Five Numbers Project Open Enrollment

Ellen C. Wells

You’ll recall that Ian Baldwin last year joined forces with YourMarketMetrics.com (developed by Kellee O’Reilly and Corey Bordine) to help retailers like you answer the question, “How am I doing?” Through this new Five Numbers Project, retailers have been able to subscribe to a service and track five numbers each month to improve profitability (sales, customer count, gross margin dollars, labor dollars and labor hours).

Well, the tracking has been going on since January, and since then, the nearly 60 participating garden centers have been running the numbers and learning a lot. Like what? Ian won’t divulge it all—they just can’t share that participant data. But Ian has written a blog (on his website ianbaldwin.com) outlining five “Hmmms”—things he’s noticed from some of those participants and also from his travels. Give it a read and see if any of these are things you’ve noticed, too.

As for getting in on those group numbers, YourMarketMetrics.com is having open enrollment through the start of 2020 for others to join. You can get in on the data sharing by visiting yourmarketmetrics.com/industry/garden-retailers. GP