Determining and then documenting your general operating guidelines and procedures will be challenging. That is especially true if you are opening your first business location. But don’t allow that to sway you from doing just that. Start with those guidelines and procedures that you have already considered and made decisions about. Next move on to establish guidelines and procedures regarding topics that you considered, but were previously unable to come to a final decision about. Now is the time to make a final decision and to document that decision.

A great source of topics and issues is other businesses in your area. Often other small business owners will be willing to share their established guidelines and procedures with you. Use those as a template for your store. While some may not apply, or may need to be changed to accommodate your specific business, they still provide the topic areas that must be considered when you open your dollar store business. If other businesses are unwilling to help, then do some research on the internet and you will quickly find many policies to be considered for your store.

Some of the operating guidelines and procedures that should be established and documented for your dollar store business include hours of operation, cash register operations and procedures, merchandise guarantees and refunds, merchandise shipping, as well as layaways and gift shipping. Employee hours of work, customer service are also of concern. In fact every guideline and policy that affects customers should be documented and then all employees should be trained to those guidelines before they actually work on the sales floor.

Operating procedures associated with employees should likewise be documented and then communicated as a part of each employee’s initial job orientation when they first come to work for your dollar store business. While this will take some time to communicate, it will help avoid problems and misunderstanding regarding how the business runs and what is expected of each employee.

To your dollar store business success!

Do you want to learn more about opening a dollar store? See Insider’s Guide to Opening a Dollar Store at http://www.openingadollarstore.com.

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer.

http://www.rescue-me-now.com

http://www.MarketingSuccessCenter.com

If you are about to open a dollar store it is worth your time to become familiar with Craigslist and how it works. You might even attempt to make a few purchases. That experience will be helpful when the time comes to actually use the resource to sell off merchandise.

There are several potential advantages to using Craigslist. First, sales can be made in your local area. That reduces transportation costs. It also means that you are dealing with prospective buyers in your time zone; there won’t be any middle of the night telephone inquiries about the items you have for sale!

Craigslist is free of charge. Your advertisement does need to be approved before it is posted, however. The entire approval process is easy and actually takes very little time. Since time is so valuable when you open a dollar store, this is a great advantage.

Craigslist can be a great place to start your excess inventory selling efforts. This is especially true for discount and dollar plus stores where pricing is over a dollar. When you are faced with quickly liquidating inventory, consider Craigslist as one of the options. You just might very impressed with the results.

To Your Dollar Store Success!

Do you want to own your own Dollar Store?

Visit http://www.openingadollarstore.com for more information.

http://www.rescue-me-now.com

While some of the instances may not be con artists at work they should be viewed with caution to protect your dollar store business. There are instances where an individual may have forgotten their pin number and wish to use the card as a credit card. This is usually encouraged by banks because of the fees they can earn but it also leaves a wide open angle for con artists. They can easily pull this off due to the lack of signature checking run through a register, swipe, and deal the card as credit, sign and go.

There are also individuals who will pass stolen or checks which belong to non existent bank accounts. While stolen checks may be easier to spot since driver’s licenses are becoming more and more of a requirement, when it comes to using checks, fraudulent checks may be harder for cashiers who are not trained to notice smaller details. These checks are usually made by professionals and appear to be real. The only difference is that they are usually attached to non- existent bank accounts. The is also a practice of check kiting which is to use a check to make a purchase then withdraw the money from the bank prior to the check clearing. This ends up coming back as a bad check to your dollar store business.

Multiple forms of payment are fairly common. In fact most people on public assistance might use food stamps on one card and then use another card or cash to pay for the items not covered. There are also individuals who will pay with debit on part of the transaction and cash for the rest. These are fairly common practices and because of this con artists have an easy way to walk away with a number of items. Since it is a fairly standard practice it is not something that arouses a lot of questions in the mind of the employee. They simply accommodate the customer. Your dollar store business faces the challenge of understanding and then training all cashiers to properly handle these challenging transactions.

Credit card companies will call to verify or request a phone call to receive verification if a large amount is charged to a card over a short period of time, or for example a large amount in an out of state location. To avoid this, con artists will make a large purchase charging only part of it to the card, making the purchase small enough to go unnoticed and then purchase the rest with another form of payment. These are just a few of the methods used by con artists in order to obtain items without paying for them at the cash register. Be sure to protect your dollar store business from these problems.

