Inventory Planning, Data-Driven Decisions, and Adaptive Strategies in Retail

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Business can be a lonely game, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to Boutique Chat where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek. We'll hear from product based businesses of all types, retailers, e commerce and wholesale brands, along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique hub and and I can't wait to chat. Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. This week I'm so pumped. One of my favorite retail experts. Can I call you a retail expert? Is in the house.

You can.

Yes. One of my favorite things to do sometimes I feel like we're like a traveling circus, Dane. Like when we get to go speak on stages together and I'm like, oh, like there's Dane. Like we often get to be in the same rooms and on the same stages. I love that about this industry because I know just as much as I'm passionate about helping retailers, so are you. And you're just so great at sharing the message and making things simple and just elevating so many retailers where they are and where they're going. So thanks for being with me today.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Ashley. And you're right. I feel like wherever I'm traveling I could always feel comfort because you and your team are somewhere nearby. So I'm never alone when I'm on the road.

I love that. I love it and I appreciate the friendships for sure. So we've got a lot to to cover today and this is a topic that is just so important. I know you and I probably both feel like a broken record sometimes when talking about the importance of knowing your numbers. But the question I often get is it's overwhelming to me. I don't know what it means to know my numbers. You know, there's just a little bit of like mystification around that. So today we're going to make it really, really simple. But before we do and we get into the nuts and bolts of that, just start here for me, a lot of people ask me, what is Management one? Because we talk about you guys all the time as one of our most trusted partners. So high level, what's management one? How does it work?

Yeah. So the way that I best like to explain it and you know, there's inventory planning often elicits a lot of fear from retailers. When you start talking about inventory planning and sales forecasts and open to buys, these are kind of scary words sometimes. But the best way that I like to explain it is this. There are two functions of being a merchant. There's the buying function and purchasing function and then there's the planning function. And that's why you'll see if you look at any kind of major retail organization, a Target, a Walmart, a Macy's, Bloomingdale's, there's buying teams and there's planning teams, right? There are the people that are going into showrooms and picking the merchandise and understanding the trends and the vendors. And then there are people sitting behind the scenes who putting together budgets and plans for those buyers to use in market. Now in independent retail, we don't really have the luxury of having a buying team and a planning team. Usually it's you doing all of the above, right? And so that's where management one steps in. We become your surrogate planning team and really helping you understand what you can expect from your business in the next 12 months. Forecasting, you know, your sales, your inventory goals, your profit goals and actually building budgets around that so you could go to market with by category budget. So you actually know, hey, here's the right amount I need to purchase in order to meet those sales goals that I'm projecting.

Yeah. So important. And I think that's a really big misconception, especially for new retailers when they think I'm just going to go to market and see what I find. I have some dollars to spend. I'm going to buy all the pretty things. I'm going to drink a margarita and accidentally buy like 45 too many things. And then you get two months down the road and you're crying in your margarita because all of a sudden you have all this inventory that you can't move. So.

Correct. And the number one thing I hear is I'm winging it. Right? And at first that may sound fun. I'm going into market, I'm checking things out, I'm having that champagne on the floor and I'm going a little crazy, right? But that's that winging it will soon become and I, I hear it in retailers voices, right. I feel like I've been winging it for too long. I'm seeing the ramifications of over buying and what it's doing in the business. I see the negative impact it's having on my profits. And that's, you know, usually at the point where we get that call.

So good. Can you. I want to get all the way to the beginning of like where do we start? But before we get there, you just said something that's really important. The Difference in sales and profit, good sales. I think you have a quote on this, right? Like what good sales can hide. Because I think a lot of retailers get lost in this idea of I'm going to chase like my sales over last year and just sales, sales, sales thinking that's going to cure the headache. But then at the end of the day, there's no profit. So you can't have profit unless you have a great plan to get you to the profit. Is that right?

Exactly. So there's so many facets of this. And I think the quote that you're talking about, and I grew up in a retail family, right? And my dad always would say, good sales hides a multitude of sins. So a lot of times we see sales numbers growing and we think we got this right, like that is the ultimate goal is just that, you know, top line revenue growth. But there are so many factors lying beneath the surface, right? And when we think about profit, we also often think about in terms of margin. You know, what's my, what's that gross margin that I want to get to? But there's then another layer which is cash, right? And so cash is really king in retail. So you could actually have great sales. You could have a great profit. Profit margin and still not have cash in the bank. And this is the reason it's sitting in your inventory. It's sitting in mismanaged purchasing that your, your literal cash is sitting on, on your floor, on a rack, on a hanger. And that is where you get tied up. And so no matter what your accountant tells you at the end of the year, no matter what that top line sales growth means, okay, great, we increased our sales, but what did we have to do in our inventory to get there and is it damaging our cash flow? And I think that's where, you know, we kind of get stuck without a plan, right? Without that clear vision in, hey, here's where I want to get to. Here's the amount of inventory I need to get there, and here's what I can expect in terms of profit and cash, cash, cash.

