“Just In Time”
Advertising and Promotion

The trip you’ve been promoting all year is coming down to the wire — and you still have three spaces left to fill. Fill those spaces and you’ll make money. Leave them empty and you are going to take it in the shorts. What do you do?

As retailers, we all face situations like this from time to time. It may be a trip or class we need to fill, an activity we need to promote, a call to action (i.e., “Write your county commissioner today and tell him not to vote to ban divers from the lake…”) or simply merchandise you need to move right now.

Bear in mind that, in an ideal world, you’d be able to prevent situations like these from arising in the first place. After all, you are supposed to sell merchandise before it becomes obsolete — right? The world, however, is not always an ideal place.

Lesson One: Dodging the Tax Man

My introduction to the concept of “just in time” advertising and promotion came in the late 1980s. A friend who had recently purchased a North Carolina dive store found himself in an unusual predicament.

Upon purchasing the store, he’d implemented a number of innovative ideas that led to a steady increase in quarterly sales. Unfortunately, his quarterly estimated tax obligation was escalating at an equal pace. By the third quarter, when seasonal sales had started declining, his tax bill outstripped his cash on hand.

What to do? Bear in mind, this was before the days of the Internet. It was not, however, before the days of the US Postal Service.

My friend’s solution was to do a first-class postcard mailing announcing a one-day sale. The sale generated more than sufficient cash flow to solve his immediate problem.

Understand that this does not represent the most ideal way to do business. Much of the merchandise my friend moved during his one-day sale were items that would otherwise sell at higher margins. So, in the long run, the sale most likely cost him in terms of profitability. Nevertheless, it beat having to explain things to the IRS.

“I told them they had to be there…” »

::: TOP ::: SUBSCRIBE ::: CONTACT US ::: ABOUT US :::