To your dollar store business success!

Are you interested in opening you own dollar store? Check out “A Beginner’s Guide to Opening a Dollar Store at http://www.OpeningADollarStore.com

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer. http://www.marketingsuccesscenter.com

There are bank deposits to make. Previous day receipts need to be counted and new cash register set-ups assembled. There is merchandise to receive and price. There are new orders to be written and forwarded. New displays need to be completed. Store signage needs to be updated. Sales and promotions need to be developed. Then there is the last minute phone call from an employee who will not be coming in to work!

With an often over whelming amount of work to be done, and a limited amount of time to complete that work, effective small business owners who are opening a dollar store must master the art of priority setting. Prioritization of tasks will insure that critical tasks for business operation are completed first. Less important tasks will remain incomplete and carryover to a time when they can be completed.

Retail tasks prioritization can quickly be completed when a set of criteria is identified. For example, the highest priority tasks might be those associated with daily store operations. In this group tasks such as cash register set-up, store cleanup and preparation for opening, daily scheduling of employees, actually opening the store, and others will be included.

The next level might be tasks associated with customer service. That might be followed by merchandising and stock work, and on down the line. All retailers who are opening a dollar store will have a little different perspective on what the right priorities for their store.

By prioritizing tasks in this manner the retailer who is opening a dollar store can be sure that the most important tasks always are completed first. By following this process, tasks that are left incomplete will have less impact on the successful operation of your business. Give prioritization a try.

To Your Retail Success!

Are you interested in opening your own dollar store? Go to http://www.openingadollarstore.com to find out how! http://www.OnlineAuctionsMadeSimple.net

Once of the best ways to reduce cost is to cost the costs associated with merchandise buying. In fact a well managed program that is focused on merchandise cost reduction can literally have thousands of dollars of positive impact to the profit of your business. Those are the kind of results you are always seeking when you start a dollar store business.

Amazingly, even a quarter-of-a-cent or half-of-a-cent reduction in merchandise acquisition costs can positively impact your business. When you start a dollar store business you will see that a one-quarter-of-a-cent reduction in cost of good sold for a store that sells $500,000 annually could be as much as $1,250 in profit.

Imagine the amazing results in cost of goods sold results that 5¢ could mean. For a store with sales as noted above, this could mean as much as $25,000 to your business. One of the main objectives when you start a dollar store business should be to achieve just these kinds of results.

This is not a one-time effort that comes and then disappears. With ever increasing prices of transportation, wholesale merchandise pricing cost reduction becomes an ongoing battle. When you start a dollar store business you must recognize that this is a battle that will last for as long as you are in business. In fact the first time you sit back and relax to savor you last cost reduction success the results will begin to unfavorably shift.

Your cost of goods sold will once again start to negatively affect your business. Yet by simply making cost of goods sold reduction a main focus you can not only keep up with other price increases, you can actually increase your bottom line profit. That’s the result that is important when you start a dollar store business.

To Your Dollar Store Business Success!

Do you want to own your own Dollar Store? Visit http://www.openingadollarstore.com for more information.

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer.

http://www.MarketingSuccessCenter.com

Customer theft can come from the most unexpected places. It might be a small child who wants something and takes it. It might be someone who doesn’t have the money to make the purchase so the item is stolen. It might be someone who need a quick source of cash and takes items to resell. The list goes on….

Take the right precautions to protect your dollar store business. You will never totally eliminate theft. However you can reduce it by taking those right actions. The first step is to talk with the local police. Many departments have literature, coaching and presentations that you and your employees can attend to become informed about merchandise loss prevention.

Your commercial insurance company is another source of information and ideas regarding loss prevention. Some will even provide an expert walk-through of your dollar store business to provide ideas on changes that could be made to reduce your exposure to loss.

Security cameras are another requirement to protect your dollar store business. Ask the vendor you buy from to walk the store and work out a camera placement scheme that covers the areas with the greatest risk. If blind spots remain after the system is installed, then make changes to cover those areas. While well-placed and easily noticed cameras serve to prevent some theft, they are also key to recording theft that does occur.

Alert and well trained employees are one of the best preventative actions you can take. Educate your employees regarding security and theft prevention. While you never want an employee to place themselves in a compromising position, there are steps that employees can take to significantly reduce losses. That starts with visibility to all shoppers in the store. A quick ‘hello’ when someone enters along with employees being visible on the sale floor is the first step. Offers of ‘may I help you find something’ or similar questions as shoppers work their way through the store make it obvious that there is an employee presence on the sales floor of your dollar store business. Always having more than one employee on the sales floor is important for this to work, however.

