I’ve been involved in retailing since 1965 (god, I’m old) in many capacities, but mainly as an owner/operator. I’ve done everything from cleaning the restrooms, to design and construction, to staffing, advertising, accounting, buying, you name it. For the last 28 years I’ve been marketing my open to buy systems to retailers and helping them with the system, but also other issues they face in their stores.
While the OTB sales have provided me with my income, the consulting I have done for my customers has given me the most pleasure. I am still offering my open to buy, but now it is online and through this web site making it easier, faster and much more accessible to my customers, The really neat thing is that we can both be looking at our individual computers and viewing the same data. I can explain how things work and give them input on how it affects their store. For me, it’s just fun. For them, I hope it helps them be more successful.
As part of our desire to have retailers look at our web site, we created the Blog. (Such a terrible name for something, but I guess we’ll get used to it.) But really the blog is for you to ask me questions so I can have the fun of constructing an answer that will help you and all retailers who read it.
I can sit and write blurbs on my own about things I think might be of interest, but you are there in your store dealing with the daily struggle and I want you to ask my advice on how to handle problems – large or small. You can think of me as the retail answer man or your personal retail consultant (without the consultant’s fee.) I want you to take advantage of my logical way of thinking and my 47 (gasp) years in the retail arena. Please leave a question and I’ll post an answer ASAP! OK, now it’s your turn.