So for the past six years or so, I've been working at a local hardware store in my area. I’ve done almost every job you can possibly think of their, doing everything from running the register, stocking shelves, ordering, to customer service. Nowadays, I take my share in managing the store and helping out with the day to day business operations at the store. We are a small business, and it sure takes a lot to keep small businesses afloat in today’s economy. There have been other stores in our general vicinity that have closed for numerous reasons, yet we have remained strong over the years. It takes a lot to keep a hardware store going, and it takes a good group of people to do so. Over the next few paragraphs I’m going to explain what it would take to open a hardware store in the grand old state of Massachusetts.
The first and most crucial thing about a hardware store is location. You wouldn’t open a hardware store in the middle of nowhere on some side street nobody drives down. It just doesn’t make sense; nobody would ever know that you were even in that location in the first place. You also want to find an area that is primarily lower middle class income families. As weird as that is to say, your target market is the lower middle class, more specially people from ages 22-70.These are the people that are going to small DIY projects around their home, or if their toilet breaks, they’ll go to the hardware store to fix it instead of calling a plumber. If you open a hardware store in someplace like Weston or Sudbury (Two towns that are made up of mostly higher middle class residents, and have the two highest average incomes in the state.) This is because these people would rather hire someone such as a general contracto...
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...er to the hardware store to use that coupon. In my opinion it was an ingenious idea, just because you’re using local resources to gain business.
Even with all of things I’ve for mentioned, there’s so much more that goes into keeping a hardware store in business and stay afloat the 11 hours a day they are open, seven days a week, for 360 days a year. I could probably write an entire book about different things that you need to keep up with at the store, like stocking/ordering information, point of sale system, deliveries, floor cleaning, correctly counting out the cash registers…the list goes on and on. It’s a never ending cycle when it all comes down to it, but you need to stay on the ball with it. The second you fall behind in the hardware business (for any small business for that matter.), is when you’re most vulnerable to the decline of your business.
The primary problem would be the structure of the organization. This is due to the fact that there are thirteen departments in total which would lead to the failure of the ability to concentrate on long term viability of the business.
Present day Federated consists of both Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s stores and operates in 34 states as well as Guam and Puerto Rico. While Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s provide both private and national brands and are similar in merchandising categories (men’s, women’s and children’s apparel, home décor, shoes, beauty, and accessories), they differ greatly in culture. Bloomingdale’s, being more upscale, targets consumers that are more concerned with trend and quality than they are price. Macy’s targets the more value oriented consumer and represents a broader Federated clientele. Macy’s represents 423 of the 459 Federated locations while Bloomingdale’s represents only 36 locations. Because I can better relate to the value conscious consumer of the Macy’s division and because they represent such a large portion of Federated, I will further explore their current characteristics and behaviors that suggest that they possess qualities of both monopolistic competition and oligopolies.
After four and a half months of working, I am just getting the hang of it. Being a cashier might sound easy, but over at Home Depot, it’s not. There are so many responsibilities for a cashier to do; it is just as hard as being a bank teller. You have to be quick at looking up items, being familiar with items in the store, checking every item for the right tag, and the list goes on. The cashiers are tested weekly with a secret shopper to make sure the cashiers are on their toes. The money has to be added up at the end of the day, each slip, coin, dollar bill, check and card. If it doesn’t add up, you don’t leave until you find out where it went. The cashier draw cannot hold more then 500$ at one time. Each time you collect up to five hundred you have to send it to the book keeping. All these responsibilities add up and are overwhelming for a cashier. A head cashier is responsible for every register and transaction in that store, along with the flow of lines and customer satisfaction. It is a job I would never want.
Small businesses are the heart of the United State economy. There are 28 million small businesses in America and count for more than 54% of sales (Small business trends). New start up business pop up daily and so do the closure of many of them. Small businesses are usually the vision and dreams of someone who thought they could do it better. That is the case for Pocasangre Oliva Dental, a small single doctor dental practice open by Victoria Carolina Pocasangre. This paper will be an over view of the office and an assessment of where the office is now and what can happen for the future at the present condition.
