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Budgeting, Forecasting, & Measuring Your Way to Profitability

Budgeting, Forecasting, & Measuring Your Way to Profitability 1200 628 Lori Pattison

By Paul Ihlenfeldt, Director of Operations – North Central Region

At our National Assembly in August, we presented material on how to use data to measure productivity. I thought it would be appropriate to provide a detailed recap of the presentation and highlight several key strategies.

The non-profit thrift environment can be extremely unpredictable. You’re not always sure how much you are going to receive in donations and cannot always predict how or when it is going to sell. But we can reference trends and use those trends to plan and budget for improvement. If we do not establish a goal for improvement, we will not achieve improvement. We will only repeat what we have done and eventually lose what we have gained.

Our thrift stores not only provide low-cost products for our friends in need, but they also provide a significant amount of funding for our various programs that provide the support our Neighbors in Need (NIN) depend on. We have a huge responsibility to ensure our stores are consistently profitable and can continue to support the St Vincent de Paul mission in serving others.

The following is a high-level road map of key areas of focus to assist you in achieving success in your planning.

First, you will need to implement the color tag rotation and use a POS pricing system that can capture the data. The POS systems most commonly used are Thriftworks and Secure Retail. They both can provide sufficient data to be used in analyzing the key components of your business.

Second, if you have not already, you need to create a profit & loss statement for your stores. The financials should be broken out by store and totaled and summed together to understand the health of the organization’s profit/support centers. Profit & Loss (P&L) tells a story, and we should be reviewing that “story” monthly. The fundamental equation for the P&L is:

Revenue – Cost = Net Operating Revenue

Work with your accounting firm or your own in-house financial leadership to create this business tool if you are not already using it.

Budget Sales:

What do you want to achieve? Look at trends and what contributed to those trends and start with determining the revenue budget. Are there external factors? Road construction, weather, pandemic, lack of good applicants to fill open positions? Or are there internal factors? Inefficiencies in production, not enough produced causing high sell-through, employees taking vacations, not enough donations? If you correct these issues, how much more revenue will you generate? Put a plan in place to fix the correctable and budget the benefit.

Budget Expenses:

Start with payroll, which is your largest expense. Your store wages should be approximately 40% of its revenue. When including administrative payroll, your organization’s payroll should be approximately 50% of the revenue. Now, based on the revenue budget, you can determine the number of full-time equivalents or FTE’s you can employ. Always ask yourself, is the added payroll adding value and will the revenue cover the expense?

Review the Key Areas of Support:

I recommend looking at 5 key areas of production.

  1. Donations
  2. Warehouse/Logistics/Recycling
  3. Pricing
  4. Utility/Sales Floor Support
  5. Cashiers

Your revenue budget will drive what you need to support these areas of production. Pricing is the key position, and this is where we specifically refer to the metrics (financials) to understand the number of pricers needed to support our sales plan.

  • You can only budget more revenue if you have enough donations. Track the daily number of donors dropping off donations. The number of gaylords/containers you fill and the number the pricers empty. Remember those donations are free and are valuable in support of our mission.
  • Depending on the amount of donations and kind of donations, are you able to transport and store those items efficiently and effectively.
  • Determine the units needed to get you to your sales plan. We use this formula to forecast our production units:
    • Units=1.43(X*Y)
    • X=Units sold last year
    • Y=1. (your budgeted percent increase as a decimal)
      • Example: for a 7% increase would be 1.07
    • 43 coefficient X your forecasted units allows you to achieve 70% sell thru.
  • Determine the number of hours to allocate to pricing.
    • Hours=X/Y
      • X=Units to be priced to meet goal
      • Y=Hourly production target for pricer.
    • How many utility teammates do you need to run the carts to fill the floor? Determine the number of carts that can be put out per hour and set those goals with your team.
    • Based on the sales plan, do you have enough registers and cashiers to effectively move customers through the registers? Determine a maximum number of customers in line to call for assistance.

In conclusion, effective budgeting, forecasting, and measurement are essential for navigating the unpredictable landscape of the non-profit thrift environment. By setting clear improvement goals and utilizing data-driven strategies, we can transform challenges into opportunities for growth.

The practices outlined—such as implementing a robust POS system, developing detailed profit and loss statements, and strategically budgeting for both revenue and expenses—are vital in ensuring the sustainability of our thrift stores.

Your stores not only provide affordable goods to those in need but also generate crucial funding for our programs that support the community.

As we focus on key areas like donations, logistics, pricing, and customer service, we empower our teams to operate more efficiently and effectively.