So good. All right. I want to go back to the beginning. Let's. For someone who's like, okay, I'm new to this. And again, the idea of knowing your numbers is overwhelming. Mary from Management one was just on the podcast not too long ago, and she said, let's just stop saying know your numbers. And let's just say, know your money, know your dollars. It's way more fun to talk about dollars than numbers, right?

And if there's anyone I would listen to it is Mary. She is, you know, the queen of. Of boutiques and the queen of profits. So she's a good person to take.

Absolutely. All right, let's go back to the beginning. So if I'm just getting started with this, I'm assuming before I can get into any reporting, I have to have my books and my inventory management, my POS set up a certain way so I can access the data that's going to allow me to get started. Is that correct?

Correct. So here would be the biggest starting point for me, and it's so foundational to inventory planning. You need a good class structure. You need a good hierarchy, you know, department, category, class, subclass. Right. And I think a lot of times what happens is we see retailers being really general with how they label goods. What does tops mean? What does tops mean? Is that a sweater? Is it a tank top? Is it a cami? Is it a. You know, there are so many types of merchandise that fall in these big general categories. Tops, bottoms, outerwear, accessories. And so if we're not tracking it at a more granular level and we don't have to go micro. Right. We're not going to be, you know, a top with three stripes and two buttons, that's a little much. Right. But if we can't distinguish between what is driving our business forward, is it tank tops, is it T shirts, is it basic T shirts or graphic T shirts? There's a big difference. And the way I best like to explain it is each one, each category is almost like a business unit onto itself within the larger business.

Yes.

So getting that set up and getting that foundational category structure nailed down and then actually reflected in your POS is. Is kind of the. The starting point of all.

Is there a rule of thumb for how many classes a typical retailer has or what's kind of your metrics of how many. How many different classes and subclasses should I have in my books?

Yeah. So the rule of thumb I usually give is if you're a retailer doing under a half a million in sales a year, you should be looking around 10 to 15 max categories, and then it's going to go up in increments from there. Right. And listen, this is going to be really dependent on what type of retailer you are. If you're a, you know, kids boutique, there may be more classes. If you're a women's boutique, you know, it may be a little tighter, but I would say, you know, 10 to 15 is really the max. If you're, you know, Just starting out a small business, you don't want to go more than that. And then as you grow, so should your category.

Yeah, I would bet too, if you're home and gift, it's. It's probably more than if you're apparel, like you said.

Exactly. And this is the. I. I see this happen so much too many categories in a business. If you're, you know, let's just take that example. If you're doing 400,000 in sales a year and you have 30 categories, you have a little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing. That to me is a clear indicator that there is no focus in that buy. Right. And so your customer is coming in and there's just a sprinkling of a lot of things. And I think that the, the intention is if I have a lot of everything and just a little bit of everything, then I'll entice more customers. And I actually think, and you know, Ashley, I'm sure you have thoughts on this. It actually confuses the customer. It actually doesn't help them curate the experience and understand, hey, this is the vision of this store. This is why I'm shopping here. And this is where I need to focus my.

Yeah, for sure. A confused mind doesn't buy.

Yeah.

So where do I need to go? I've got my, my class structure. I've got my categories. And now I'm like, all right, Dana, I'm going to market. I need to have this merchandise plan. I need to have open to buy. What are my next, like, I'll say two to three reports that I should really be digging into in order to make this calculation.

Well, the first thing is you could call me. That's always an option. But no, the. What I would start to look at. And really, it depends if you are a. A new business or if you have some sales history. Right. If you have some sales history. We want to look back at two things, right? How did I do at the same time period last year? Right. So if I'm going to buy for spring, I want to look at spring ly and then I want to look how am I trending with that product right now and how much did I have to receive in that same time period? Right? So what I want to get a sense of is I did X amount of sales last spring in this category. I received this amount of goods to do those sales. And that's how we get to our stock to sales ratio. Right. It gives us an understanding of how much stock did I need in order to sell the amount of goods I did.

Perfect. So what's my next step?

