The Art of the SWAT
I was speaking with Julie Jennings, owner of Uniquities, with 5 wonderful contemporary stores in Chapel Hill, Raleigh and, now, Charlotte, North Carolina. Julie had just finished a meeting with her store managers about SWAT.
Sell What is Available Today.
(Who doesn’t love a good acronym? Especially one that makes sense.) The concept is to sell what you own by replacing an item with something in stock, rather than transferring or special ordering.
Why SWAT? Many good reasons:
The hidden costs of loss of productivity, and actual expense of seeking that one piece, is high.
The cost of locating it is better served by finding a replacement piece on hand.
There is a labor cost to find it in multiple locations.
Even if your POS has live inventory, it still needs to be identified and pulled by a person.
There is a transportation cost to ship it, plus operational costs to follow it and make sure it was transferred in and out correctly.
There is also the risk the customer may change their mind.
The store where the item was taken out also misses the opportunity to sell that item.
The counter-argument is: are we providing great customer service, and if that is what the customer desires, don’t we have a responsibility to deliver on what they want? Not necessarily. A salesperson’s job is to create wants and not just fulfill needs. If there is a replacement item, then that should be the first course of action.
SWAT is a great reminder that selling is about fulfilling the wants and needs of customers with the available inventory today. The extra effort to SWAT is a perfect example of improving productivity, which is the best way to improve profit. The time spent on training on SWAT is significantly less than the burden of extra costs of transfers and special orders, especially when an alternative is as good, if not better. And in today’s world of “want it now”, the customer gets immediate gratification.
As we close out the year, targeting inventories to their lowest levels of the year is every retailer’s prime directive.
SWAT is a great tool to make that happen. Every item, and every extra item sold, reduces a future markdown. It’s not surprising that Julie is successful, as she pays attention to the details of her business in ways that improve profitability and, at the same time, offers great client service. It’s a great testimonial to motivate you to SWAT train your salespeople today.
Wishing you all a very happy, healthy, joyous and prosperous holiday season.
ONWARDS & UPWARDS,
Marc Weiss
CEO and President
Management One™ and Retail ORBIT®