To your dollar store business success!

Do you want to learn more about opening a dollar store? See Insider’s Guide to Opening a Dollar Store at http://www.OpeningADollarStore.com.

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer.

http://www.rescue-me-now.com

http://www.MarketingSuccessCenter.com

They are usually located in high traffic locations which means that they have plenty of customers on a daily basis.

A high number of customers translates into large volume sales for dollar stores that have the right selection of wholesale merchandise.

This is what makes dollar stores idea customers for wholesalers.

The owners of dollar stores are always looking for high quality and attractively priced merchandise for their stores.

Since they are also selling their products at the dollar range, most of their products move pretty fast.

This high turn over means that dollar stores need to reorder merchandise at a frequent basis.

A wholesaler who has a dollar store as a customer will be able to move plenty of merchandise since his customer is moving that same merchandise out of his store at a rapid pace.

To be able to wholesale to dollar stores you need to do the following.

1. Ask dollar store owners what type of merchandise they need. Then look for sources of this merchandise.

2. Find out what price they are paying for their merchandise. Most people will tell you this information since they want you to be able to offer them a lower price.

3. Price your wholesale dollar store merchandise low. This way the dollar store owner can move volume and reorder from you more often.

These three steps might sound simple, and they actually are. But you would be surprised at how many wholesalers forget this simple formula.

Use this formula and you will soon be enjoying the benefits of wholesaling to dollar stores.

Donny Lowy is the CEO of http://www.closeoutexplosion.com, an online wholesale and closeout business.

His business supplies wholesale and closeout products to dollar stores, flea market vendors, and eBay sellers.

1. Remain at the dollar price point. This is still doable, but doing the same things you’ve always done, the same way you’ve always done them is just not the answer. You must get very aggressive in your buying practices. You must no longer allow slow-selling items to hang around. You must be willing to take some gambles on merchandise. You must be willing to invest more labor in sorting, testing and pricing incoming merchandise.

2. Change your store format to dollar increments. For example, change you dollar price-point store to a one-dollar and two-dollar store. Or even better, develop price ranges such as $1 through $5, $1 through $10, or even $1 through $20. There will be grumbling from existing customers, and you can expect that you will lose some of your steady shoppers. However, with an aggressive advertising and marketing program, you can rebuild you business in the new format. Remember; at these higher price-points the margins will be significantly better, and the average sales price per item will also grow.

3. Change the store format from a dollar store business to a discount store business. Lose the dollar format completely and begin to provide merchandise that is deeply discounted. You might consider maintaining some of the old staples at the dollar price-point just to keep current customers coming back. However, expect to lose many of your existing customers. Once again, if you have a very good location and the right demographics, a strong advertising campaign can be of huge help in rebuilding your business. This strategy can offer you significant margins, and even bigger average sales price per item.

4. Change the store format from a dollar store business to a specialty store. The actual specialty depends on your location, your historic store sales, and your desires. For example, maybe you have historically had excellent party goods and greeting cards sales. If your lease, store size, store demographics, and your personal interest support it, maybe changing to a party supply format would be the answer.

It is important to remember that this is like starting a whole new business again. It will take time, money and lots of work to make the change. Be sure you have the patience and resources to go from the dollar store business you own today to a retail business that very different. If you decide to hold true to the dollar store format be sure that you examine everything you are doing today. Cut costs everywhere possible, invest time in locating and negotiating pricing for merchandise. Above all don’t let sales decline too far while costs grow too big to make the needed changes in your operating procedures. If change is needed, make that change quickly.

To your dollar store business success!

Are you interested in opening you own dollar store? Check out “A Beginner’s Guide to Opening a Dollar Store at http://www.OpeningADollarStore.com

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer.

http://www.marketingsuccesscenter.com

This article is not about negotiating freight or merchandise costs with your usual vendors. This article is about stepping outside your comfort zone and really looking for those low cost merchandise buying opportunities. While the risk will increase, with proper management you can significantly reduce the cost of good sold for your business. However to accomplish this you will need to take action. You will also need to devote extra time to seeking more low-cost merchandise providers and in managing those you have already located.

