3 Secrets to Making Your Auto Parts Store a Success

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Auto Parts Store|3 Secrets to Making Your Auto Parts Store a SuccessOwning an auto parts store is an exciting business venture. However, just having a passion for automobiles isn’t enough to draw in customers. Going above and beyond to make the store stand out from the competition is a must. Here are three proven ways to turn an average auto parts store into a booming success:

1. Contract with Dependable Suppliers

In-demand auto parts shops always have well-stocked shelves. After finding used madix shelving for sale, it’s crucial to keep it filled to the brim with the hottest products. That’s why finding the most reliable suppliers is of the utmost importance. After all, if the store doesn’t have what the customer wants in stock, they’ll just head elsewhere. No business owner wants to lose a sale because of an unreliable supplier.

When it comes time to choose suppliers, it’s best to shop around. Ask about product turnaround times, minimum purchase orders, and possible shipping disruptions. Don’t be afraid to back out of a deal if the supplier can’t meet the shop’s needs. The right supplier will do everything possible to ensure their retail clients have enough products to meet customer demand.

2. Know What’s on the Shelves

Having the best suppliers does no good if the store owner doesn’t keep track of their inventory. As an auto parts store owner, it’s wise to keep an eye on the top-selling products. For instance, if jump-starters or GPS trackers start selling out, it’s a good idea to increase inventory orders for those products. The most successful retailers also know how to pair different products. They might suggest a water repellent treatment whenever a customer purchases new windshield wipers, for example.

Owners should routinely monitor inventory statistics. This includes keeping track of popular brands and types of auto parts, such as BMW parts, to ensure the store is meeting the needs of its customers. These stats will show which products sell out the fastest, and it will also help owners monitor for product loss. Having a computerized database with help streamline this task. Moreover, recognizing inventory trends gives brand owners more negotiating room with suppliers. If a particular product moves more than others, it may be time to talk with the supplier about a bulk discount.

3. Create a Marketing Plan

While there is always a need for local auto parts stores, there is also a lot of competition within the industry. Analysts forecast the US automotive aftermarket will reach $445 billion by 2023. That statistic proves the demand for innovative auto parts is at an all-time high. The stores that will make the most money know how to effectively market to their audience.

Marketing needs to reach the target consumer. Years ago, most businesses relied on television spots and print ads to promote their services. However, online marketing is now the best option for auto parts stores looking to grow their customer base. Well-known stores all have company websites and social media profiles. These tools make it possible to connect with potential customers from all over. Marketing helps brands become automotive industry leaders, and the stores will generate more money as a result.

Prepare for a Successful Ride

Many auto parts stores compete in the same space, but some will prove more successful than others. Contracting with the best suppliers, recognizing inventory trends, and developing a marketing plan will help take any auto parts store to the next level. After implementing these proven secrets, brands will notice an influx of customer interest and an uptick in sales.

Preparing Your Store so You Attract Customers and Keep Them Coming Back for More

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Preparing Your Store so You Attract Customers and Keep Them Coming Back for MoreTake in every part of your business, from the dingy store counter to the floors that have clearly seen better days. If your first thought is about how your business needs a makeover, keep reading for tips on making your space seem fresher while following the ADA guide, and keep your customers coming back for more.

Lighten the Rooms Up

When you walk into a dark space, you feel that you have no options. Unfortunately, many people don’t like this and will leave a store that is too dark. This can be costly for your business, especially if repainting isn’t an option that will help. Fortunately, the easiest way to brighten up a room is to tackle the floors.

Often, hardwoods can become dirty easily but are still salvageable. They need a good cleaning and refinishing. If you have painted concrete, you can also give this an update. Your first option is to repaint it with a lighter color and keep it clean. Or, for a lower maintenance option, you can install linoleum or similar material over the concrete. Just remember to keep the floor in touch with your main theme.

Move the Counters

One of the biggest problems stores face is the layout. Sometimes things are arranged in a way that cuts off sightlines and makes walking around confusing. Plus, many stores place their displays too close to the walls, which cramps up their counter attendants. If these problems sound familiar, you should consider investing in smaller counters, such as the ones Hestra offers, that can be placed in the center of your shop. That lets customers easily walk around your counters.

