Retail Lingo

Here are some phrases or words that you should know in the retail world:

Anchor Store:  A major retail store in a shopping center that is intended to attract consumers to the center.  Usually a department store or grocery store.

Add-on Sales:  Additional item(s) sold to the customer at the time of purchase.

Big Box Store:  A very large retailer that is usually an anchor.  Example would be a Sam’s Club or a Costco.  Typcially over 50,000 square feet.

Black Friday:  In retail this refers to the Friday after Thanksgiving Day.  One of the busiest shopping days of the year for retail and the start of the Holiday shopping season.

Customer Centric:  The definition of this can get very detailed, but basically it is focusing your products, prices, store design, and almost everything else around the customer’s needs and wants.  It is running your business from the customer’s point of view.

Customer Evangelist:  This is a customer of yours that loves your company so much that they are out there preaching to everyone willing to listen about how great your company is.

Cyber Monday:  The first Monday in December.  One of the busiest shopping Days for online retailers.

Inventory Turnover:  The number of times that your average on hand inventory is sold in a given period, usually a year.  Example, if you do $500,000 in sales and your average on hand inventory is $100,000, then your turnover is 5 times. 

Keystone:  Pricing your product at exactly double your cost.

Open-to-buy:  Amount budgeted for purchasing merchandise.  This numbers tells you how much to order.

Pass-throughs:  Operating expenses that are usually passed through to the Tenant. examples may include property taxes, insurance and CAM- Common Area Maintenance.

Sensory Branding:  Branding your product or business through the stimulation of the senses.  Branding through sound, taste, touch, sight and smell.

Shrinkage:  Mainly loss of inventory due to customer and employee theft.

SKU: Stock Keeping Unit is the number assigned to a product to identify, price, size, color, etc.

Triple Net:  That refers to taxes, insurance and CAM charges that a Tenant has to pay in addition to the base rent.