Page 48 - DMGT553_RETAIL_STORE_MANAGEMENT

Unit 3: Pre-Store Opening

Notes

Caselet Requirements of Starting an Efficient Small Business

Following are the factors that drive the success of small businesses.
Acquiring Start-Up Capital: An adequate supply of capital is essential as many profitable
businesses fail because they don’t have enough cash to pay their employees and suppliers.
But what is an adequate supply of capital? The only way to tell is by doing a significant
amount of research on your potential market and formally documenting this in a business
plan. I’m sure you know that a business plan is a very important document that is crucial
to convincing your banker to lend you money.
There are two ways to obtain a business plan. Do it yourself by amending a business plan
template, or hire a professional to do it for you. Obviously the first option will be a great
deal cheaper, but probably not as effective.

Finding Customers: Finding customers can be a difficult and expensive task for service
business owners such as accountants, lawyers and plumbers. One cost effective marketing
strategy for service business owners is to simply give all their personal contacts a few
business cards. It may be surprising, just how far a personal relationship goes.
Many websites have pre-designed business card templates. The diversity and quality of
these designs was outstanding. In addition, a significant savings can be obtained by finding
a printing service on the Internet. We found that you could get 2,000 full colour business
cards for as little as $150.

Accounting, Budgeting, and Controlling Cash Flow: Accurate small business accounting
is very important for owners. It’s essential that you have timely access to information that
could make or break your business. If stocks are running low, you need to know about it.
If a large proportion of your debtors haven’t paid, you need to know about it. If you do not
react to these situations quickly you may have a situation where you don’t have enough
money to pay your employees, or worse still someone is stealing cash out the till.
The above explanation will provide an idea of some of the tools that you can use to grow
and maintain your small business. These three business aspects have a great impact on
overall success and longevity.

Source: http://www.openinganewstore.com/3-requirements-of-starting-a-small-business/

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
3. Visual merchandising is concerned with presenting products to customers outside the
retail space.
4. Fashion and home furnishing retailers have always devoted considerable resources to
displaying products in a visually appealing way.
5. The primary function of retailing is to buy merchandise.

6. Merchandise management focus on planning and controlling of the retailer’s inventories.

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