Ronald L. Bond - Retail in Detail
Here you can read online Ronald L. Bond - Retail in Detail full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2013, publisher: Entrepreneur Press, genre: Home and family. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:
Romance novel
Science fiction
Adventure
Detective
Science
History
Home and family
Prose
Art
Politics
Computer
Non-fiction
Religion
Business
Children
Humor
Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.
- Book:Retail in Detail
- Author:
- Publisher:Entrepreneur Press
- Genre:
- Year:2013
- Rating:3 / 5
- Favourites:Add to favourites
- Your mark:
Retail in Detail: summary, description and annotation
We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Retail in Detail" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
Since it was first published, Retail in Detail has helped tens of thousands of retail business owners successfully start and run their businesses. It has established a reputation as a no-nonsense, down-to-earth guide for small retailers. This fifth edition has been fully updated for todays rapidly changing retail environment in the Internet age. A new chapter contains specific tips on using the Internet for marketing and two-way communication with customers. New sections cover becoming an e-tailer, including choosing a domain name, processing credit cards, shipping and receiving, and other Internet-specific issues. Brick-and-mortar retailers learn how to assess product vulnerability to competition from Internet businesses. This essential reference contains many specific examples and case studies, based on the authors experiences starting and successfully operating three retail stores and a bed and breakfast, as well as on the experiences of dozens of successful entrepreneurs. Worksheets can be used by beginning retailers to plan for and operate their business.
Ronald L. Bond: author's other books
Who wrote Retail in Detail? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Ronald L. Bond
Nicole Augenti
Suzanne Hausknecht
Clare Rayner
Merrill Lehrer
Retail in Detail — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work
Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Retail in Detail" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
Table of Contents
Part 1: Introduction
Since Retail in Detail was originally published in 1996, it has sold more than 25,000 copies in four editions, and established a reputation as a no-nonsense, down-to-earth guide for small retailers. It contains many specific examples and case studies, based on my experiences starting and successfully operating three retail stores and a bed-and-breakfast over a 20-year period.
This fifth edition retains the down-to-earth approach that has received positive reviews from both users and industry reviewers. It still includes worksheets that can be used by retailers to plan for and operate their businesses. It continues in the style of previous editions and makes liberal use of humor and personal experiences to illustrate important concepts.
In order to provide the latest up-to-date information, the entire book has been updated to reflect current conditions. References have been checked and modified to ensure that they are still current and valid.
In order to ensure that cost data is currently valid, dollar amounts included in the various worksheets and performance ratios were checked using Bureau of Labor Statistics cost indices for a number of items normally sold in small retail stores. The results show that, surprisingly, small retailing dollar values of the90s are essentially the same, two decades later.
This verifies my own observations that items similar to the ones we sold in 1996 have not risen in price, but have actually declined in many cases. This is probably due to the increase in the number of items that are imported, and the general flattening of inflation in recent years due to monetary policy and the slow growth of the U.S. economy since the recession of 2008. While this is good news for consumers, it represents yet another challenge for small retailers struggling to maintain profit margins with flat prices and their own Increasing labor and utility expenses.
I hope this newly revised edition will prove valuable to you, whether you are considering opening a small retail store, or you are a new or experienced retailer who needs more information to help you operate your business.
Let the selling begin!
Chapter 1
What to Expect from This Book
I am assuming, since you have purchased or borrowed this book (or are surreptitiously reading it at your bookstore... Look out! The clerk is watchingbetter buy it now!), that you or someone you know is interested in becoming a retailer. Im also assuming that you are planning on starting small and being actively involved in the business and that you would like to actually make a profit. Dont laugh: Some folks just want to keep busy, achieve tax deductions, or maintain a favorite hobby through owning a store. Im also assuming that you are not planning to use this book to learn how to rise to the top of Walmart or JCPenneys. Its on a much more basic level than that.
If my assumptions are correct, once upon a time I was in your shoes. Writing a book about it, however, was the furthest thing from my mind when, in 1985, my wife, Susie, and I decided to open our own retail store. If you stick with me, I believe you will find the information I am about to share useful.
