Charles Dushek Volunteer Director of Ecommerce Business Strategy for Wheaton Outreach Ministries (WOM) from February 2014 to 2017

 

Charles Dushek was Volunteer Director of Ecommerce Business Strategy for Wheaton Outreach Ministries (WOM) of Wheaton, Ill from February 2014 to 2017

 

He was appointed by the CEO, Chris Ellerman of Wheaton Outreach Ministries (WOM), to provide new operating plan for Jubilee Furniture, a Social Enterprise Businesses (SEB).  Creates a New Online Presence for Jubilee Resale Stores Furniture, Appliances, Refurbished Computing Equipment and Other Home and Building Contractor Goods Selling.

This is a Beginning to Completion Plan for Jubilee Furniture (JF), and about its current and future affiliated Social Enterprise Businesses (SEB) to achieve the potentials of expanding the economic sales reach and success of these SEBs.  This focuses on the “economic” potentials to develop and utilize best business plans, processes and donation/ selling/ inventory and E-Commerce/customer pickup & delivery Systems towards achieving highest economic opportunity objectives.  

An initial study of NCR’s Retail Control System (RCS) called Counterpoint POS is a leader in US retail systems services, and a large player in the systems and IT platform for the Resale and Thrift Store industry.  Most of the topics and issues of this report are related to utilizing NCR’s Counterpoint as a platform for operating a resale/retail store like JF.

* There are 25,000 resale and consignment stores across the US today, with the largest players being Salvation Army Family Stores, Goodwill Stores and Habitat for Humanity resale stores.

Social benefits and resource attributes of Jubilee Furniture: 

Of tandem importance of most Non-Profit Ministries are the social benefits & resources to be achieved with expanded and successful SEBs producing revenues.  These SEBs produce high valued training and employment opportunities to youth clients, funding for higher educational youth client objectives, and social services from SEBs as generators of other valued social program resources. 

A New Beginning for Jubilee Furniture

The “change of location” for Jubilee Furniture (NEWCO) from a large rented selling location to a somewhat smaller store that is owned by WOM is an opportunity for considering the business now as a “Growth Enterprise (GE)” within a facility that is now a permanent asset of WOM and a the business that can utilize Maximum Donation Sourcing (MDS) proficiencies and Best Practices(BP) in its Resale-Retail Selling Process (RRSP).

Current annual sales volume of JF has been approximately $ 1 million per year.  Our look-alike major peer group company as a donation/resale/retail selling organization is Goodwill Industries (GW), the leader in the US marketplace.  GW is a company that has 2,700 stores and sells over $3.5 Billion a year in used consumer merchandise.  Their sales production averages $1,300,000 per store.  

  http://retail.about.com/od/othertradeassociations/ 

  http://www.localthriftshops.org/  

 http://www.robertmorris.edu/ 

These sources provide Industry Statistics for All Industries and all Reporting Businesses to obtain “Selling Metric Stats” such as sales/SF of store area, Inventory Turn Rates,  etc.  JF needs to know the levels of “maximum selling rates” per square foot for its different  category resale items for our local area.  This data will give us needed information in order to genuinely forecast the theoretical annual sales volume potential for the floor space of the NEWCO JF store.

In summary: We have a priority to evaluate JF’s annual sales potential be studying Thrift Industry sales Statistics for our demographic sales/market area and what the range of “sales per square foot of display floor space” can be for SF.  Ideally, at this stage of our business visioning for NEWCO JF it may be possible to quickly scale up to $1.3 million sales for JF (Average of a GW store).

Each of the topics discussed below is predicated on JF using a RCS similar to NCR’s Counterpoint with is rich and diverse “total system capabilities” in resale/retail store management.

Opportunities and Constraints on JF Sales Growth Outcomes

1.    Amount of furniture donations we can mine, stimulate and market to donors for is a key input.  Ideally, “Best Strategy” is to achieve “highest valued, quality, and volume of donated home furnishings” from the “largest volume and fewest sources” of supply….primarily from businesses and institutional organization donors.  Individual and family donation sources give thinner results per donor and are theoretically more time-intensive in marketing to them and collecting donations.  Yet, a more expanded and automated Social Media and One-on-One media pitch process of donation items recurrent: emails, phone text Ads, Alerts & Messaging is basically “Free” to JF, if done from an “auto-send” IT marketing systems platform, like http://mailchimp.com/  or what is included in the NRC system.

