Orgill Case Study | 13 Before After These categories include: • Type 1 Items—A (near) exact item-for-item brand match (there may be some differences in UPC number, model number or other factors). • Type 2 Items— Similar products, but may be different brands or have packaging differences. • Type 3 Items— Items that do not have an Orgill-provided equivalent. During their walk-through at K&C Supply, Barker and Musselman were primarily looking for opportunities in several areas: • How does the overall flow of the selling area work? • Are the departments organized in a way that helps customers navigate the store and takes advantage of the square footage? • Do product adjacencies make sense? • Is the store and its departments well-signed? • Are the retailer’s product assortments complete? • Are there product categories or assortments that are completely missing from the store’s merchandise mix? • Are there holes in individual product assortments that could create additional sales opportunities if filled? • Are there brands or lines that might make more sense for the market? • Are there areas within assortments that are supported by Orgill programs that could create efficiencies for a dealer to order and maintain? • Are there opportunities to increase sales margins by adding additional products? • What opportunities does the customer have to take advantage of Orgill’s Smart Start program? • Are there any other programs or services that might make sense for the retailer to consider adding? After the initial walk-through at K&C Supply, Barker had several pages of notes outlining his suggestions in these areas. His initial assessment was that Orgill could help the retailer in a number of ways. However, before he was ready to prepare a presentation for the Bundicks, there was another step in the process that Barker needed to implement. “After we have looked at the data and walked the floor to get a good understanding of the situation and our thoughts, we always do a second walk-through with the owners or management team so we can see the salesfloor through their eyes,” Barker says. During this walk-through with the owners, Barker looked for feedback and insights into areas that might not be as readily apparent to him. “I want to get an idea if there are brands, assortments or products that might be very important to the store’s brand or the local community,” he says. “I might not know this because I am not as familiar with the market as the owners or managers would be.” Barker says he also likes to ask the owners a simple question during his walk-through: What do you like about the store and its assortments, and what don’t you like? “If you don’t ask the question, you might never know,” he says. “This gives us the ability to tailor our suggestions to what is most important to the owners. After walking the store with them and talking through their thoughts, we get a better understanding of what we can do.” For Jim and Dana, this was a refreshing approach. “One of the things we really liked about working with Mike was that just about everything we brought up to him about what we wanted to achieve, his answer was, ‘I have a solution for that,’” Dana says. And when it came to helping take K&C Supply to the next level, Barker’s solution for the store involved utilizing Orgill’s Smart Start program.
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