How We Learned the Hard Way
Before starting our store, we sought all available information and references that would help us navigate the maze of planning and startup. While we were able to obtain a lot of information, most of it was not directly applicable to small business retailing, nor was it specific enough to allow us to foresee and plan for the actual costs and events that materialized.
The Small Business Administration (SBA), for example, has a lot of information and many publications available for free. However, the government definition of small business covers companies with gross sales in the multiple millions of dollars. Many of the free pamphlets simply assume too large a scale of operation to be of any real use to a mom-and-pop retailer. Much of it also relates to manufacturing or service operations, which are also far removed from the reality of the small retail store we wanted to start.
We didnt want to use their retired business executive assistance program (called SCORE), because, frankly, we wanted to do it ourselves, our way, and really didnt want an outsider planning our shop. Ego aside, we also secretly feared that a rational, experienced businessperson might take one look at our plans and immediately fall into a fit of uncontrollable laughter at our ignorance and naivet. This is not to minimize this resource; Im sure these gentlemen and ladies are actually quite helpful and would never make fun of rookies such as us, but I guess we were a little apprehensive and perhaps too stubborn to admit we needed help.
In any event, we decided to proceed on our own, at our own pace, and desperately needed a how-to book, perhaps with a plain brown wrapper, that would give us detailed instructions on how to set up shop, without having to go public with our intentions. Alas! With the exception of one simplified accounting and finance handbook, we found no such resource.
We found plenty of books on business management in general, and others on how to get rich in real estate without investing a cent, but you can get this kind of information for free on early Sunday morning television infomercials. This kind of free information is usually worth exactly what you pay for it!
So, after finding out virtually everything by trial and error, I decided to try to fill this void in the information marketplace by writing down our experiences, our methods, and our failures so future entrepreneurs would have some footprints to follow, even though they may sometimes appear to have been left by a drunken sailor! Besides, with the eternal optimism of the entrepreneur I could see burgeoning book sales, huge royalties, autograph parties, talk show appearances... Whoa; back to earth! Where were we? Oh, yes, why I wrote this book!
So, if you are expecting a scholarly treatise on the science of retailing, instead of a commonsense, step-by-step instruction book on how to start a small retail store, you should probably look elsewhere.
Susies and my objective was to combine her talents for decorating and crafts with my skills in business and management into a tangible enterprise that would also, hopefully, produce some extra income and provide a nest egg for retirement. Of course, we also harbored that secret dream of all entrepreneurs that our shop would prove wildly successful, be franchised nationwide, and make us millionaires by age 50. OK, so we got started a little late to fulfill our Horatio Alger fantasy by 30-something! Better late than never! In fact, retailing has become an attractive option for seniors who are at or near retirement and wish to keep busy, while earning supplemental retirement cash.
After more than 20 years in the retail business, we have yet to see our store name in lights in shopping centers across the nation, but we have successfully operated three retail stores and a bed-and-breakfast in two cities in the United States. We have achieved a degree of success that gave us some additional financial security in our golden years. (We are now retiredwell, almost.)
We have also gained a lot of experience, met many new and wonderful people (along with a few grouches), broadened our range of interests, and strengthened our relationship with each other and as a family. So we consider the venture a success. And even though we are not rich and famous yet, the first four editions of this book have sold more than 25,000 copies and we have received numerous testimonials from readers about how the book has helped them in their retail adventures. Neither of us had any real experience as retailers when we began, but we believed we had the basic ingredients for a successful store, if we planned carefully, were fiscally prudent, and executed our plans cautiously and deliberately.
Light
Font size:
↓
↑
Reset
Interval:
↓
↑
Bookmark:
Make
Similar books «Retail in Detail»
Look at similar books to Retail in Detail. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.
Nicole Augenti
Suzanne Hausknecht
Clare Rayner
Merrill Lehrer
Reviews about «Retail in Detail»
Discussion, reviews of the book Retail in Detail and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.