 

Summary: The more in donated items that are of high value, better physical quality/condition and volume is the most essential “macro” ingredient to grow JF sales.  JF can only sell up to the maximum sourcing capabilities of the total value of items donations received per year.  If the donation channels of supply cannot be driven up to an optimal planned level, then JF should consider supplementing its supply channels.

 Possibly  with “consignment items from the public” or enter into resale partnering with businesses like Comprenew, and/or recruit donation or consignment products flow from the 45 churches partnering with WOM and pay them say 25% to 50% of the value of items sourced from their church members.   Church partners possible employ JF as their main “Drop Off Location” for all the church members. (All churches print up & hand out a Weekly Church Letter at mass times…(Have a large and prominent Classified AD for JF Donation Request in every one of these Letters and have Pastors periodically pitch/invite mass attendees to donate to the cause as church earns added financial resources.)

 2.    JF must seek to maximize its “floor space sales area” as that directly controls the “volume sell through potentials”, which is termed Inventory Turn Rate or Average Days Unsold on the floor per product category.  The faster the Inventory turns in less number of days or turns per year, the higher the annual dollar sales volume.  Salesfloor product arrays, stacking technique, and product companion integrations (displaying “lamps on tables” and “household Décor items on furniture tables”  improves “product display density”.  Possibly, locate all the smaller “cheaper, slightly damaged, or excessively worn items” on floor-to-ceiling rack storage/display equipment and list all these on the JF E-commerce site for “maximum marketing exposure” and allow Online sales of such via debit/credit card Check Out followed by customers coming in for pickups.

 

3.  JF should feature all higher valued gentle used products in their most “appealing visual condition”, both for on-the-floor viewing and on-the-site E-commerce display.  This means that after donations are Checked In at JF, they should be cosmetically cleaned up with a little polish or cleaner, minor damage such as loose joints re-glued, drawer handle pulls tightened, leg glides replaced if needed….small, quick and inexpensive “detailing”.

 

Then each item is photographed for digital images with several “views” of the item, and do the photos, after the detailing, at a “photo station” with JF.  The station is just a simple 2-wall alcove of say 10’ x 10’ with white backdrop (with photo reflective white paint) and ambient floodlighting from 2 or more directions to eliminate shadows.  These pics are used for Checking In all items to inventory (Uploaded to RCS system.), plus item description, grade/condition remarks, initial sales price, and donor ID origin.  Important to have each item pictured against a white backdrop for online display.  This allows for “photo-shopping” of any change in backdrop colors or scene, and to easily create (photoshop) assemblages of similar items for digital E-Comm selling marketing.

    JF E-comm site achieves multiple goals and benefits for attaining highest sell through sales revenues.  E-comm product listings for all JF listed items gives maximum market exposure in digital web marketing, allows “broader selling”by JF to a larger shopper base beyond the ability of shoppers to come in frequently to the store.  E-comm is a companion selling/marketing strategy to the “brick and mortar” store. ( It appears that in the GW E-comm model they offer only small high valued items that can be “Shipped” to the buyer as Check Out process.) What sells on E-comm is restricted from sale in store (Any Ring Out by a JF sales rep is Blocked.), and provides the ability to remove the E-comm sold item from store floor space to back of the store for buyer pick up or JF delivery service…if offered for “Free or Fee”.

 JF E-comm can exclusively sell all the lower-priced items from pics listings and JF can hold these items on multi-tiered open racks in-store, with walk-up rolling ladder in-store for shopper viewing and easy product-picking by JF staff for Check Out and take-away by customer.

Summary of JF sales process metrics…We are trying to achieve the maximum potential in total annual sales by employing the above processes and Best Practices throughout the JF SEB business model.  Each of the processes discussed above are integral to achieving the highest and best “Macro” business process, and are supported by systems like NCR Counterpoint.  

This means that each of the “Micro” elements of the process must be optimized to achieve the highest macro benefit-payoff…Maximum annual sales.  The “Micro” elements are: Maximize donation sourcing, Optimal sales floor space to display products, Achieving fast sell through and inventory turns, Promoting most attractive product appearance attributes on all products displayed on-floor and on-line, Utilizing JF E-comm to expand product marketing visibility to shopping public 9JF E-comm store package is included in NCR Counterpoint.

