Let’s say your store is a sail boat. Once you had it completely decked out and laid out your goal as to your destination, would it be OK to crack open a beer and take a nap? If you weren’t paying close attention, would you arrive at your destination… or go over the falls?
Obviously, sailing a boat requires constant updates to the steering and the sails to compensate for the wind and currents if you want to actually arrive at your planned destination. These constant course corrections will insure that you wind up in the right place rather than trying to figure out how you wound up where you did.
Retailing is very much like sailing a ship. The only thing you can be sure of is that everything will constantly change. Having a solid open to buy plan is a great first step, but your open to buy must allow you to evaluate what has happened and also to make revisions as you go forward. Only then can you expect to actually reach your desired goals.
A month is the best unit of time for making management decisions. Anything less is not long enough to generate real information, and anything longer gives you a great chance of getting in trouble. So, at the end of each month, your open to buy system should show you the results of the past month in terms of sales, inventory and turnover (actual vs. projected) and allow you to make revisions based on the trends you’re seeing. If your open to buy system will not make these revisions or if you ignore your opportunity to do so, you will not get to your intended goals.
MYOTBPLAN.COM is built around making these revisions to keep your buying right on target, raise your turnover, reduce your markdowns and improve you cash flow. Just keeping the deck clean on your boat won’t get you there and keeping your store neat, well stocked and with great displays won’t grow your bottom line. Your open to buy needs to keep you on course so you have clear sailing to your intended financial goals. MYOTBPLAN.COM will do just that.