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newsletternewsletter 322
How Are Retail Sales Doing? How Are Retail Sales Doing? I’m not sure I’ve ever met a retailer who was happy with sales. We are all looking for better sales even during a boom. Certainly we are always looking at beating last year’s sales. Actually, it doesn’t matter very much for the individual retailer to know if we are in a recession or if the competition isn’t doing well. Each individual retail store and restaurant is looking to survive, outdo the competition, and increase both sales and profits from the previous year. That being said, it is nice to know that the economy is getting better and people are buying more. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like retailing got any better in May despite some optimism reported in the press. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported a 0.5 percent preliminary increase in total retail sales for the month of May. These figures were widely reported as being positive for the economy. I don’t think so. It’s good to be optimistic, but I don’t see any optimism in the figures. These widely reported figures are comparing May 2009 figures to April 2009 figures. If we compare May 2009 figures to May 2008 figures, sales actually fell by 9.6%. To make matters far worse, the May sales figures include a 3.6% increase in gas station sales. Sales would be even more dismal if you exclude gas station sales. Increased gas station sales is like a tax. People are paying more to drive a car leaving less money to shop in your retail store or restaurant. Well, at least gas stations/convenience stores are doing well. Right? That’s not happening either. A chain of 210 Uni-Marts are in bankruptcy. Convenience stores don’t make money on selling gas. A typical gas station makes 14 cents of gross profit on a gallon of gas. 4 cents goes to payroll. 4 cents go to credit card fees. 4 cents goes to rent. That leaves about 2 cents in net profit on a gallon of gas. On the other hand, a gas station/convenience store typically makes 50% to 60% on a bottle of water. The bottom line is that retailers and restaurants are not having an easy time. Sales for May are down. We’re not going to get any TARP funds. I’m not sure that our stimulus plan is trickling down to retailers just yet. Your choice: close down the doors or beat the competition. To read more about retail sales figures, go to Retail Traffic: http://retailtrafficmag.com/retailing/trends/weak-may-numbers-green-shoots-0616/ Read more about retail sales in Forbes Magazine at: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/06/11/afx6531967.html Read more about gas stations and the Uni-Marts bankruptcy in Convenience Store News at: http://www.csnews.com/csn/index.jsp Read more about gas station profits at NPR (National Public Radio): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10733468 Save Money. Lower Your Rent Again. I’ve now mentioned this in three recent newsletters and discussed methods and ideas related to getting a rent reduction (see previous newsletters). I know it’s getting old, but it works. I’ve heard from three ecstatic newsletter readers who have tried it and have gotten rent reductions. That’s great and certainly worth the price of our weekly newsletter. Although I can’t take credit for it, Starbucks is asking U.S. landlords for rent reductions of 25% for some stores. Read about it at: http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2009/06/01/story1.html Remember, there are lots of ways to negotiate a rent reductions. Many landlords will refuse to lower your rent by a penny. However, some will make other types of deals like paying for improvements in exchange for rent, lowering or paying for utilities, giving 3 months free on your next lease, and other freebies. Landlords would prefer to bargain away other items and keep the rent at the current level. It looks better when selling a property or renting to others since many of these freebies don’t show up on the book directly. Seagate Free Agent 1 TB USB Hard Drive…$119.
The Seagate Free Agent External USB Hard Drive is great for backing up. For $119, you get 1 TB of storage. What’s 1 TB? If you purchased a business computer in the past year, it probably came with 20 GBs or maybe 100 GBs. If you purchasesd a pretty loaded computer, it probably came with 250 GBs or so. 1 Terabyte is 4 times that amount (or 50 times the amount of space on your office or business computer). It’s a lot of storage space. The list price for the Seagate is $149. It is currently available at Staples for $119. Setting up the drive is pretty simple and it comes with automatic file backup software which will backup all of your data at a fixed time of day. It’s a great buy! Be aware that the Seagate Free Agent is not as small as some of the pocket drives that can store 1/2 TB which is 500 GBs of information. It requires the included power supply. The advantage is that once your 1 TB Seagate Free Agent is attached to your computer through the USB Port and plugged into an outlet, it can automatically backup your files at a preset time without any user intervention. Remember, you need at least two different types of backups. A file backup will backup all of your data such as inventory, photos, music, word processing files and other essential business files. Should your computer cease working, all of your data is safe. A file backup system will not restore your hard drive. Should your hard drive fail and you replace it, you will need to reinstall Windows, your software such as Cash Register Express, and all of your data which may include inventory data, photos, music, and business documents. You can use the Seagate Free Agent along with my highly recommended Acronis Backup to restore your entire computer including Windows. Finally, remember that if your computer is stolen, your backup won’t help. That’s why I also recommend a program like Mozy.com which will backup all of your data to an external site allowing you to restore your data anywhere in the world. See the Seagate Free Agent at Staples at:
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The
price of USB Hard Drives keep coming down. You have no excuse for
not backing up.
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