Later on in this report, there is a detailed discuss of NCR Counterpoint features and advantages for supporting the NEWCO JF business plan.

NEWCO JF Management and Leadership needs

NEWCO JF will need to have a high caliber leadership and management team to fully harvest the economic payoffs in achieving higher annual sales levels well above $500,000 per year. The example NCR Counterpoint is just a “tool” to support all human leadership, management and staff selling activities towards achieving the highest economic goals…Growth in Sales.

We should have a savvy Chief Operating Officer to primarily Lead the NEWCO JF + other SEB enterprises.  This person creates the action plan for designing and adopting the RCS system, and the training program to have all SEB people fully understand the features of RCS, how to use it for each JF manger, employee and volunteer work assignments.  When JF associates optimally use the RCS system, it is establishing “Best Practices” from using this tool, and that leads towards best in quality, efficiency and economic outcomes to JF.

JF needs one or more Retail Store Manager positions that report to COO.  JF needs one or more Store Operations Managers that cover all non-selling store operations responsibilities and reports to COO.

RCS has a huge amount of reporting and control flexibility to have the COO, Retail Store Manager(s) and Store Ops Manager(s) to monitor all the transaction and inventory activities, Anywhere and Anytime from an iPhone, tablet, Laptop or Desktop PC, since the RCS is a fully web-based system.  Access to web RCS is always available within the local Wi-Fi of JF, both inside and periphery around the store outside.  Connection beyond the JF store area is via internet access line service or via a typical 4G wireless service to iPhone, Tablet or Laptop wireless card.

www.CounterPointPOS.com ∙ www.ncr.com

NCR Counterpoint is a complete retail management solution that gives you the power to control every aspect of your business, including point of sale, inventory, customer records, purchasing, sales history, and more. ( I gave the NRC sales rep a full download explanation of all the goals and operating processes that are desirable or essential to NEWCO JF and for other OCM SEBs.)

The following services explanations are the NCR RCS features formally discussed in their informational publications.  All of the donation, retail, inventory and store operational support (tools) JF needs are easily customizable within their RCS Counterpoint.

Debit and Credit Card Processing

NCR Counterpoint also features robust credit card processing, ecommerce support through CPOnline, and interfaces to many popular accounting systems. JF can continue to use its legacy merchant processor.

JF RCS is Web Based

NCR Counterpoint is based on Microsoft SQL Server®, the industry–standard database platform that’s affordable and easy to use.

All of your business records—including items, customers, vendors, sales history, and so forth—are securely stored in the Counterpoint SQL database. Because SQL Server operations take place at the server, reporting and analysis is quick and efficient, even with years’ worth of data.

 

A Web Based Highly Flexible and Personalized User Methodology

Like most Windows® software, NCR Counterpoint features a system of menus that allow users to navigate through its various modules and functions.

Counterpoint’s drag-and-drop menu editor allows you to easily configure each user’s menu to include only the functions that user needs. Restrict your clerks and volunteers to the appropriate Point of Sale or back-office functions, while granting your COO, WOM Executives, Retail and Store Ops Managers and IT staff access to all of Counterpoint’s reports, analysis tools, system utilities, and configuration options.

NCR Counterpoint also includes three toolbar styles: one for Point of Sale users, one for back-office users and managers, and one for users who are making the transition from Counterpoint V7.

Transaction and Other Activity Look Ups

LookUps are available wherever you see the  button , allowing you to find exactly what you’re looking for, quickly and easily. All you have to do is start typing a keyword “To Prompt a Search For” and Counterpoint quickly pre-fills the rest.  Use LookUps to find items with the word “table” in the description, products in the “dining set” category, or customers whose phone numbers start with a particular area code (630) or local exchange (393) .

Zooms combine a variety of important data into a single window, so you never have to look very far to get the detail you need.  Zoom window displays essential information about a particular type of record—including: Items, Categories, Customers, Donors, Consignors, Donor item Check-Ins, Customer Deliveries, Pickups, and so forth.

Reports in Excel Type Format…Sort Columns from Top to Bottom

Table View, a spreadsheet-style format that allows you to review, column resort, compare, and modify multiple records simultaneously.

