Thanks Juan. This is a great question. Purchasing and sales must recognize that we are all part of the same team. Ultimately, the accountability to have an item sell through rests with the guy that bought it. The first thing is that the buyer should create and (most important) publish to the staff a list of all items in each major category that will be purchased on a regular basis (The Merchandising Mix).This is one of his tools. This Mix should be arrived at with input from sales to help avoiding buying the duds. The buyer and sales staff also needs to recognize that it is virtually impossible to buy in perfect quantities of every item and that sometimes products simply don’t sell at the anticipated rate, or don’t sell at all, and so the buyer is then tasked with making sure he has a plan in place to sell thru all items that move too slowly (or not at all) in a timely fashion at accepted profitability levels. In our case, that plan is the 4-A-Month Program. If the buyer simply mis-buys all the time in terms of both quantities and the product mix, then it may be time to turn purchasing over to someone else (fire the buyer). The buyer must pay attention to the staff’s needs, and the staff needs to help the buyer as well. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. I hope this answers the question. – Mike Cofield-

Thanks Luke. Just so everyone knows, we have never used the 4 A Month Program to create a reason to fire anyone.- Mike Cofield-

Thanks for the comment. You are correct. We sometimes buy things we shouldn’t due to pressure or error. Avoid the pressure to buy what you don’t need, but if you end up buying something you probably shouldn’t have, make sure you have a plan to turn it back into cash as quickly and profitably as possible. You really can’t fault the reps and vendors for trying to sell you stuff. That’s their job. Our job is to resist buying what we shouldn’t and getting rid of stuff we buy. Even losing a little money on it is better than sitting on it forever. -Mike Cofield-

Thanks for the reply. We do not include totally unsellable products of the kind you specify in the list of items we want them to sell. We want to set our staff up to succeed, and reward them financially when they do. This is why there are 2 very easy items to sell, 2 harder and 2 extra. Our desire is to reward those who participate, assist those who are trying but need help, and only firing those who simply refuse to participate. We are a team, and the goal is to succeed and reward. We paid out over $20,000 in bonuses to the sales staff due to this program.

If you were in the presentation then you would know that isn’t what Mike is doing. I say in the presentation and it is very smart. It is focused on selling electronics, speakers etc that are sitting around. It also isn’t talking about remotes and cables and unsellable product. We are in the process of implementing the program in our store and our staff is already excited about it.