Whoever said 'Retail is Detail' is absolutely 100 percent right
I've managed some very large retail companies in the past, and when contrasted against service businesses and sales companies, retail is by far the most detailed business a person can be in.
Walton said that "Whoever said 'Retail is Detail' is absolutely 100 percent right." Of course he knew better than anybody. This is the type of business where missing on important detail can completely mess up the whole works.
But when it comes down to retail success, it's paying attention to a lot of small details that eventually determines the success of a company.
One example I've seen happen is in either a hardware store, or the hardware department of a big box store. There is so much waste in these departments because of the endless moving around of merchandise by customers, and the ordering system in place that can't account for merchandise that has been moved.
The other problem is that these departments rarely have even close to the amounts of employees they need to make them run efficiently. Here is the ultimate detail space where you literally can have 8-10 thousand items on a single aisle.
Now part of the reason these problems are never really addressed is the extraordinary markup these items have. People can buy a single little nut or screw that may cost less than a penny to make, and buy it for 10 times that much. When that happens from minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour and day-to-day, the profits are fabulous.
But there is a huge opportunity just in this one area where the profits could even soar more if things were changed. I'm not getting into what could be done, but just showing you the attention to detail that is required to just run one part of a retail store department.
Those that are able to not only pay attention to detail, but find the best answers to how to make that knowledge of detail work, will be the biggest winner. Sam Walton obviously found it out.
The bottom line in retail is once you understand the detail, is to balance it between labor costs, customer service and profits. Again, Walton had it down to a science and has passed it on to the next generation of leaders at the company. The one who manages detail the best, will win in retail.
Other Walton Sources:
The Most Underrated CEO Ever The legendary Sam Walton
Sam Walton: The Power of Persistence
Sam Walton Business Quotes for Ya
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