“Retail is like real estate sitting on your shelves,” says Bryan Durocher, president of Durocher Enterprises. “If a product is not turning a minimum of six to eight times a year, get rid of it and replace it with something that will sell.” Look at carrying fewer lines of products, he advises. It will make your inventory counts easier, make product knowledge training simpler, and allow for greater buying power with your vendors. “When you use fewer vendors and buy more from them they will pay greater attention to your business,” he notes.

Nanette Miner, a small-business marketing expert and the co-author of the book, 101 Media and Marketing Tips for Salon Owners, Stylists and Managers, has her own approach to slow-moving items. “Give away product that isn’t selling well,” she says. “If you have product that is not moving off your shelves, it is costing you money to keep it there rather than replacing it with product that does sell. Bundle the hard-to-sell items with more desirable products and create a price that is slightly higher than the desirable product, or slightly lower than the cost if the products had been purchased separately. This will move product off your shelves, will bring in income, and will be viewed as a goodwill gesture by your customers.”

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.

Read more about