30 years ago, when I began marketing my paper based open to buy solution, there was very little competition. As the years went by, I wondered why I was still working with so few competitors. Well, now it seems that has changed dramatically.
Many open to buy systems and services have popped up and want your business. The truth is that even a poor open to buy system is better than no open to buy. Guessing as to your buying will always lead to over inventory, excess invoices, markdowns and poor cash flow.
So you need open to buy. But whose system do you choose? I’ve listed a few things you should look into before you sign up or switch from your current system or service.
- CONTRACT: Are you required to sign a contract for a specific period of time or is the provider confident that you will stay with them simply because you’re satisfied? MYOTBPLAN.COM has no contract.
- SUPPORT: Does the system or service offer support at no additional charge whenever you need it? Or are you only seeing your rep once a month or paying for additional support. MYOTBPLAN.COM offers support 10/7 at no additional cost.
- GUARANTEE: Does the system or service have a guarantee that specifically lists the improvements you will see and will they refund your payments if you don’t? MYOTBPLAN.COM has had a Performance Guarantee that is unchanged for the last 30 years. It’s written out on the Home page of our web site.
- ACCURACY: Does the system or service work with annual turn rates that are different for each merchandise department and are those annual turn rates adjusted to reflect the sales impact of each month of the year? Does the system or service remove any negative open to buy amounts during the calculations to insure you have the right amount of merchandise going into your strong selling months and reduced inventory going into your weak selling months? MYOTBPLAN.COM does both of these adjustments to insure your inventory is always at the right level to support your sales and give you your desired turn rates.
- ACCESSIBILITY: Can your support personnel see your information when you call for help? Are you still printing reports to take to market? Can you work on your system from any computer, tablet or smartphone? MYOTBPLAN.COM says “YES” to all these questions.
- PRICE: What do you really need from your open to buy? Many services offer tons of reports that sound great, but have little practical value. Are you paying for “bells and whistles” that will not make money for your store? MYOTBPLAN.COM builds your buying plan in each merchandise department, month by month, 12 months into the future. Your staff, your customers, and the “market” will tell you what to buy. MYOTBPLAN.COM will tell you how much to buy and we do it for $5 per category. But the cost of the system is secondary to the accuracy of the buying plan and no one is more accurate than MYOTBPLAN.COM.
Why not test our availability and call us today? Ask us the hard questions. You’ll be pleased with our answers. Then you’ll have no problem making the right choice.