Shop performance
I realise it is a very sensitive area but I would be interested to exchange information on shop performance ie financial, footfall, av spend, peak hours etc etc. We produce quite a bit of info for our management group but we have no benchmarks so when the question is asked "are we doing well?" - it is difficult to give an answer other than what we know.
Bryan Casbourne
Mortimer Country Stores
Dear Bryan,
I know that some of the other shops would like to be able to do this too - as you say it could provide so much very useful information and particularily if you can benchmark yourselves with similar shops. Here at Plunkett, if there is enough interest, then we would be keen to help support such a sharing of data. Does anyone have any ideas of how this could be done easily and effectively? Gill
To start the ball rolling I can give you our comments...We have a turnover of about £160,000 a yr.We need a 22% gross profit margin and I am able to keep to this so long as no-one pilfers the stock or money.My brief is just to make a small profit(£4000-£5000 )each year-which I can control- by tweaking the margins.We also have a small income from the Post office.We have no manager-I oversee it for free- and employ about 6 part-timers-four in the post office and two in the shop.Our wage bill is about £15,000 a year, and the community own the shop via a village trust,so the rent is minimal and covers the external upkeep.One has to keep the main expenses viz wages and rent as low as possible.We have up to 40 volunteers all who give their time for free.They get a return from social interaction (gossip) in the shop.We have had two coach party visits so far,when groups come to see how we do it and they all return home happy after having tea with home made cake and boosting the daily takings!
P.J.U.
By comparison we have a turnover of circa £145,000 and I need a gross margin of 30% to stay afloat. We have no Post Office and one table at which we can serve tea/coffee/cakes. Our rent is significant -£500 pcm - as is our utilities bill. We have made changes to our paid staff as over the last few months we have seen a decline in customer footfall and spend. We are going down from 65 paid hrs per week to 39 hrs with the balances being made up from volunteers (hopefully) plus a half day closing on one day per week. If we can achieve this then come next Mar we should be in our comfort zone.
Hi Bryan
For comparison we have sales of £137,000 per annum (circa £127k ex VAT) from a sales area of 30 sq metres only. We are open 53.5 hours/week, have around 50 volunteers and 6 committee members each do a day a week unpaid in the shop as Duty Managers. Each Duty Manager has specific duties matched to their skills e.g. buying, ordering, goods receiving, merchandising, book-keeping, rostering etc. Specific volunteers have responsibility for certain areas e.g. Fresh vegetables, newspapers, sweets. We are open 53.5 hours / week (closed Sat afternoons and Sundays) and our lease prevents us selling alcohol or tobacco. We have a bean to cup coffee machine which makes a small profit, with one small table and two folding chairs . We have no Post Office.
We have an average of 16.4 customers per open hour and an average customer sale of £3.05, resulting in £50 / open hour (open hours excludes holidays etc). Average weekly sales are running at £2,700 and we gross 27%. Whilst we are all unpaid, our overheads are high with rent at £950 / month and expensive utility bills. Our wastage is also a bit high running at around 3 - 4% (should be nearer 1.5%) but we are scrupulous about sell by and best before dates.
Our focus, through regular leaflet drops / promotions and improvements to our product range, is to increase average footfall ( up from 15 / hour last year to 16.4 / hour this year) and to increase average customer spend (up from £2.85 to £3.05 - a twenty pence increase in average spend increases sales by £8,000+ p.a.).
Hope this of interest :-)
Alun, Almondsbury Community Shop
I am putting together some information to share with subpostmasters that I have picked up on my travels.
I have a wide range of contacts across all types of suppliers that can provide a USP for smaller shops, including, Coffee to go, hot food to go, greetings cards, speciality foods, coin machines, ATMs.
if any one is interested I am happy to share this, at the moment it is still ad hoc, I hope to be able to formulate it in to an easy to use PDF document by the end of the summer.
Ken