NCR Counterpoint includes an extensive library of reports, each of which is designed to give you the kind of mission-critical information you need to manage your day-to-day operations, analyze your sales history, and plan for your business’s future.  (Possibly use OCM existing formats for JF report styles…That Staff already know and understand?)

You can preview each report in the integrated Crystal Reports Viewer, which allows you to print the report or export it to a variety of formats, including Adobe PDF, HTML, CSV, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and many others. You can also send reports via e-mail to users, customers, or vendors, allowing you to reduce your consumption of physical supplies. ( Create Reposts Folders for WOM Board Members and Email…No paper Reports to print, collate, and envelop stuff and mail!)

JF Connects with Anyone and Anywhere on Many E-Comm Platforms

NCR Counterpoint’s internal Message Center allows you and your employees to communicate quickly and efficiently, without requiring you to install or maintain third-party e-mail (We could avoid “MailChimp” or iPhone single-messaging actions.  Just like a traditional e-mail client, the Message Center displays your Inbox and your Sent Items, along with a message reading pane, so you can send, receive, and read messages using a familiar interface. (This confines all JF business matters messaging to an independent platform to all the JF Only Users.) You can choose message recipients individually or in user-defined groups (Board Members or Volunteers.), assign messages a priority, and designate “instant messages,” which will pop up on each JF recipient's desktop or mobile tablet or iPhone device when he or she logs in at the JF store.

When you receive a message, an icon appears in your Windows system tray (accompanied by an optional alert sound). Simply double-click the icon to display the Message Center to read the message and reply.  Use the Message Center to remind JF and WOM users of JF or other SEB company promotions, daily specials, or pending system changes. 

Throw Away All the Keyboards

For touchscreen users, NCR Counterpoint offers a simplified interface that features larger buttons and text, “touchscreen-friendly” LookUp windows, and a pop-up keyboard/numeric keypad that allows JF and SEB users to easily enter values without a keyboard such as with their personal or OCM provided mobile device tablets and iPhones.

Point of Sale

Sales are the lifeblood of JF and other OCM SEB’s. You need them to flow quickly and easily. NCR Counterpoint includes powerful and intuitive Point of Sale features that allow your clerks to focus on ringing up sales and helping your customers, all over the sales floor, and not tethered to counter registers.

Whichever interface you choose, Counterpoint allows your clerks to process sales, returns, orders, and layaways quickly and easily “At the Counter or On The Floor via Mobile”. Because each interface is designed to look like a ticket, training your clerks is a snap. They can start ringing up sales after learning just a few essential buttons or keystrokes!

JF Returns and Exchanges and Discounting

Whenever a customer returns an item to our store, you want to make sure that you actually sold the item, that the item hasn’t been returned before or a new donation, and that you don’t refund more money than the customer actually paid.  With validated returns, you can look up the original ticket—or scan the ticket number barcode on the receipt—and select the item the customer is returning from a list of items that were sold on the JF sales ticket. If JF emailed the receipt, then just gather the transaction info off the email text on the customer’s iPhone device.  If/When a customer returns a JF item that is broken, defective, or otherwise cannot be resold (The damage was not apparent at time of sale…(i.e. a chair leg was partially broken.), authorized users can “scrap” the item as they are processing the return by selecting the appropriate reason code.

Authorized users can apply discounts to individual, eligible line items or to entire tickets—or both—at the Point of Sale. You can designate which items are discountable and which are not eligible for discounts.

Do On The Spot JF Ads to Customers at Check Out or at Locations Around the JF Store

With the Counterpoint Customer Display Designer, you can create dynamic, customer-facing media and display it on any secondary large wall monitor, or an NCR Graphical Customer Display. Capture your customers’ attention with slideshows, animation, video clips, or any other media, which you can present alongside essential ticket and payment information.  Hang a large monitor in back of the cash/service counter so it is “customer facing” and run a video loop of special sale items or other customer-motivating illustration messaging.  Modify one of more than a dozen pre-defined customer display layouts or design your own from scratch. Tailor your customer displays by department or use the same media throughout your store. Sell ad space in your checkout lanes for additional revenue.  Promo Jubilee Discovery and Jubilee Cars!