Ultimately, our commitment to continuous improvement and careful financial management will allow us to uphold the St. Vincent de Paul mission, ensuring that we can serve NIN for years to come. Let us take these insights forward, implementing actionable plans that lead to sustained profitability and greater impact in our communities.

If you have questions or have a topic for a future Stores Corner article, please email our Director of Stores Support-Jeff Beamguard at jbeamguard@svdpusa.org.

Smart Shopping: The Benefits of Online Supply Shopping for Thrift Stores

Smart Shopping: The Benefits of Online Supply Shopping for Thrift Stores 1200 628 Lori Pattison

By Viktoriya Kotyash, Store Manager – West Region – Diocese of Sacramento

Many stores still rely on petty cash rather than business credit or debit cards for purchasing supplies. They designate employees or volunteers to visit local store chains to buy general supplies. This can be beneficial to support local stores that support your store’s mission.  When this isn’t the case, stores can greatly benefit from having products delivered rather than making these purchases in person. Here are a few reasons why you should consider it:

Safety Benefits:

  1. Reduced Liability: Employees and volunteers face lower risk of theft and accidents while traveling, especially in unfamiliar or dangerous areas and bad weather.
  2. Lower Risk of Injury: Heavy lifting, navigating crowded stores, or dealing with bulky items can lead to injuries. Online ordering allows items to be delivered directly, minimizing the need for physically handling them until they arrive.

Other Benefits:

  1. Time Efficiency: Staff and volunteers can focus on the store’s mission and operations rather than spending time shopping for supplies. This efficiency can lead to better allocation of human resources.
  2. Cost Savings: Online shopping often provides access to competitive prices, tax exemptions for non-profits, discounts, and bulk purchasing options, which can help stretch the store’s budget further.
  3. Wider Selection: Online platforms usually offer a broader range of products, including specialized items that may not be available locally. This can be particularly useful for finding specific types of equipment or supplies.
  4. Streamlined Inventory Management: Online ordering systems often offer features like automatic reordering, tracking of past purchases, and inventory management tools.
  5. Convenience: Online ordering allows for easy comparison of products, prices, and reviews, enabling more informed purchasing decisions without the need to physically visit multiple stores.

Retailers to consider: 

  1. Amazon Business: (National Partner)

-Offers bulk purchasing options and discounts on a wide range of products.

– Free shipping on eligible items with a Business Prime account and quick delivery at times as soon as the same or next day.

– Access to business-only pricing and analytics tools to track spending and optimize purchases.

The Amazon Tax Exception Program (ATEP)

Best For: General supplies, office equipment, cleaning products, and miscellaneous items.

  1. Sam’s Club or Costco:

– Access to bulk purchasing, which is ideal for stocking up on essentials at a lower cost.

– Savings on shipping with business memberships.

Best For: Bulk items, office equipment and supplies, and janitorial supplies.

  1. Uline:

– Offers a wide variety of essential items like shelving, storage bins, and packing materials.

– Fast shipping and dedicated customer service for businesses.

Best For: Production equipment, shelving, storage solutions, and cleaning supplies.

  1. Store Supply Warehouse (National Partner)

– Specializing in store fixtures, displays, and retail supplies.

– Known for their wide selection, competitive prices, and customer service tailored to the needs of small businesses, including thrift stores.

-Special pricing and branded items for SVdP.

Best For: Mannequins, clothing racks, shelving units, hangers, and other items necessary for retail stores.

  1. Magnalite Catholic – SVdP (National Partner)

– Offering St. Vincent de Paul branded merchandise.

Best For: Prayer cards, medals, banners, and branded clothing or linen.

  1. Grainger:

– Extensive inventory of industrial supplies, tools, and safety equipment.

– Offers fast shipping and bulk purchasing options.

– Specialized products that are often difficult to find elsewhere.

Best For: Maintenance supplies, safety equipment, and industrial tools.

  1. Home Depot or Lowe’s:

– Large selection of tools, hardware, and building materials.

– Discount programs and credit lines available for businesses.

– Online ordering with in-store pickup options.

Best For: Tools, hardware, building supplies, and fixtures.

  1. Nonprofit-Specific Suppliers: TechSoup (technology and software) and Good360 (surplus goods).

– These suppliers cater specifically to nonprofits, offering deep discounts on software, hardware, office supplies, and more.

– TechSoup provides software and technology at a fraction of the retail price.

– Good360 offers access to donated goods from major corporations.

Best For: Technology, office supplies, and donated goods.

By leveraging these retailers, stores can maximize their budgets, streamline operations, and access a wide variety of equipment and supplies.

If retailers are interested in learning how to become a National Partner, encourage them to reach out to Director of Stores Support Jeff Beamguard.