Start this process by setting up folding tables where you want your counters to go. Then, think about where you will place all your items. You don’t want anything important to be stashed into an unfrequented corner. You also want to avoid allowing anything to block your customers’ line of sight. Lastly, ensure nothing offputting is located at the entrance to your store. Remedying these problems can freshen up your shop’s layout, making it more attractive to customers.

Get Some Coolers Up and Running

Call your local distributor and have some coolers brought in. Have plenty of space that offers cooled items, whether it is fresh produce or something else. Many people are thrilled to see local products, such as cheeses, to snack on after shopping. When you figure out what cool products you want to offer, make sure they have enough light.

Don’t be afraid to paint your coolers, so they match your shop’s theme. Then, keep them out in the open, but don’t block your customers’ lines of sight. Also, get rid of any unnecessary racks for merchandise. At first, this may sound like a bad idea. However, having too many racks can make them get dusty and leave your inventory spread out, which can make your store appear old. Instead of relying strictly on racks, try fun ideas, like hanging merchandise on the walls. You can also try built-in options which may make your space seem more homely.

Give the Space a Makeover

Aside from these, figure out ways to make your space cosmetically appealing. The easiest things to do include figuring out ways to let more natural light in and painting the walls. Also, during your makeover, clean every surface thoroughly. Finally, if you’re changing the layout, think about how you want people to walk through your stores and place your displays accordingly. At the end of the day, make sure you highlight all of your products and that they are well lighted. By the way, lose the spinning racks because they will date your store.

Get Rid of Some Merchandise

If you want to bring in the new, get rid of the old. Even if you love something, don’t keep it in your store if it doesn’t sell. Instead, mark it down and don’t restock those items. They are simply a waste of space on your shelves.

Sometimes, it takes work to get your shop set up properly. However, taking the time to freshen up your space will help you attract new customers and keep them coming back to visit. So get started on your store’s makeover today.

Why Is a Shared Office Space Best for Small Businesses?

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Shared Office Space|Why Is a Shared Office Space Best for Small Businesses?It’s nice to have a big office, but a smaller business may work more efficiently in a shared office. There’s room to grow because you have a better environment to collaborate with your team and clients. When you have this synergy, it can help you build a brand more efficiently. Here are some ways a shared office space works best for small businesses.

Better Flexibility

You might be in a position where you’re either downsizing or just starting up with your brand. You may consider a shared office space yoube works in your favor because you can choose a desk or an office for a project. You may have a short-term project for three months that require you to collaborate in a room.

Instead of going with a brick-and-mortar with overhead, maintenance, and electricity bills piling up, you have a choice to go to one place where they cover your amenities under your monthly plan. Also, you can adjust the plan as needed when your staff gets bigger.

You’ll save tons of money, and it’ll give you a chance to gauge how your business performs quarter to quarter.

More of a Community Atmosphere

One of the depressing things about working in an office or home is isolation. A shared office space allows you to work with different collaborators. Even though you could run into a competitor or two, it may be wise to reach out to others.

You can bounce ideas off each other as well as find each other’s strengths. For example, you may be looking for a graphic designer for a new project on your website. You can schedule meetings and private sessions just in case you want to hide ideas from the public.

You have access to conference and private rooms if you need to discuss things in a secluded area.

Great for Hosting Clients

Maybe there’s a full kitchen available. You can cook up a meal or create a potluck to have a luncheon with your clients. It gives them a sense of your personality and you can save money because you don’t need to go to a different facility.

Also, you can meet in a professional coworking space. You can utilize a private room with a conference table and any equipment to speak with staff members globally. A solid presentation can bring your prospective clients into your brand.

The right location, amenities, and atmosphere can make for the ideal shared office space.

The 4 Best Ways To Save Money On Your Printing

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | The 4 Best Ways To Save Money On Your PrintingThere are a lot of ways to save money for your business but one that is often overlooked is printing. It seems like a given that your printing costs a certain amount of money that is more or less fixed. When looking to cut wasteful spending on expenses, printing is rarely considered.

Yet, there are a lot of ways to get your printing done in a much more economical way. Cutting these expenses down will go a long way toward keeping your company in the black. In this article, we will go over several ways to save money on your printing needs.

1 – Enterprise printing

Having specialized printers for your company can be quite expensive. They are expensive to buy and to maintain. For instance, if you have printing needs for perforated paper then it can be quite costly to buy the printer, the paper and have people specially trained to use them.

