Software Pioneer Derek Best - RIP

Derek was one of the first software engineers to create pawn software in the Pawn Industry for the mainframe Digital Equipment Corporation - DEC.  This was accomplished in those days with punch cards.  My dads brother, Dennis Mack who founded Palace Jewelry and Loan in Reno, Nevada in 1957. contracted with DEC to build the state of the art computer systems for pawn around 1972.

My uncles inspiration and enthusiasm planted the seeds of curiosity what computers could do for pawnbrokers in those days.

Derek gathered the basis of the Mack Families pawn operations from my uncle which blended into the development of Dazzle.

3 years ago Derek and I re-engaged in conversation about Pawn and Software.  Dazzle is one of the best products in the industry and Derek's genius and single handed creation was enjoyed by pawnbrokers all over the world.

Derek was a gentleman, honorable and honest, a comrade of Pawn.

The industry owes a 21 gun salute to Derek.  I will miss our conversations.

RIP Derek Best

Steve Mack
Co -Founder - Bravo Stores Systems

Year of the Customer for Pawnbrokers in 2016

Happy New Year to all my fellow Pawnbrokers.

Well, we are off to 2016.  Have you set your annual goals?  What is there to do in 2016?

What is going to drive your business with limited time and resources?

I got all fired up for this year talking with Nygel Scourfield  at C3 Partners U.K. who is a former Director of Albemarle & Bond.  He has launched a new customer generation platform specifically for Pawnbrokers.  Nygel knows his stuff, spent time really understanding the pawn customer and shared common sense findings about the value of a customer and what you can expect to extract from a new customer over time.
 
The Customer

So, the chicken and the egg.  What comes first in the Pawn business?  Customer or Merchandise.  Yes - Customer.  Whats more important to the Pawn business?  Customer or Merchandise.  Yes - Customer.

Its the customer.  Always the customer and nothing more.  Customer rule.  More customers the better.  Never heard of a bad customer.  Customers are always right.  Get it.  Customer are everything to business.

Without customers you have zero value.  If the number of customers your store support is growing you are in good shape.  If the total number of customers is going down, your business is on the decline.

One way to measure the success of your pawn business is total customers, total loans, average loan amount, and average number of items in loan.

Customer Acquisition Cost - CAC

If you have only one take away from this blog, this is the most important business metric that you need to know about your pawn business.  What does a new customer cost you to successfully transact a new loan or sale?

There are a number of ways to figure this out, and most importantly it does not have to be a perfect calculation, but go to this link if you would like a more in depth understanding and methods how to calculate.  click here.

The acquisition cost can vary from a minimum of $50 to $500 per customer.  The average is approximately $75.

Customer Lifetime Value

How much does a customer contribute to your business over time?  Have you ever thought about it?  Isn't that the reason why you have a store?  

Pawn brokers most commonly only see what is in front of them,  "The Merchandise".  

The result of a transaction that maybe a loan or buy that results into a interest revenue or profit after the re-sale of the item you may purchase.

If you can put yourself into the mindset that you look at the customer as a $1200 dollar bill of future revenue over a 3 year period, how would look at the opportunity.

The average Pawn Customer Lifetime Value contribution is approximately $1200.00.

533% Per Year (ROI) return on your CAC - 3 year

My spending 30 years behind the loan counter and on the sales floor, I want to puke to think how many customers I let walk?  How many customers did I not attend to as appropriately as I should have?  How may telephone calls did I not get to in time?  How many new customer acquisitions each day walked out of the store?

And yes, if I had only accomplished one transaction with a new customer it would have resulted in $1,200.00 in revenue over the next 3 years.

The pawnbrokers that effectively complete the customer acquisition that turns the customer opportunity status into a new customer wins.

Think about what you can do at the loan counter to make that loan.

Think about what you can do when a customer is interested in purchasing an item in your store to complete that sale.

Let 2016 be the year of the customer for your store

Steve Mack
Bravo Pawn Systems

Bravo October Release Includes 46 upgrades and changes - Hear all about it!

Bravo October 15' Release includes 

46 Upgrades - Enhancements - Changes

Bravo every 3-5 weeks schedules a release of a new version of Bravo to 100% of all of its customers instantly.  No customer is left behind as Bravo Microsoft Azure Cloud Technology enables quick development and delivery that is unsurpassed in the industry.

