In this article, you will discover how to listen to what your customers want in order to make more informed purchasing decisions. If you can manage a process, you can influence and control it. So, by better understanding your customers buying patterns and establishing a more related product mix, you will satisfy more people and sell more.

First, take the guessing out of the equation. There is only one group’s opinion regarding the desirability of purchasing your products that matters. It’s not your buyers, your reps, suppliers or your competition. And, it’s not you or me. It’s your customers!

Buying is analytical. You need to know what your customers are purchasing and what they want to buy from you in the future. With any top industry Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, this data should be readily available to you.

Crunching The Numbers

First, to find out what current tastes are, analyze your sales data over the last three to six months and rank your vendors underneath each category. By doing this, you will see what categories and vendors are your customers’ favorites.

“In this case, IGMROI is $3.00 and should be compared to the company average GMROI and the individual category GMROI’s.”

Now, don’t forget to look at the Gross Margin Return on Inventory (GMROI) of each of these categories and vendors. GMROI is the amount of annualized gross margin dollars you make per dollar of inventory that you have invested ($GM/$IN).

With this data in hand you will see...

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