The early morning crowd at the general session hears about margin and pricing analysis – along with a CEO message of the company being there to help them, being ready when they are.
In a follow-on to that message, Eric Lane, senior VP of sales, joined the stage to the sounds of The Rolling Stones music and said, “POS sharing works best when you’re in a partnership with us.”
He pointed out their Retailer Workbench program, which gives owners access to more than 80 parent company reports, “to compare your store to other stores. And it’s available on any smart device.”
He added that it’s a key today to know what products are working for you and to “put a priority on getting the assortments right, including which ones need upgrading – this is critical.”
Kelly Megel, SVP of marketing came on stage next to tell the audience that a simple goal can be to get your loyal customers to come in your store even one more time, as most sales, 80%, she pointed out, come from those customers.
Following Megel, Jake Kalnitz, senior VP of merchandising and inventory bounded on stage to The Who and brought some of the strongest messages, judging by crowd applauses.
“There’s been 200,000 price changes in the last two years,” he said. “We must optimize price changes. And we have a new tool to help owners with retail price changes. Recently, we tested it on 50 retailers across six hardware categories – and it lifted sales 10%.”