This last week in San Francisco, I found myself in KIds Gap shopping for my grand daughter. I was so impressed with the merchandising. Perfection in assortment and color. Store Traffic was light. The sales personnel were either straightening stock or busy scanning merchandise.
My first reaction was store audit, as the employee was behind a wheeled counter was all wired in - headset / scanner / printer.
The Wheeled counter was the Point of Sale fixture, but was missing all of the traditional computer peripherals. The employee was scanning merchandise for a online sale and behind him was a box of completed bagged, tagged ready for USPS.
When we approached the employee he immediately stopped and re-focused on us, the in store customer. Using the same Point of Sale but switching printer to in-store receipt off he went scanning our merchandise. The employee could perform multiple tasks, communicate any questions we posed, and handed the scanner for the customer to finish the transaction.
Yes, the customers have to do their part. Efficient, courteous, fast and complete. And as soon as we were done, back to the online sales flowing into the store and producing more sales than the few customers strolling and shopping.
My old school retailing wondered if customers felt neglected. I think those days are done. Retail customers are accustomed to being smarter shoppers and want fast efficient check out, everyone is in a hurry.
One of my take away's was the realization of what Bravo Pawn Systems has done for the Pawn Industry by bringing this vital business process to Pawnbrokers. GAP hit hard by online has turned it stores into efficient and still beautiful retail full commerce stores.
The last question I asked the sales person was how long had he been fulfilling web sales? A couple of weeks and had replaced the online fulfillment that normally was performed down stairs. I prefer to stay busy and we can operate the entire operation with fewer employees.
As the CEO of Superpawn, 1999 the web was lifting off. eBay gentrified used goods and as well all used goods became mainstream selling asset like used cars. Selling on eBay was fun, fast, and had lots of customers purchasing, not just shopping.
At Superpawn we got right into the swing, centralized operations, moving merchandise, hiring drivers, and eventually a eBay team. Everything looked good. Except for that 6 month duration our net profits declined. We also noticed our store were getting cherry picked and our inventories were looking shabby and getting older.
Funny how a great plan goes to hell. Our eBay team learned fast what merchandise was easy to post, what merchandise was in factory boxes were easier to ship, and before we knew it our store managers were complaining their opportunities were diminished.
We studied our effort and found our cost to sell was way to high. We found this out through an accounting practice called "Activity Based Accounting".
Logistics - Drivers, trucks, and breakage - Most expensive logistic operation. Really expensive and no return on effort or investment.
Centralized Warehouse - although it seemed centralizing was the way to become efficient, it doubled our cost to sell in the store. Lots of wasted effort no return on investment.
Inventory turnover was better and we saw extraordinary price lift on merchandise we normally had to discount to get rid of.
1992 we were using BCLS - Breeze Collateral Loan Systems much like Pawn-Master, Hi-tech, Dazzle still sell pawnbrokers. As it was outdated then in late 1999 we launched PRIMA - Pawn Retail Internet Management Analysis Systems. Building out the first Enterprise Multi-store Pawn System our vision was to streamline eCommerce with the Pawnshop operation into one.
Bravo platform launched in 2011 is now 20 years ahead our competition. Only Cloud Platform with multiple mobile offerings including online pawn.
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| Bravo Shopkeeper - Chat Pawn Shop |
What we found out in 1999, GAP had experienced the same in 2015. You can not run separate operations to maximize profits when operating a store and online. But you can do both. And why not? When you look back at GAP they had huge hemorrhaging as they evolved we are seeing many pawnbrokers losing profits and many closing.
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| MobilePawn - Get a Pawn from over 1000 stores |
Today's pawn operators must develop their employees in multitasking commerce personnel. As employees are getting harder to find, wages are going up, business operators have to figure out how to drive more profitable activities from their employees. Get more efficient. Our work force is better educated, tech savvy, and love to use mobile devices.
Another antidote. When you get good at running your Pawn business as a full service commerce operator, your LOAN business will grow. Number one reason your employees turn away loans is they are concerned they can not sell it. They tend to lend less in item categories they are wary of and lack confidence. Selling online accelerates inventory turnover driving more confidence, and lending up.
Time is running out for the tech lagers as MobilePawn will be the number #1 Pawnbroker this year. Customers using mobile to pawn and bring their items for a quick efficient predictable experience.
Making the transition from your old system has never been easier. With over 1000 pawnshops switch to Bravo give us a call or sign up for a demo - Bravo!
Bravo has so many new features coming out the next release, I personally wanted to share our new Reporting Pro coming out in our next release. Built on Microsoft's latest technology and Microsoft Azure, Bravo has the only Data Warehouse Reporting product for the Pawn Industry.