Print Up Various Store Activity and Operating Task Tickets

NCR Counterpoint includes a variety of common Point of Sale forms in OPOS and Crystal Reports format, including receipts, gift receipts, picking tickets, invoices, and even admission tickets!

Related Point of Sale forms can be grouped together and printed when the appropriate transaction is completed. For example, when a clerk completes a ticket, Counterpoint prints each form in the TICKET form group, including a credit card sales draft, a receipt, and a gift receipt, if necessary.  Receipts can also be sent to customers via e-mail, eliminating the inconvenience of printed receipts and reducing your paper consumption. And if you don’t have a customer’s e-mail address, you can capture it “on the fly” during ticket completion.

re Manager Check Out and Close

NCR Counterpoint includes a variety of Point of Sale reports and journals that provide end-of-day balancing, summary information, and profitability analysis by department, user, and salesperson. Each report includes user-defined parameters that allow the Retail Store Manager to perform additional analysis by tax code, POS station, user, and payment type. Counterpoint’s reports help you get a handle on all your daily sales.

Manage and Track Inventory Activities and Statistics

 

If sales are the lifeblood of your business, your inventory is its backbone. You need to be able to manage your inventory effectively.  Setting up items in Counterpoint is quick and easy. You can create item records using the standard Items maintenance window or the simplified Quick Items window. Authorized users can add items “on the fly” from Ticket Entry or other areas.  Whichever method you choose, Counterpoint leads you through the process of creating an item record, prompting you to take a picture of item & upload, add a description, define price, assign a barcode.

 

Barcodes and QR codes can be entered manually or generated automatically by NCR Counterpoint.  Once you’ve created your barcodes and QRs, you can print them on labels and scan them at the Point of Sale,  while receiving donations, or transferring items, or any other time you need to quickly find an item in your database. 

Counterpoint also supports mix-and-match pricing, which lets you group items together by item number, category, sub-category, and grant discounts based on quantity sold, retail value, weight, or volume. Use mix-and-match pricing to encourage customers to purchase more items to qualify for a discount.

 The Merchandise Analysis report is a powerful and flexible tool for analyzing your inventory. With the Merchandise Analysis report, you can classify and rank items using a wide variety of criteria, including units sold, sales dollars, profitability, on-hand quantity, turn rate, discounts, markdown, or any one of over 180 different measurements.

 Analyze merchandise at the item level or get the bigger picture by grouping your inventory by furniture categories, sub-category, item attribute, and so forth.  Hot/cold analysis allows you to view, for example, the “hottest 40 items based on quantity sold” or “the coldest 20 items based on turn rate.” Location-specific reporting allows you to analyze merchandise at a single location or multiple locations within the JF store.

 

JF Customer Database Knowledge

 

Without customers, you wouldn’t have any sales. You need to serve them well to keep them coming back to your store. And effective customer service begins with customer knowledge.  NCR Counterpoint lets you track detailed information for every customer—including contact information, sales history, important dates, types of categories purchased, and so forth—allowing you to offer the kind of personalized service and individual attention that creates customers for life.

Set up your customer records using the standard Customers maintenance window or the streamlined Quick Customers window. Just like items, authorized users can add customer records “on the fly” at the Point of Sale on the JF floor.  Each customer record includes basic demographics, including the customer’s name, address, e-mail address, other contact names, and phone numbers.  You can select customers throughout Counterpoint by entering a customer number, scanning a customer ID or loyalty card, or by looking up keywords, such as the customer’s name, phone number, or street address….Same Look Up process for Donors at time of item pickups.

Build JF Customer Loyally…They Are Our Number One Source of Referrals

NCR Counterpoint includes support for customer loyalty (i.e., frequent shopper) programs, which allow you to reward loyal customers with points that can be redeemed for future purchases or special incentives.  You can create multiple loyalty programs, each of which can have different rules regarding how customers earn and redeem loyalty points. For example, you can specify whether each program grants points for items on sale, the dollar value of each point, and the maximum number of points that can be redeemed on a single ticket.

