times.
Here are the metrics every home furnishings retailer needs to use to improve warehouse facilities and processes.
Scores of ideas to help furniture retailers improve facilities, processes and warehouse metrics.
Field-proven ways to maximize your realized gross margin.
Does your total Gross Margin after deducting Cost of Goods Sold give you a full performance picture?
Attention to written & delivered sales increased annual cash flow more than $100,000 for this average sized retailer.
If you are a furniture retailer who wants to continuously improve, but needs to know where to start, this article is for you!
Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and the threats facing your business allows you to focus.
The seven traits of the most successful sales performance managers, plus tips on how to develop them.
Here's how one retailer used Expanded GMROI, a team approach, to grow GMROI 16% from 2015-2016.
Which opportunities should you invest in to get the best return? How do you know if costs will be covered?
A short-term Kaizen Blitz event will increase furniture store efficiency and effectiveness in 2017.
Traditional layers of management are focusing more on task-accomplishment rather than people-management.
David and Wayne McMahon talk about furniture retailer profitability and ways they can do better.
Ten major ingredients in a tasty recipe that you can use to maximize your store’s gross margin.
Earning the right to sell more at higher prices is the way the best retailers generate sustained profits and cash flow.
See how LEAN techniques took one retailer from losing money to more than 10% profit.
Every furniture store needs a strategy for implementing LEAN and applying it to inventory. Here’s how.
Every furniture store needs a strategy for implementing LEAN and applying it to the marketing. Here’s how.
Every furniture store needs a strategy for implementing LEAN and applying it to sales force management.
LEAN practices allow businesses to realize their potential. First of a multi-part series.
Retailers across the country are asking what they should do to prepare for well known chain stores and others that are entering their marketplaces. Here’s the answer to those questions.
Here are seven indicators you can use to know your business better, plus how you can use this information to surpass your unfocused competitors.
Willingness to use GMROI as a tool is one factor that separates best performing stores from their peers.
The difference between operations that run smoothly and those that are chaotic is often the number and severity of operational bottlenecks.
In this issue, David McMahon speaks about eight practices that separate successful home furnishings retailers from their struggling competitors.
No matter which software system you are running, you have thousands of report queries available. How you sift through this data and make sense of it all is the purpose of business intelligence or “BI”.
David McMahon presents proven strategies that can produce 50 to 60 percent gross margins even in highly competitive markets.
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: your statement of cash flow.
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: the Balance Sheet.
An in-depth look at how to analyze one of your three critical financial statements: the Profit and Loss.
99% of furniture retailers will have their own app within 5 years.
Flexible Budgeting lets you ‘Flex’ your top line and observe the resulting operational effects on your P&L and operating income.
Why is everything you ever thought about commissions, and the things that motivate salespeople to perform, probably wrong? Poor performing salespeople don’t need disciplinary actions or warnings, they need help, and they need coaching. To coach you have to have a game plan, a strategy, a plan, just like sports teams have.
This article will demonstrate how to calculate your break-even point of sales. It also provides real world examples of ways smart retailers can reduce their break-even points and level of risk.
Today, consumers initiate their shopping experience. If they find you through Google, you have a chance to get their business. Here’s how to manage your e-tail inventory to make the most of an initial website contact. Included is a 12-step process that will help to make their buying decision easier.
Using rewards as enticements and threats of punishment are approaches aimed at obtaining obedience and compliance, but they can overpower, rather than empower.
A prime reason why top performing companies out perform their average performing peers is because they pay people extra when they perform better. Here is how to go about taking this path to success.
David McMahon shows you the core practices that the most profitable businesses follow to achieve the highest return on their inventory investment.
Some retailers seem to always manage to perform well. In this article David McMahon takes a close look at what those successful retailers do to cut costs during lean times and achieve maximum returns. Specific steps to cut fixed costs and make retail operations more responsive to cost cutting measures are examined.
Track this inventory metric to understand your customer’s buying patterns, establish a more relevant product mix, satisfy more people and sell more.
What are the characteristics that separate the best operations from the worst?
Old media techniques broadcast a campaign that is the same for everyone. Here’s how to target specific groups with messages they want to see, when they want to see them.
This article tells the story of a furniture store owner in St. Augustine who used fresh tactics to beat last year’s numbers in November, December, and January. How he did it is instructive and worth your attention.
This article tells the story of a furniture store owner in St. Augustine who used fresh tactics to beat last year’s numbers in November, December, and January. How he did it is instructive and worth your attention.
New media is uncharted territory for many furniture retailers, but with a bit of knowledge you can be one of the first in our industry to do it right.
Part 2: Old school ways to increase this critical measure are just not enough anymore!
Part 2: Old school ways to increase this critical measure are just not enough anymore!
Part 4 of the Dynamic Inventory Management Series presents the Five Golden Markdown Steps. This efficient markdown system has a considerable impact on profitability and cash flow because it greatly increases turns, improves gross margin, sales and cash flow.
You can escape the excess inventory trap before you become too entangled, or avoid it altogether if you understand the reasons why so many otherwise good companies get caught.
Buyers, who aren’t involved in the inventory management process, produce lower GMROI. It is, therefore, critical that they become expert inventory managers and that their duties don’t end with the filing of a purchase order.
This series looks at tools and techniques you can use to measure and improve the health of your inventory over time.
Increasing furniture inventory turns and velocity is critical to business profitability and survival. Reducing inventory and preventing buildup of unnecessary inventory is not a quick fix.
A two-part series that looks at tools and techniques you can use to measure and improve the health of your inventory over time.