There are really five sets of opportunity for those who are aggressive at reducing the cost of good sold. None of them are for the faint of heart. None of them are for the dollar store business owner who doesn’t want to roll up their shirt sleeves and go to work. However for those who are willing to take on the challenge there is merchandise available at reduced prices. Your first challenge is to locate that merchandise.

Opportunity number one is the safest! Start shopping sales. This strategy starts by adding vendors to your list. Start shopping the best prices on everyday products with a larger assortment of vendors will yield cost of good sold savings. Be sure to take advantage of their weekly, monthly and seasonal sales. Ask about these sales if they aren’t automatically offered to you.

Opportunity number two is more risky. Start looking for opportunities to purchase merchandise from dollar stores that are closing. Get in early! Don’t allow others to purchase the very best merchandise and leave the slow sellers for you. In fact it is probably best to walk away if most of the merchandise has already been sold. Extend this effort beyond dollar stores – try purchasing the inventories of discount, gift or variety stores that are closing – as you become comfortable with your ability to manage the closeout purchasing process.

Opportunity number three is even a bit more risky. Start purchasing merchandise from close-out, shelf pull, and store return companies. These are larger lots of merchandise. Likely there will still be price tags on much of the merchandise. There will be the need to sort through and discard the broken items. However, when you locate the right merchandise at the right price you win, your customer win, and the vendor wins in this transaction.

Opportunity number four is even riskier. It also requires an investment. However, this is where you can really stumble onto some gems. Start looking for the smaller discounted wholesales and importers to use as suppliers. To be even more specific, you are seeking newer, small vendors. Many of these vendors discount their process to gain new customers. Their everyday price will be a few cents less than you regular supplier. The selection will be smaller and there will be a requirement to really manage the process. However the rewards from a five or ten cents cost of good reduction on high volume products can be huge to the bottom line of your dollar store business.

Opportunity number five is only for those who can afford to gamble money. Become an importer. Buying direct will significantly reduce the cost of merchandise sold for your dollar store business. However there are problems! This does take a good deal of money to make happen. There are long waits for product to be manufactured and shipped. The quantity of each item purchased is large. Quality or other problems can be tedious to resolve. On the other hand, you will not believe the prices!

To your dollar store business success!

Are you interested in opening you own dollar store? Check out “A Beginner’s Guide to Opening a Dollar Store at http://www.OpeningADollarStore.com

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer. http://www.marketingsuccesscenter.com

Opportunity number five is only for those who can afford to tie up fairly large sums of money. Become an importer. Buying direct will significantly reduce the cost of merchandise sold for your store. However there are challenges associated with importing! Right off the bat you will face the need to have funds or credit that can be tied up for fairly long periods of time. Next you will face selling significantly larger quantities of merchandise than you have likely ever handled previously.

Having items manufactured for your business is exciting. You may have options available such as placing your store name onto the product labeling. You will also be able to order exactly the items that you want for your store. The price, even after shipping is added will be very low when compared to what you have been paying. One container load can positively affect the cost of goods sold for your dollar store business for several months. However with all this good news, there are added issues that you must address.

Generally there will be a requirement to purchase container sized loads of merchandise. While this makes for very inexpensive freight, rest assured there will be more merchandise than you likely have dealt with if you are one or two stores in operation. The other challenge is the need to purchase hundreds or even thousands of each item that is ordered. For the typical dollar store business that can equate to several years worth of merchandise at current sales levels.

All of that merchandise takes lots of room to store. Be prepared when your order arrives. Unless you own several stores, you must liquidate the excess merchandise that you receive. There are a variety of strategies for doing this. Become a wholesale distributor yourself. Use excess merchandise as a means of starting that business without added expense. Another option is to speak with a local distributor or sales representative about selling the excess merchandise on a commission basis. You might even find a local supplier who is willing to trade a portion of your excess merchandise for merchandise that you routinely sell in your store. Don’t forget to offer the merchandise on the internet. Local or national auctions and sales pages that specialize in bulk quantity sales are available at little or no cost.

As with all well managed risk, there is also the opportunity to significantly reduce the cost of goods sold for your dollar store business. That reduction can add thousands to your profit.

To your dollar store business success!

Are you interested in opening you own dollar store? Check out “A Beginner’s Guide to Opening a Dollar Store at http://www.OpeningADollarStore.com

Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer. http://www.marketingsuccesscenter.com