Okay, the next step is then we're going to look at that receiving budget. Right. How much did I actually receive? How much did I actually bring in? How much did I sell, what amount did I sell at full price? So essentially what was my sell through? And if we see that, you know, hey, this was a, a good sell through, it was a strong class, it was, you know, I'm happy with those sales. We should be trying to mirror those budgets and maybe increase a little where we can. If the receiving was really high and the sales were low, that's an indication that maybe we should pull back on that class or vice versa. If the sales were through the roof and I sold out and I sold through, you know, my dress category, maybe I didn't receive enough goods. So those are the start of the indicators of where I want to start, you know, putting the pedal to the metal and where maybe I want to pull back. And that again, that receiving from LY in the same time period is going to give you that basis of comparison.

Right. So good. So is there a, it's going to seem like a, maybe a silly question, but I think a lot of retailers that are new to this have this basically like they have to look at their inventory like there's a multiple. I have to have so much on hand in order to sell through a percentage of it. So when you're looking at those numbers, how do I start to calculate, okay, taking everything you just mentioned, now I need to know I need to buy X amount for the next time period. What does that look like? Because I think sometimes that's like a shocker. When you start working with any type of consultant for planning your inventory is man, I need to buy more than what I thought in order to have the freshness and to like maintain the inventory I need for this percentage of sell through.

Right. And so this is why we look at things on a month to month basis. Right. So what we're looking for and you know, a lot of retailers look at it seasonally again and I would just, you know, just to kind of not get over complicated and not scare people in how much goes into this. You know, a good place to start is looking at this on a seasonal basis. Right. If this is your first time, you know, really interacting with open to buy planning or trying to build a budget out, it's a, it's a process that is pretty, it's pretty intensive in terms of reports and retail math. And I don't Say that to scare people. I say that because it does require a good amount of analysis. Right. And so, you know, if you're going into this and you're trying to do month to month analysis and, and really forecast it out, I would say a good place to start is, hey, what's my seasonal budget? And even if you're looking at it as a total business, what did I spend last season? What do I expect to do in sales the season ahead? And how much inventory do I need for the next three months that I'm going to buy for?

Right.

That's a great place to start. When we get involved with the business, we start looking at it on a month to month basis. Right. Where should I begin my month in inventory? Where should I end my month in inventory and how much should I receive in the middle? Yeah. Okay. And that requires. Right. That requires that date almost daily weekly update of data that we're kind of analyzing and starting to bring in trended reports. But for a retailer that is first engaging with open to buy inventory planning, I would say a smooth place to start would be looking at it on a seasonal basis. And we have some material that I'll make sure we get out to you guys, which is essentially there's a formula for inventory plan. Right. There's a formula for my forecasted sales. And we'll kind of send out some materials that listeners can really interact with it and maybe even start trying out, you know, hey, how do I look at a season?

That'd be awesome. We'll link all that up in the show notes. So another kind of way to look at this is you can plan all the new inventory, you can plan what you need to receive to, you know, hit those sales in that season or that period of time. But the other side of the coin to also analyze is I have existing inventory on hand. So now I also need to plan what needs to be marked down to free up my cash to bring in this new inventory. So do you have a way that you look at markdown strategy in that period of time as well? Is there a rule of thumb for that?

Yeah. So markdowns are so important, and this is another one of those topics that retailers get really scary. This markdown, this big scary goblin that's gonna haunt my business. Right. But markdowns are actually a really effective tool and they're a strategy that, just like you said, it unlocks cash and it puts it back in your pocket to go and spend a more productive inventory. So let's take a women's boutique Right. We'll kind of just go straight down the middle here. You're looking at an 8 to 10 week selling window that is prime selling for a women's boutique. Once you start to creep past that 10 weeks, you're starting to get into slow selling territory. Right. We're either a little bit out of season where potentially your core customers have already seen that merchandise and the truth is that they're not gravitating towards it. Right. And so that eight to ten week goal is super important to start looking at markdowns. Right. Once we get past that 10 weeks, it's a good indication that, hey, maybe it's time to take a markdown here because I am not accomplishing sales at full price. And so I need to start looking at how do I create demand for this product? That's what we're essentially doing. We're creating demand for product that for the last 10 weeks has not sold at the rate that we wanted. And I think that retailers get afraid of that. Like, that seems like a really short period of time, but that's how you keep freshness. That's how you keep your business relevant and fresh and exciting. You're willing to take those maintenance markdowns, as I call them, right? It's not a big clearance sale. It's not a big, you know, racks and racks of merchandise. It's every month looking at, hey, what has now reached that 10 week mark? Can I put it on a markdown rack? Can I put it to 25% off and see what moves then?