Instead, outsource your printing to a specialist enterprise printer. These companies have a full range of printers and paper so they can handle whatever your orders are. Their staff are properly trained and they keep the printers fully maintained at all times.

You will never have any printing downtime and you won’t be paying for printer repairs when they inevitably break down.

2 – Go monochrome

Colored ink is very costly. When you print papers that have colors that are not necessary to the document it costs far more money than you should be spending on ink. For instance, if the paper has headers in another color or there are logos on the document that will be copied.

These are items that have nothing to do with the purpose of the document and can be eliminated. Use a monochrome, or black and white printer, and it will save you money since black ink costs far more than colored.

3 – Go paperless

While no business can go 100% paperless, there are a lot of things that don’t need to be printed. If you go paperless then you are stripping down your printing needs to the bare essentials.

For instance, many documents can be scanned and then shared via the cloud. Even documents that need to be signed can be done electronically so there is no point in which they need to have a physical copy made.

One issue is that to be 100% paperless would require every employee to have a smartphone or tablet to be able to properly share documents at any time. However, there will still be some printing that needs to be done so you can just pay for those few documents.

4 – Use tracking software

One way to save on printing is to know how much you are doing. Install some tracking software that will register every print job from type of paper to how much ink is used. This way you can analyse the data at the end of the month and see where there are opportunities to save money.

Losing Sight of These Three Things Will Tank Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Losing Sight of These Three Things Will Tank Your BusinessIt is not just about sales. Take a good look around the company. Have you noticed that sales is not the only department? It isn’t even the biggest department. Truth be told, it isn’t where your biggest brains work. You don’t need an MBA to be a great salesperson. Too much education can actually be a liability in the sales department. Some of your best salespeople are the ones who partied too late, drank too much, and slept it off in their car. They stopped by the apartment just long enough to take a shower, change clothes, grab a burrito, and show up late for work. It isn’t glamorous. But that’s the stuff of sales.

Don’t worry about those guys. They’re going to get the job done because that’s what they do, with or without a hangover. Believe it or not, your company probably has bigger concerns than the miscreants on your sales team. It is often the case that great sales hide big problems in your organization. You can’t just look at how sales is doing to gage the health of your company. If you take your eyes off the following, you won’t have a company for very long:

Expenses

In the hierarchy of budgetary items, the telecom portion of the budget has moved from number 10 to number five. This is why telecom expense management is so important. According to the experts,

“…telecommunications spending is expected to grow even more in the coming years. TEM cannot stem the tide; however, it can help manage the costs, which can lead to controllable growth within the budget.”

It is a mistake to equate cutting costs with cutting services. You are going to have to use prodigious amounts of telecommunications. That is not going to change. But within that usage and the way your services are structured, you can find dozens of inefficiencies that are costing thousands of dollars that you don’t have to spend.

It is not just about telecom. The same is true for your power usage. Your impact on the grid is a reality that can be reduced with the right plan. You do not have to stop using electricity to power your lights. But you could build your offices and factories in such a way that they take in more natural light. Your small to medium-sized enterprise is most certainly has wasteful expenses. Keeping them under control is just as important as a good quarter of sales.

Logistics

If you are not careful, you can lose all your gains in sales to logistics. There is nothing more frustrating to a sales person than to win a new client only to lose them over the inefficiencies of another part of the company. Courier mistakes can cost you clients. The longer it takes your company to ship out an order, the longer a client has to change their mind. That happens a lot with those clients that were on the fence in the first place.

Clients will not be happy doing business with you a second time if they feel like they were taken for a ride with regard to shipping and handling fees. You have to compete with Amazon, a logistics company. They are so good at it, Amazon is delivering packages for their competitors. That is what your customers are comparing you to. Don’t make the mistake of taking logistics for granted because if you do, you will find yourself in a hole that even sales can’t get you out of.

Social Media

You don’t have the luxury of hating Facebook and Twitter. As a businessperson, you have to learn to love social media. And if you can’t quite bring yourself to do that, you at least need to learn to master it. Like it or not, your clients are on social media, and they are making decisions about whether or not to do business with you. If you are not the one telling your story to the world, others will step in and do it for you. No sales team can turn the tide of a story that has turned against you.

By all means, keep an eye on sales. But don’t blink with regard to expenses, logistics, and social media.