 

JF Forward Sales and Staffing Planning

 

Tracking and analyzing your sales history is a critical part of managing your business. You need to learn from the past in order to plan for the future. NCR Counterpoint includes powerful Sales History reports and tools that let you make sense of where you’ve been, so you can plan where you’re going.  Compare your sales year-to-year or during specific seasons, holidays, or annual promotions. Analyze sales by merchandise store location to get an idea of how traffic patterns and your store’s layout affect your bottom line. Find out which salespeople are more productive and which are passive at sales.

Get the JF E-Comm Store Up and Running

Opening an online store is easier than you think. Ecommerce capabilities are built into NCR Counterpoint and are compatible with NCR’s Web-hosting and ecommerce service designed especially for Counterpoint merchants of all sizes.  NCR Retail Online combines the essentials of ecommerce into one simple package, including member-specific items and pricing, eNewsletters, Google Base™ submissions, automatic order notifications, real-time credit card authorizations, package tracking, and a wide range of payment and shipping options.

 

NCR Retail Online is designed to be your do-it-yourself solution to ecommerce success. Step-by-step instructions are available to walk you through setting up and maintaining your online store. If you want help from the experts, NCR offers a number of additional services to help you make the most of your experience:

 

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Target the shoppers actively searching for your product, drive more traffic to your site, and significantly increase your online sales. SEM delivers a powerful return on the investment of your marketing dollars.

Design Services – If none of the built-in templates meet your needs, NCR can work with you to create a truly unique look and feel for your online store.

Custom Development – Every online store has different needs. Chances are you’ll think of something you’d like to see in your online store that we never anticipated. NCR can customize your online store to make it work the way you do.

Personalized Training – We provide live, dedicated, one-on-one guidance to help you open your online store quickly and efficiently. Our product experts will answer your questions and guide you through the configuration options that are most suitable for your particular business.

 

Other Features Supplied by NCR Counterpoint System

 

Counterpoint integrates seamlessly with a variety of third-party accounting packages, allowing you to transfer information between Counterpoint and your General Ledger.

 

Counterpoint includes direct accounting interfaces to a number of popular accounting packages, including QuickBooks, BusinessWorks, Great Plains, MAS 90/200, and Small Business Financials.

 

Processing payment transactions is a critical part of your business. NCR Counterpoint’s integrated payment authorization and settlement features make processing those transactions quick and secure, reducing your risk, along with your checkout times.

 

NCR Counterpoint includes electronic draft capture (EDC) capabilities that allow you to process credit cards, debit cards, and other EDC transactions through Radiant Payment Services.

 

Adding the Credit Cards Option allows you to process credit cards with additional processors, including First Data North, First Data South, Paymentech, RBS WorldPay, TSYS (formerly Vital), and Moneris Solutions.

 

Regardless of which processor you use, Counterpoint provides you with an integrated solution for processing credit cards, debit cards, and other EDC transactions that offers the following benefits:

 

 Rapid, automatic payment authorizations

 Faster checkout times

 Reduced customer frustration

 Fewer errors and fewer chargebacks

 

Counterpoint allows you to obtain authorizations for credit and debit card transactions at the Point of Sale, via a dial-up or Internet (i.e., CPGateway) connection.  Credit card numbers can be entered manually or obtained via a magnetic stripe reader (MSR), while debit card processing requires the use of MSRs and PIN entry devices. Counterpoint also supports electronic signature capture via payment terminals, at counter stations or on JF staff mobile tablets or iPhone devices.

 

JF Action Plan

Conclusion:  JF is entering an opportunity to enhance its business model, store location, add E-comm site and potentially add-in new sources of donated or consigned products to sell.  The JF business model should be designed by a knowing COO that can foresee the growing business needs of JF and added SEBs that can utilize one common donation, resale, retail and customer service and marketing platform.  This can provide the highest and best payoffs to all the OCM SEB’s individually and collectively.

I advise and suggest that the business model ideas, staffing functionality and areas of leader & manager competency be optimally considered as very attractive opportunities to reach for.  The use of the NCR platform initially looks to be ideal in all the features it offers to enable JF to achieve significant economic outcomes.

The plan, if adopted to install a system as discussed above would likely be executed on “after” all the physical move is completed from old store to new store and NEWCO JF is acceptably stabilized to reconvene its normal course of business activities.  The NEWCO biz model discussed above can be implemented without any significant disturbance or modifications to the NEWCO store physical store layout scheme.

Submitted by,

Chuck Dushek