Hospitality and Retail Hub · Articles
Articles for hospitality and retail
What we have written for owners of cafes, restaurants, bars, shops and online stores, on margins, rosters, stock, public holidays, sales seasons and selling the business. Search them, or choose your business type.
Showing the 10 newest of 12 articles.
Hospitality and retail articles
The discount stack: why a record Black Friday rarely means a more profitable Christmas for e-commerce retailers
Australian e-commerce retailers are already locking in Black Friday and Christmas trading plans. Revenue targets look strong. The margin underneath them is rarely tested before the sale goes live.
The winter trading slump that's quietly eating hospitality margins
Winter trade drops for hospitality businesses across Australia, but profit often falls twice as fast.
What every retail stocktake reveals about the year's actual margin
For bricks-and-mortar retailers, the June 30 stocktake is a compliance exercise. But it produces the one calculation that shows what every clearance and markdown actually cost across the year.
The two margins every Queensland café and restaurant owner needs to know before July 1
June fills the booking sheet, but a full venue and a profitable one are different things.
Valentine's bookings are easy. Holding the margin is the skill.
A fully booked Valentine's service feels like a win, but the margin is decided before the first table sits.
After the sales rush, online retailers should read the real numbers
The post-peak lull is when online retailers should reconcile what the discounting season actually earned per customer, once acquisition cost and returns are honestly counted.
Retailers: what to do with the stock that did not sell
Unsold festive stock is trapped cash, and clearing it well protects both margin and the January bank balance. Here is how to mark down with discipline rather than panic.
Restaurants and bars: the busiest month can still lose money
Festive bookings fill restaurants and bars while overtime, wastage and beverage cost creep erode the margin owners assume they are making.
Black Friday volume looks like profit until you count the returns
Online retailers celebrate the Black Friday revenue spike while shipping, fees, discounts and returns quietly hollow out the margin. Reading contribution margin per order tells the real story.
Retailers, your peak roster is a profit decision
Staffing the festive peak by feel rather than by trading pattern is where retailers lose the margin the season was meant to deliver. Rostering against sales by hour protects it.
Bricks and mortar retail: reading sales per square metre before peak
Before committing open-to-buy budgets for Christmas, retailers should judge floor space by margin contribution, not just sales. Sales per square metre and stockturn decide a profitable peak.
What a busy cafe hides behind a strong coffee day
International Coffee Day fills the till, but a queue out the door tells you nothing about margin. Here is how cafe owners read the numbers that actually decide profit.
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