Increase Gross Margin - Four steps to increase your store's profits

Dennis Reid – Chairman of RPS Global, specialists in improving and sustaining retail performance – discusses how a step-by-step approach can help you make your store more profitable

All owners want to provide their customers with a great product, an in-store experience that customers enjoy and to achieve the profitability that provides the lifestyle the owner wants. When we conduct research to identify best practice within the natural health sectors, we always ask: ‘what do you believe is the key thing you need to do to improve the performance of your business?’ The most common answer is: “we just need more customers”.

But this is the wrong thing to focus on.

If you work solely on getting more customers, without first improving the offering of your store and the performance of your staff, then those new customers will visit just once. They will have a poor customer experience, or will not find what they are looking to buy, and all you will have achieved is confirming to them why they didn’t want to shop in your store in the first place.