Opening a Dollar Store - Turn Suppliers Into Your Warehouse

Those who are opening a dollar store are always looking for operational strategies that help to reduce the cash invested in the start-up and ongoing operation of their stores. An area of focus is often the merchandise inventory level that is maintained. One strategy for reducing the amount of inventory that is maintained when opening a dollar store is to use suppliers as your warehouse.

You must remain focused on maintaining minimum inventory levels. When opening a dollar store if the right tools and systems are in-place suppliers can actually become the warehouse for your business. This requires smaller and more frequent orders. It also requires management that pays attention to the details and invests time on a more frequent basis. Inventory levels must be examined more frequently. Orders must be written and transmitted more frequently. The result can be a lower cash investment in inventory when this is properly executed.

While this sounds simple it requires a great deal of knowledge about the store, the desires of the customers, and ongoing inventory levels. It also requires strong relationships with suppliers and with freight companies that are used to transport goods to the store. When all of these exist after opening a dollar store in-stock inventory levels can be dropped to critically low levels before reordering.

Entrepreneurs who are opening a dollar store must know their shoppers. They must be able to anticipate their buying needs and their buying patterns. Then it is possible to forecast sales of consumer goods and other staples. With that forecast in-hand work can be completed to order critical products before they are completely out of stock.

You must have a good inventory system so that you can tell at a glance if in-stock inventory levels require replenishment. It doesn't matter whether you are using a checklist, a Point-of-Sale system or a computerized order, inventory and sales system, there must be easy access to current inventory data.

You must have suppliers that can be counted on to ship promptly. You must also have freight carriers that can be counted on to promptly deliver replenishment merchandise. Working with a freight company that picks up merchandise from a distributor on the east coast and then takes that merchandise on a cross-country trip before returning to your store which is also located on the east coast will not work. For this to work when opening a dollar store the actual delivery time must be minimized.

To Your Dollar Store Success!

Twitter Remote Controls