__________________________________________________________________________

These best practices and processes are available through the revised National Store Committee website, https://thriftstores.ssvpusa.org.

National Store Committee members are available in each of your regions as mentors and guides to assist you. https://thriftstores.ssvpusa.org/about-us.

If you have a topic that you would like addressed in a future Stores Corner article, please e-mail our Director of Stores Support Jeff Beamguard at jbeamguard@svdpusa.org.

 

 

Thrift Store Staffing Models & Engagement

Thrift Store Staffing Models & Engagement 1200 628 Jill Pioter

By John Thelen, Mideast Region – Diocese of Lansing

Throughout the country, there are three SVdP Thrift Store Staffing Models. Stores are either staffed by paid employees, staffed by volunteers, or some combination of the two. Whichever staffing model is used, a key factor in a store’s success is staff engagement. If staff/volunteers are not invested in the work of our great mission, the store will not reach its full potential.

It is important for staff/volunteers to be aware of our mission. Why do we do what we do? Let us be honest, sorting socks and underwear is not a very glamorous job. However, when you know why you are doing what you are doing, it makes the most tedious jobs tolerable.

What might help keep your staff/volunteers engaged? Make sure they are aware of your store’s mission. What do you do with your store proceeds after expenses are paid? In addition to providing employment/volunteer opportunities, do you help our Neighbors in Need with clothing, furniture, and household items? Does your store have a food pantry or assist Neighbors with rent, utilities, prescriptions, car repairs, etc.? Make sure everyone is aware of the types of assistance your store provides.

Another way to increase engagement is regularly (monthly) sharing pertinent statistics that staff/volunteers might find interesting, including the total number of donations received, total number of requests for assistance, and gross sales for the month. Maybe list the statistics you would like to share by month, showing every month of the fiscal year for comparison purposes.

Celebrate your successes. You can always find a reason to provide some type of treat to your staff/volunteers.  If you hit a high month in donations or sales, put a sign in the break room and pick up Klondike Bars and tell staff/volunteers to help themselves from the freezer. Be sure to have enough to cover all shifts for a particular week. Maybe grill hot dogs/brats and provide chips when the weather is conducive to grilling. Most people like pizza — let staff know you will be providing pizza to say ‘Thank You’ for all they do to support our mission. Maybe have an annual Christmas Dinner after work and invite staff/volunteers and guests. Share a brief program letting everyone know the impact they are making to help our Neighbors in Need.

If your staffing model does not currently include volunteers, think about reaching out to your parish members to make them aware of volunteer opportunities. Personally invite parishioners to a group gathering at your store to let them know the types of volunteer activities you have available. If you are not sure who to ask, start the process by going through your parish pictorial directory. This will help recognize people that you think might be interested in supporting our SVdP mission. Another volunteer recruitment option is a short bulletin notice in neighboring parish bulletins. You might consider sending it to other denominations to collaborate with the churches in your community.

Volunteers are great advocates to tell our story in the community. If your volunteers feel engaged, they will tell/invite others to become involved. When they are engaged, they feel more committed to showing up for their shift(s). Make sure your volunteer shifts are manageable lengths of time and encourage your volunteers to take a break partway through their shift to converse and build relationships with other volunteers. Once they get to know one another, they look forward to coming in.

Provide snacks in the break room. Maybe offer individual bags of snacks, chips, crackers, fruit snacks, peanuts, pop, coffee & water.

If you have a large number of active/regular volunteers, make sure the volunteers know what they are scheduled to do when they arrive. Either post a schedule or have someone assigned to let them know what you would like them to do for their shift. To know who will be there on a particular day, create a schedule for the day/shift, so you are aware of your workforce for each shift. If volunteers know they will not be able to come on a particular shift, have a monthly wall calendar where they can note if they will not be coming for a particular shift.

Volunteers & staff can be great advocates to tell your story in the community.

Hopefully you or another SVdP Council/Conference/Store member will be attending the Mid-Year Meeting in St. Louis, MO in March. Please consider attending the Stores Meeting on Wednesday.  An agenda is included in this article. New this year will be a Stores Committee table in the Vendor area on Wednesday and Thursday. Please stop by to meet and talk with some of the Store Committee members.

If you have a topic that you would like addressed in a future Stores Corner article, please e-mail Jeff Beamguard, Director of Stores Support.

Pricing Strategies for SVdP Thrift Stores, Part 3

Pricing Strategies for SVdP Thrift Stores, Part 3 1500 1125 Jill Pioter

A Discussion by Dave Barringer
National Chief Executive Officer

PART THREE
Knowing What Actually Works
(catch up on Part One and Part Two)

How Do We Know What Works?