If you value your time and expect a system to increase your every effort.  Bravo Pawn Systems has enterprise functionality for single and multiple store operators for today's competitive and changing landscape.

Here is a summary list and images of our October 15' Release.

• HOT KEYS - NEW enabled through out Bravo for faster instant access. 
• RESEARCH - NEW another Bravo Research Tool to find UPC and Product details instantly.
• REPORT ENHANCEMENT - unlimited  and enhanced custom reports tools.
• SECURITY - 6 new security enhancement features.
• FEATURE ENHANCEMENTS - 9 upgrades to current features.
• INTER-STORE PAYMENTS - NEW
• BRAVO MOBILE - NEW
• ECOMMERCE 
• 27 REGULATORY CHANGES
• 22 MISC. CHANGES & UPGRADES 

Inter-store Payment Screen - 1

Inter-store Payment Screen - 2

New AdHoc Report Transaction Generator

New Bravo Research Button -1

Research Pop-Up result - 2

BRAVO HOT KEYS (ALT)

Mobile Offers - screen shot

Mobile Offers - screen shot

New Extension Pawn Ticket Format with Add Coupon

Bravo Newest August 2015 Features and Upgrades

Every 4/5 weeks Bravo releases new updates free to all of its users.  Thursday's release included some really cool new products and features as well.

VENDOR MEMO

Many pawnbrokers are looking to transfer inventory to various 3rd party re-sellers on Memorandum. This feature includes the complete Memo process including the final sale and return of unsold items.  No more keeping track.  Bravo does all of the heavy lifting.

Upgrade ATF A&D Book

Added Categories

Upgrade to Lay-Away 

Upgrade Extension Multi-select

Those of you that offer extensions for your customers, our multi-select product smartly calculates 4 types of payments options on multiple loans with one click.  Whether 1 loan or 50 loans to one customer, again with 1 click all of the loan contracts are then completed, consolidating this arduous single transaction process, this saves 10 -30 minutes per customer. also -  Upgrade to EOM Report.  Added Security Bits.  Upgraded Customer Search across Multiple Stores.  Upgraded Bravo Estimator Google like Smart Search.   

Upgraded Diamond Pricing.  Upgraded to Item Notes and Item Details.  Added Firearm Storage Fee.  E-Ticket export for police - Phoenix.  Upgrade South Carolina Regulations.  Upgrade Washington State Regulation.  Custom Upgrade - Colorado.  

BRAVO MOBILE - PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

Bravo now has mobile app to remotely approve via mobile phone a secure and linked approval to a transactions that requires approval. No matter where you or your managers might be, now with Bravo there is no reason not to have your best employees approving transactions.

PRODUCT INTELLIGENCE  

Up above is Bravo's newest view of our powerful platforms product intelligence that shares real time product values and data analytical review of Manufacture and Models. What to pay, What to loan, What to price, What to sell, How long it should take to sell, Does it sell best in eBay, Does it sell best in your store, Now you know. Now you know best. Be the best pawnbroker with the best information. 

Email Michele for live demonstration at   michelle.lautarevsky@bravorevolution.com

Call us anytime and find out why pawnbrokers that use Bravo do it better and easier.

Steve Mack

BUYA SMASHES ALL TIME SALES RECORD FOR SINGE DAY - $29,070.20

It's like Christmas selling season everyday with Bravo.

Bravo eCommerce yesterday has its biggest day with 529,260 advertisement impressions, 7,337 new customers, 18,002 page views, closing $29,070.20 in sales.

BUYA.COM currently has 152 stores across 40 U.S. states selling 150,000 items interactively live throughout these locations.  BUYA is in the top 16k most poplular website in the United States.

Sign up for free to try out the Buya Trading exchange - click here to join over 690 other business, acquiring merchandise from customers.

Also, PawnMaster single store users can switch to BRAVO for FREE.  Contact Michelle to learn more about this exclusive offering.  michelle@bravorevolution.com

What makes Bravo unique is the seamless integration of eCommerce with Pawn.  It is a lot of work to sell online.  And some of you have had to add extra employees to get this done.  With Bravo you don't need extra employees to sell online.  Its that simple! 




There is no reason today why you shouldn't have the best technology and processes, give us a call or email, we would love to show you.

Steve Mack

bravopawnsystems.com

888.408.6287

michelle@bravorevolution.com