FRISCO, Texas – For William Baine, electronically tracking the tobacco category at the item level has helped him spot errors and better manage his sets, leading to stronger inside sales over the past three years.
Baine, CEO of Git ’N Go Markets, Clinton, Tenn., spoke at The Pinnacle Corp.’s user conference this past fall, saying inventory-management solutions within the tobacco category can help his team identify problems and zero in on root causes. For instance, if they discover a shortage in their counts, “Are we losing packs or cartons?” he said. “Is the shortage in a couple of brands or across the board?”
Getting to item-level inventory meant the four-store retailer had to put scanning in place, both with receiving goods at the store and on the sales end.
Baine also talked about a legislative initiative passed in Tennessee last year that raised the minimum markup for cigarettes from 8% to 15%, which Gov. Bill Haslam—who also has ties to retail—signed into law in spring 2015. A coalition that brought together c-store retailers with local healthcare-advocacy groups supported the measure as a way to combat what they described as a “near monopoly” from two out-of-state companies.
These companies “force retailers to sell near state minimums,” Baine said. As a result, an increase in the markup would help retailers achieve better margins while increasing what the state receives in sales taxes (as a result of potentially higher retail prices).
Officials with Arlington, Texas-based Pinnacle also spoke of a new feature within their core product, a data-transfer function that can help retailers keep up with demands from major tobacco manufacturers for point-of-sale (POS) transaction data. About 180 retailers and suppliers attended the company's annual users conference in Frisco, Texas.
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