Which pricing strategies and tools work best for your store? Here is what you must do to get to this answer.

  1. Know the store’s mission. Some thrift stores are designed to make the most money possible and then use the profits to fund other SVDP programs that have no funding on their own. Other stores are designed with a specific charitable intent to give away a lot of goods, but they still need to make some profit to pay the bills and stay in business. Both are fine, but you can’t do both at the same time! Your Board of Directors and leadership need to know clearly how stores fit into the overall SVDP program. Pricing strategy follows.
  2. Know our customers. In part due to the above, everything from your store location to pricing needs to be based on your anticipated customers. If you are giving away so much, maybe your store is in a poor area of the city and prices need to be lower. Usually, however, our best customers are middle-income shoppers who have many choices where to spend their retail dollars. The store therefore needs to be where these shoppers live and shop other retailers, and prices can be set higher and still be affordable. A common, historical, view of thrift stores is that these are stores where poor people shop. Most current thrift stores are designed for middle-income people both to donate and shop, with profits going to assist the poor.
  3. Test, test, test! The beauty of pricing is that you can change it. Consider a new pricing strategy in just one of our multiple stores, or in just one department if you have only one store. Check staff and customer observations and reactions. Certainly, check the differences in sales and profits. You will likely need at least one month, maybe several for some ideas, to see if a new program is working effectively.
  4. Pro testing tip: Test only one thing at a time. For example, don’t run a new advertising campaign at the same time as new price points. Which one brought more people to the store? Which one created more sales? It can be hard to tell. The more you isolate any factor, the easier it is to measure. By the way, advertising brings people to the store, while pricing, customer service and enough goods on the shelves create more sales. Advertising often gets too much credit for sales, when it should only be measured for store traffic. But that’s another article…
  5. Use the POS! A Point of Sale (POS) system is a tremendous resource in evaluating pricing strategies. Using categories, price points, units sold vs. processed etc., gives you a great deal of useful information that can help you evaluate pricing change effectiveness over time and department/category. Sometimes what feels like success, such as increased store activity, is disproven by cold, hard facts when it comes to profitability.

Conclusion

Effective thrift store pricing can be designed to create shopper excitement, drive additional sales, and maintain needed profits. It must be designed with the end in mind – your goals for the store program amidst the rest of the Society’s goals. Pricing must be considered in the context of the neighborhood economy, the competition, and the availability of continuous product flow. Finally, pricing strategy and execution can be, and must be evaluated to ensure that “you get what others are paying for” in funds for the Society’s mission and activities. In the end, we are not retailers. We are used goods collectors and resellers working to advance our mission. Effective pricing leaves no potential dollars on the table that we could be using to serve people in need. Please do not be afraid to raise prices. After all, your costs probably have risen, and you need to cover these costs just as any other retailer. However, please do be somewhat afraid to lower your prices. The first cents taken off are always your profit!

If you have a topic that you would like addressed in a future Stores Corner article, please e-mail Jeff Beamguard, National Director of Stores Support.

Pricing Strategies for SVdP Thrift Stores, Part 2

Pricing Strategies for SVdP Thrift Stores, Part 2 1512 2016 Jill Pioter

A Discussion by Dave Barringer
National Chief Executive Officer

PART TWO
Different Pricing Concepts to Explore
(catch up on Part One here)

There are many ways to determine a pricing strategy, each with advantages and disadvantages for our thrift business. Here are the most common that may be worth your time and experimentation to try at one or more stores.

Two things to keep in mind: One, pricing is always temporary. Even dollar stores have items that are no longer a dollar. A unit price can rise and fall based on many factors, some quite temporary. Don’t be afraid to try a new higher price, for example, that fails if it does not deliver the desired results. Second, remember our base price was established earlier. Every tweak to your pricing strategy may create sales movement, but your costs in most cases are still the same. You may want to intentionally price below the profit line for a limited time or for limited products, but consistent pricing below this line will kill your business. Likewise, when you change the cost, you need to at least consider a pricing change to accommodate it and maintain the profit component. We can only absorb so much and stay afloat.

Discounting

Shoppers get excited with a sale! Different items on sale at different times keep up a good level of excitement and keep shoppers returning to the store. We need, however, to manage the process so that these sales are effective in our overall pricing and sales strategies. So, why put things on sale?

Overstocks

If we get so many items donated that we can’t store/warehouse them, or we have so many of the same product, consider discounting them to get them out the door. They might be a good candidate for BOGO (buy one, get one) for limited time. If the items are seasonal, such as shorts or Christmas items, sales can be an effective way to get them sold while demand is high. You make up the profits through quantities sold. However, again, if you are selling below our profit line, no quantity will help — you only lose more money with each item sold!

