How and Why Amazon Drives Change for Catalog Operators
Bruce Merrifield, President
Merrifield Consulting
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
•Amazon Supply •pricing strategies •AmazonSupply.com •distribution industry trends •eCommerce
This 9-minute video is a discussion of Amazon's unparalleled insight into customer buying habits. Amazon is an excellent model for the changing reality of catalog operators. Understanding your customers, their buying habits and the profit or loss on every item will help distributors adapt to the new and effective models for e-commerce.
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For more information about Bruce Merrifield, visit: www.merrifieldact2.com
It's Not Who You Think It Is
Randy MacLean, President
WayPoint Analytics
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
•distribution management best practices •QPM •management strategies
Discusses Key Management Metrics: Gross Profit - Cost to Serve = PROFIT (NBC). Cost to serve is almost exclusively due to transaction counts. How to evaluate customers about profitability.
Illustrates how a gross margin number across the board can be wrong for all customers by using the customer metrics report.
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For more information about Randy MacLean, visit: www.waypointanalytics.com
A Culture of Innovation Starts at the Top
Steve Epner, President
the Startup Within
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
•distribution management best practices •management strategies •distribution industry sales management •personnel development •leadership training •Innovate for the Future •Simplfy Everything book •innovation
In this video, Randy MacLean talks with Steve Epner, President of The Startup Within, about best practices for integrating innovation into your business. Managers can and should encourage employees in innovating new ways of doing what you already do that are better for the company and especially better for the customer.
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For more information about Steve Epner, visit: www.thestartupwithin.com
Getting Your Salespeople to Negotiate Smarter
Bruce Merrifield, President
Merrifield Consulting
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
•competitive strategy •order fullfilment •distribution management best practices •sales practices •QPM •management strategies •sales management •sales management styles in distribution •distribution industry sales management •distribution industry intelligent pricing •cost-to-serve math •cost-to-serve in distribution
Whatever happened to the art of negotiation? In this video interview, Randy MacLean and Bruce Merrifield sit down to discuss how distributors have limited their salespeople's ability to negotiate and, in the process, either forced or incentivized them to negotiate on elements that can dramatically impact a sale's cost-to-serve (CTS).
Learn how you can use the negotiation process to achieve CTS savings, allowing you to offer your customers lower prices while leaving the table with a larger profit.
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For more information about Bruce Merrifield, visit: www.merrifieldact2.com
Why You Should Be Optimizing Inventory
Bruce Merrifield, President
Merrifield Consulting
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
•profit analytics •profit training •profit strategy
The purpose of having inventory is to provide service to the customer. This is measured by fill rates, and from a truly financial dimension fill rates have diminishing returns. In other words, adding more inventory dollars increases your fill rate, but at a certain point, usually about 92%, you will start to experience diminishing returns on your inventory investment.
One of the problems with this high-level approach is that not all SKUs are equal. Popular SKUs deserve high fill rates. Very profitable SKUs deserve high fill rates. Using the WayPoint Popularity vs. Profitability Report, you can beef up the most popular and profitable items for a particular niche.
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For more information about Bruce Merrifield, visit: www.merrifieldact2.com
Gross Margin Percent: A Poor Indicator of Profitability
Bruce Merrifield, President
Merrifield Consulting
Wednesday, May 03, 2017
•QPM •Quantum Profit Management (QPM) •business math for distribution •cost-to-serve math •LIPA •line-item profit analytics in distribution
Most distributors have naturally occurring, high gross margin percentage (house) accounts and high gross margin percentage (small dollar pick) SKUs. Surprisingly, many of these are operating profit losers.
In reality, the gross margin dollars in these small dollar picks and orders amount to less than the cost to serve dollars they consume. This means they actually cost more money to fill than they generate in profit. In contrast, direct ship orders with low gross margin percentage are often quite profitable. Do you think you can service a few more incremental small picks and orders without increasing expenses? Watch this video to learn how.
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For more information about Bruce Merrifield, visit: www.merrifieldact2.com