Have you ever wondered if someone else in business is going through the exact same thing you are right now? Whether it's an obstacle to overcome or a new opportunity you aren't sure if you should pursue or not. Or maybe just some of those same questions about, man, am I really getting the most out of my inventory or my Facebook ads or my team team? How can I do business just a little bit better and enjoy life just a little bit more? Well, those are a lot of the questions that we answer on a day to day basis inside of our community at the Boutique Hub. If you're listening and you aren't yet a member of our community, I want to invite you to join us. We have 14 different niche Facebook groups to connect you with store owners at the same level. And just like you, no matter what you sell, home and gift apparel, children's specialty, we've got groups for all of that. Plus we want to get you up to date with the latest training, the latest information and strategy on what's working right now in our industry with our weekly education plus our maxed out training library. We also have hundreds and hundreds of vetted amazing wholesale brands who have been proven to do business in boutiques. We don't like trademark infringement, we don't like brands with poor customer service. We handpick the best of the best and the best of the best love working with boutique hub members as well. So they offer numerous discounts and free shipping whether it's at market inside of our groups or on our own wholesale platform hubventory.com with thousands of dollars in savings just for boutique hub members. So if you aren't yet a member, we'd love to invite you to join us at theboutiquehub.com backslash join to be a part of our community on a daily basis. I can't wait to see you inside and I can't wait to see you connect with amazing business owners who are serious about their business. Just like you. That's so good. I love how you put that. And really, your inventory is not fine. Wine is not going to get better with age. You're not going to sneak one more drop of value out of that inventory past that period of time. Actually, I really love the analogy. I'll, I'll just call him what he is. But the Godfather, right, is what we call Paul from that. So Paul is just, you know, one of the most world renowned retail speakers and he always compares it to bananas and I think that's such a great visual. Right? So when you buy your new inventory, your fresh inventory, right, Your bananas are a little green like you better. I got green bananas coming in. I better get on this and start selling them. When they're on the floor, they're yellow, they're ripe, they need to move. But pretty soon those bananas start getting brown and either you're going to make some banana bread real quick with those brown bananas or you're going to throw them away. So your inventory, you have that same option and opportunity. That's what the markdown strategy is all about. I have yellow bananas that are turning brown. This is my opportunity to make banana bread or I'm going to be stuck with these stinky bananas for the long term. Right?

That's such a great way of putting it. And I think a lot of retailers would be shocked at how many brown bananas they have sitting on their retail floor. And that's the real key. If you're not pulling an age merchandise report, if you're not starting to look, I mean that's a really simple and powerful report. How much of my goods have landed? What? You know, which goods on the floor right now have landed more than 10 weeks ago. That's a great rule of thumb and a really simple place.

Yeah. So just thinking about that, if I'm a retailer and I'm like, you know what, Dane? I still, I'm a little overwhelmed with the idea of what you've mentioned. A lot of things. There's a lot of reports I could be pulling. But I would agree with you if you're listening and you don't yet know how to pull an aged inventory report or frankly, I hear a lot of retailers say this, Ashley, I don't even know how much inventory I have. Right. If you don't know, God bless, right? But you need to know.

It hurts my heart, but you need to know.

So this is your cue. Like, Dane and Ashley are just lovingly gonna just slap you a little bit right now and say, you better know how much inventory you have, and you need to know how old it is. Because if you don't have those things, you don't have a business, you don't have an opportunity to work on that inventory.

And I'm going to share something. I'll be a little vulnerable here, Right. It reminds me of, you know, when I was in my 20s and someone said to me, you know, oh, you know, how much money do you have in your 401k? I said, huh? Like, I don't know, doesn't it? Like, I have no idea, you know, and it's not that I'm a bad person or, you know, I'm not a smart and intelligent person. I just didn't know what I didn't know. Right. And I. And no one had kind of guided me to, hey, this is an important, you know, part of your financial health and your retirement plan. And you have to track it and understand where it's being invested. And then I learned, right. And now I routinely check in and have an understanding of my financial health. And it's the same thing for a retailer, Right. You have to, if you are afraid, you know, and again, just to bring it back to that personal finance. How many of us spend on our credit card and then like close our eyes and at the end of the month see what it came out to. Right? Okay. And it's the same thing with your business, right? You're going into market, you're working with a credit card, you're putting it down and it's like, oh, when it arrives, I'll deal with it there. And being empowered is not something to be scared of. Being empowered by your numbers. And as Mary said, if you. We don't want you to know your numbers, we want you to know your cash. That's such a great line. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that, Mary.