Loss Leading

Retailers place an artificially low price on certain items to drive store traffic increases. Through ads, word of mouth and in-store signage, a too-good-to-be-true price can bring in more shoppers. We see this most commonly for Black Friday sales in attempt to get people into the store and then to buy other things at more profitable prices. Thrift stores can use this strategy, usually by category (“All glassware 50% off this week!”) because we don’t have enough of a single item to make it work. However, you could consider using inexpensively purchased goods, or a large quantity of goods donated by a retailer or manufacturer, to make this work. Pricing, however, must be synched up with promotion and processing to make this work correctly.

Seasonal Sales

We know that some periods of the year bring us fewer or more shoppers. Every thrift store sees more customers between September and December, because we enjoy back-to-school, Halloween, and Christmas purchases. In some areas, weather dictates the selling season. With this knowledge, you can adjust your pricing strategy. Consider lower prices during down customer periods. First, it attracts more and repeat customers. Second, you may make less on each item but sell more items, keeping your profit per transaction closer to normal.

Value-Based Pricing

We get the history of mankind donated to our Stores program! Therefore, when we recognize an antique or collectible, we can price it closer to its real-world value instead of keeping it priced with all of the other similar but not rare items. For example, you may price all those baseball cards at twenty-five cents, but that Mantle rookie card worth $50,000 in the collectibles marketplace deserves a higher price (and probably gets pulled for an online sale). We want customers to find treasures, but when we see an obvious item of great value — jewelry, watches, art, fur coats, signed items, rare books, whatever — we owe it to our mission to get as much value as we can from it.

Good-Better-Best vs. Unit Pricing

Within the thrift industry, there are two schools of pricing thought. The Unit Pricing strategy says that every shirt is priced the same as every other shirt. A Good-Better-Best strategy says that we can divide shirts into two or more categories, each with its own price, depending on the perceived value. This value may be considered due to manufacturer/store brand or fashion or materials. Each strategy can work, but we need to look at the big picture. Unit pricing creates more speed in the processing area because fewer decisions need to be made, and all the labels look the same. If filling the racks consistently and fully is a challenge, you can’t slow down processing to make these decisions for the sake of what often amounts to small gains. Recognize too that customers will argue over which shirt belongs in each category — beauty (and proper price) is in the eye of the beholder.

Rotation Pricing

A popular and effective store strategy is to place all goods for sale into a rotation system. This means that each week, the piece changes downward from full price through various points to an ultimate clearance price. Why? Because we know from more than 100 years and thousands of stores in this business two important truths. One, overall you will only sell about 50 percent of what you collect. Two, 75% of what you will sell is sold within the first two weeks on sale, and 50% in the first three days!  Therefore, full price is appropriate for the first week or two, followed in the third week by a discount, and then the fourth week is a price that only needs to be higher than what you will get from its salvage sale, such as a dollar a unit or by-the-bag price. This system maximizes realized profit values, and the customer decides what price they want to pay. They can pay full price when they first see it, or risk having someone else snap it up while they wait for a discount. With our usually one-of-a-kind items, this system works!

An alternative to the Rotation Pricing system is still to put everything on a rotation basis, but to wait until the last week or even only a few days of the item’s shelf life and then heavily discount it with no intermediate prices.

Clearance Sales

Some stores believe in a once monthly clearance sale, where everything in the store (okay, maybe a few exceptions such as antiques or furniture) is either a set very low price (“Everything a dollar!”) or set percentage (“Today only, everything 90% off!”) or full retail price. While this creates short-term excitement, it is risky. Are you training customers to only come in once a month? Are you accused of over-pricing goods at the beginning so that the clearance price just looks better? And most importantly, again, your costs have not changed, so will this strategy still cover them adequately and make the needed profit? With this system, you willingly sacrifice the profit from the items in their first and second weeks on sale because everything, even the freshest inventory, gets caught up in the same clearance sale.

Trickle or Tsunami Pricing

Having a long-range pricing strategy can help reduce customer ill will. A price increase of 40 percent across all items and all at one time might create shopper riots! But smaller increases, different per category and with a little at a time, is normal business in every other store in which they shop. We benefit as well from most items being unique, so shoppers don’t compare from one shopping trip to another quite so much. Know where you need to go and have a plan to get there that mediates sticker shock.

NEXT TIME: Part Three – Knowing What Actually Works

If you have a topic that you would like addressed in a future Stores Corner article, please contact Jeff Beamguard, National Director of Stores Support.

 

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