Lowe’s Companies, Inc. is averaging the opening of about two stores per week. This is part of an unprecedented two billion dollar store expansion, which is the most aggressive expansion in the company’s fifty-five year history; thus, magnifying Lowe’s locality and customer convenience in the United Sates home improvement marketplace. Lowe’s new superstores are currently the largest in the home improvement marketplace, averaging a retail space of about 150,000 square feet. (http://www.lowes.com)
Wal-mart is currently the world’s largest company. It has seen continuous growth and financial success since it was founded in 1962. Today it is living off of a previous reputation of solid ethical business practices that are no longer being exercised. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-mart, was considered to be “freakishly cheap… Cost-cutting was an obsession in the Wal-mart culture… on business trips, everyone, including the boss, flew coach, and hotel rooms were always shared.” (reclaimdemocracy.org. 2006). This was only part of the reason for Sam Walton’s success.
This is a point that rings very true. Store development is important, but there are other key features that need to be considered for continued growth
What competitive pressures must Oliver’s Market be prepared to deal with? What do we learn about the nature and strength of the competitive pressures Oliver’s faces from doing five-forces analysis of competition? Which of the five competitive forces is the strongest?
There is no question that chain stores have a detrimental effect on the measurable character and community of small towns. Not only are residents effected economically and collectively, but the character of the area is also threatened or compromised. In conclusion, we should all take a step back and see how we can give back to our community by leveling the playing field for local businesses. The first step in doing so is to realize the negative influences chain stores impose on small towns.
• Request a Lowe’s - This is just as simple as it sounds! Do you want a new Lowe’s store somewhere? Just ask! A form requests your name and contact information, comments and asks if you would like to be contacted. I don’t know of another retailer who does this but what a great way to have the market place tell you where there is a need for your business to
Home Depot was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank in Atlanta, Georgia. With their store, Marcus and Blank revolutionized the do-it-yourself home improvement market in the United States. Home Depot began as a very basic store, operated in a large, no-frills warehouse. Home Depot carries over 35,000 products, with national brand names along with the Home Depot brand. At the start, Home Depot was able to offer exceptional customer service with knowledgeable employees who could guide customers through home renovation projects. Since its opening, Home Depot has experienced incredible growth, and today is North America's second largest retailer, and the largest home improvement retailer. Internationally, Home Depot has expanded into Canada, Mexico, and is beginning to operate stores in China. Home Depot's competition includes Sears, Ace Hardware and Lowes (the main competitor).
The 3 percent decline in sales causing a 21 percent decline in profits can be attributed to the identification of the accounting concept of operating leverage. Operating leverage is what business managers apply to boost small changes in revenue into sizable changes in profitability. Fixed cost is the force managers use to attain disproportionate changes between revenue and profitability. Therefore, when all costs are fixed every sales dollar contributes one dollar toward the potential profitability of a project. Once sales dollars cover fixed costs, each additional sales dollar represents pure profit. A small change in sales volume can significantly affect profitability (Edmonds, Tsay, & Olds, 2011). So, therefore, if sales volume increases,
In 1945, Sam Walton opened his first variety store and in 1962, he opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas. Now, Wal-Mart is expected to exceed “$200 billion a year in sales by 2002 (with current figures of) more than 100 million shoppers a week…(and as of 1999) it became the first (private-sector) company in the world to have more than one million employees.” Why? One reason is that Wal-Mart has continued “to lead the way in adopting cutting-edge technology to track how people shop, and to buy and deliver goods more efficiently and cheaply than any other rival.” Many examples exist throughout Wal-Mart’s history including its use of networks, satellite communication, UPC/barcode adoption and more. Much of the technology that was utilized helped Sam Walton more efficiently track what he originally noted on yellow legal pads. From the very beginning, he wanted to know what the customers purchased, what inventory was selling and what stock was not selling. Wal-Mart now “tracks on an almost instantaneous basis the ordering, shipment, and delivery of literally every item it sells, and that it requires its suppliers to hook into the system, enabling it to track most goods every step of the way from the time they’re made and packaged in the factories to when they’re carried out store doors by shoppers.” “Wal-Mart operates the world’s most powerful corporate computing system, with a capacity (as of late 1999) of more than 100 terabytes of data (A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, or roughly the equivalent of 250 million pages of text.).
There are over 28 million small locally owned businesses in the United States and 70 % of these businesses are owned and operated by a single person. Owning a small business is not an easy task it takes hard work and dedication, Steve Jobs once said “you need a lot of passion for what you’re doing because it’s so hard”, people don’t realize
The other day I walked into the supermarket to buy a box of Kleenex. I was faced with a variety of colors, textures, box designs, and even the option of aloe. All these features designed for a product to blow my nose into! Selection wasn't limited to the Kleenex section, either…I found abundance in every aisle. We seem to always want more - more choices, more variety, more time. In fact, even the word "supermarket" implies a desire for more than just a simple market.