My work experience is retail (now I am a management consultant), I have a passion for it, it is in my blood.
So much so that I constantly analysis retailers when I am in them, want to jump behind the counter and help a customer, want to call a manager and ask them why they are doing such a slap stick job of running this gift they have been given.
Yes, retailer stores are my pretty castles and after selling my 12, my heart longs to own another one or two or three (I forget all the difficult customers, hard core landlords, stock supply issues and staff drama).
I have decided that I will invest my passion for retailers into blogging about them.
So first retailer that gets the honours is Sweets from Heaven, which I promise you there is nothing Heavenly about them other than the niche market they have and the opportunity to turn that business around.
So let me be nice and start with what I think they have done right:
Position: They are conveniently situated in most big shopping centres and airports. Their locations are excellent.
Shopping Centres – near the movies so you can buy stuff to nibble on or a quick drink after.
Airports – so you can buy your kids or yourself sweets to stuff your face with on the plane, or like me a smoker, they are always there when you get freaked out that you going to run out of smokes because you need to smoke 12 in 5 minutes before a flight.
Product: They sell sweets, cold drinks, pop-corn and CIG’s.
Price: Well here is the kicker they unlike most retailers seem to get away with a MASSIVE mark up on all their products. (Sunday night I purchased 1 x 20 Cigs and 1 x cheap lighter, the total R45.59) Did I blink an eye; definitely not I was dying for a smoke before the movie and would have sold my soul for a cigarette. Is it just me or are their products over priced? If Pick ‘n Pay tried to sell the same products at the same price there would be a national public outcry and Carte Blanche Consumer doing a massive segment on it.
If I was CEO of Sweets of Heaven I would:
So this is all the stuff I think they doing a kak job of…
- PLEASE make it easier for me to pay with my credit card at your stores. Honestly if you going to mark the products up like 200% then at least have working credit card machines at each till and staff that don’t sigh when I pull out a credit card. Also can the credit card machines be put on their own dial up connection (and not use the landline to dial up) because every time I go to your store the credit card machine fails. I think it is because one of your lazy staff members is in the back on the telephone/internet/fax that shares the line.
- Next FIRE all your lazy staff, rude, stealing and un-customer friendly staff. WOW stealing was very harsh but even you agree with me because you have a sign up in all your stores telling me to INSIST on a TILL SLIP which means your staff do not ring up stuff and pocket the money and you do not have proper stock control systems. Secondly there is NEVER enough staff in your stores, they either hanging out at the popcorn machine OR and I am almost sure a lot of people will agree with this one. When the line in the store starts to snake out the entrance, the cashier will look up and scream to someone in the stock room, who will then take all the time in the world after peeping out the door to come serve the customers.
So it’s time for fresh new staff who smile, maybe even joke with customers (something like a Kulula staff change and humour concept).
- Talking about your stealing staff, you also have stealing customers (as the lady behind me eating out of the bag of sweets that had not been weighed yet made me realise). Now I think this can be easily solved through a few steps 1. Either get ride of the bagged sweets and help yourself concept and put pre packaged bags in place or get someone to supervise. 2. And this is NOT a negotiable option – get rid of your OLD TECHNOLOGY TILLS – I used those things in 1996 (you know the ones where you get the little till slip with no specific product name on it) INVEST in a proper POS and STOCK control system because this is exactly why your business can not stock take and hence deal or understand the theft.
I think you have an awesome Niche business BUT I think you are doing a terrible job of running it. The potential is there for Sweets of Heaven to be a very viable, profitable, CUSTOMER focused business with a little hard work and some changes.
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