Example 2: Missed Market
A regional auto parts company had been in business for 45 years, under two generations of family management. In that time they had built a base of over 750,000 prior customers, from 7 mid-market city locations.
My marketing research determined that the client had instant name brand recognition with nearly 1 million people, that this group was heavily concentrated around an age 35 to 59 male demographic, and that the median income of this core demographic group was 77% higher than national averages for the same group, the result of the 7 stores being located in more affluent neighborhood locations.
The client was already operating a centralized warehouse for supplying the 7 stores, so the infrastructure was already in place to support a mail order operation, which was my recommendation.
I developed the business plan, order processing and inventory systems, and helped this client launch an e-commerce web site, and a quarterly catalog mailing based marketing system.
Today, total sales are up 163%, gross margin on sales is up from the previous 21.1% to today's 29.6% and, because of the modernized data processing and accounting systems I specified, total employee count is the same as before launching the new mail order division.
