Main Idea
Have you ever picked out something to buy, taken it to the cash register, and been told by the sales clerk that the price is less than what was marked on the shelf?
Expansion of Idea
Yesterday, I went into Office Depot to pick up some thank you cards. The cost on the shelf was $7.00. When I went to pay for the cards, the cost was $4.50. This says a couple of things. First, I don’t have a clue what I should be paying for these cards. Beyond that, the store lost $2.50 on my sale. Third, how many sales did they miss because they marked it at $7.00 when it possibly should have been marked at $4.50. I don’t really know what price it should have been marked at. I liked the cards at $7.00 because it wasn’t that much money and the cards were what I was looking for. Either way, the store was probably either losing sales or losing profits because of a system issue. By itself this is not the big of a deal. However, I have had this happen to me a fair amount over the last year.
How much money have you left on the table because of a system issue in billing customers?
How many customers have you turned into ex-customers because they think your prices are too high as a result of a coding error?
Are you maximizing your revenue by not allowing true sales to be properly charged and collected?
Are you doing something for free that you should be charging for?
Are your systems too lax and money is literally walking out the door?
Do you truly know what fair market value is for your products?
Have you compared them with your competition?
Do you know what your costs are and whether or not you are making money on all of your products?
Even if you think that this is not a problem, it is a good idea to periodically check your systems. Most of the problems I see are with major companies and they have whole teams of people checking this stuff. Small businesses think that they don’t have the time to double check this. But then they wonder why they are having cash flow problems. In the last two weeks I have learned about two different small businesses near my home that have gone out of business. I have been in both of these in the past and their customer service was very good in one business and in the other business was good. Is it possible that they had sales that they did not collect for?
Suggested Areas to Start
Evaluate your sales pricing
Evaluate your sales systems
Evaluate your return policies
Look for unexpected events such as pricing issues. Are there bigger systems issues?