I love that. And just for the record as love those analogies, Dane, but this isn't just. I'm not picking on a new retailer, you know that I hear this from, I hear this of retailers of all sizes, even stores that are multi million dollar stores. And they're like, like you said, I love your line about, you know, good sales will hide a multitude of sins. They have millions of dollars in sales, but they just kept buying and pretty soon they're digging through their warehouse going, I have millions of dollars in inventory I didn't even know existed. So now we've got to dig that out. So let's transition this conversation a little bit, Dane, to again, what else is hiding under those sales that we've seen for the last couple of years? Because our industry is changing. Our economy is different today. We're hearing goods and we're hearing bads. What's your take on the industry and where it's heading and what's working for retailers?

Yeah, so I, I think where we're at right now is we're coming off of a really big sugar high. And I think that retailers need to kind of put that into perspective, right? We had these pretty monstrous years of retail, right? That post pandemic boom. You know, things really were. And this is, you know, at the core of that good sales hide a multitude of sins. Business was going up and up, sales were growing, vendors had merchandise. Again, everyone was kind of in this again, that post pandemic surplus, right? We were all out of, you know, all out of quarantine. We're all shopping, we're all excited, we're traveling, the economy is growing. Yes, there was some massive inflation, but for the most part, retail sales really held firm. And I think a lot of people kind of got used to that growth. And now what we're seeing is, hey, things are kind of plateauing, right? Things are getting a little bit back to baseline. And when that happens, the retailers that are going to survive and thrive are the retailers that have those good underlying strategies, right? The retailers that were making sure their inventory was in check. The retailers that were ensuring that, you know, their strongest categories were getting the right investment and their weakest categories were starting to get pulled back on and that were paying attention to all these metrics, whether it be cash flow, stock to sales, their turn. And now they're able to kind of build on that success. And I think the other way that we're seeing it is I just thought sales were going to keep growing. And now I'm in a pickle because I'm sitting on a ton of inventory. I have bills that are due, and I don't have the cash to pay for it right now. And that's a dangerous place to be.

I think that the longer any of us are in this industry, the more we realize there's never a straight line. And that's business in general.

Right.

But especially in retail, like, it goes up, it comes down, and you have to be ready. Your business has to be prepared for what happens if your sales drop in half next month. And actually, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but one of my favorite quotes, someone I would consider a mentor, and he was the first person I ever met in management. One was actually Doug Hilfiker. And Doug said, he goes, you know, Ashley, he goes, a bad day won't make a bad week, and a bad week won't make a bad month, and a bad month will make a bad year, and a bad year isn't going to kill your business if you let it. And that's always stuck with me. So when you think about that, in a lot of businesses that are kind of facing the music this year, things are changing. How else can businesses just be prepared to ride the wave of what's happening and still find success even if sales aren't what they once were?

Yeah. And you know, just to kind of elaborate on that, I really want to get retailers out of the mindset of blaming the economy right now, because I think what that allows any business to do is to put the onus outside of themselves. Right. It almost gives a free pass just to say the economy's not doing great. So, you know, sales are what they are, or my business is what it is. It's not my fault. It's the economy. And the truth is, it's not the economy. The economy's pretty okay right now. Right. We're seeing overall growth outpacing projections in retail. We're seeing strong GDP numbers, strong personal income and personal financial numbers. Sure, inflation is still high. Sure, interest rates are still high. But people are spending on experiences and products that they resonate with. That resonate with them. Right. There are. And I use. And I use this in all my presentations. And today is a good day. To do it, because Happy Taylor Swift day, by the way. She just came out.

I have to. I'm all about it.

Yeah. I may have bags under my eyes because I may have been up a little early listening to.

Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Amy. That one's my favorite.

Yeah. To the new double album. So. But the point is, and I say this really seriously, without any sarcasm, is that if Taylor could produce the level of revenue she did from her concerts and all of the economic boom that came with that around each city she went to, it just goes to show, when the right product is in place, people will buy it. And I know that that sounds like, you know, disconnected, but I think that that is where we're at right now. People are looking for the right product mix and something that inspires them. And so retailers just may have to work that little extra bit harder to find what is really connecting with their customer.

I love that the retailers that I'm seeing, too, that are taking a little bit of a risk, they're trying a little different product mix, a different price point, they're leaning more into quality. In a lot of cases, we're seeing some of those really big shifts as well. What do you. As you look across a lot of the retailers that you see on a regular basis, what do you think the most successful ones have in common?

So I think that the most successful retailers that we work with are willing, just like you said, they're willing to take a risk, but they quantify that risk. So they are willing to take a risk, whether it be moving to a higher price point, whether it be trying a new vendor, whether it be, you know, launching a new category, but they are measuring the success of it, and they know when to fail fast or build on something. Right. So if you're going to take a risk and you're going to bring in something new, you know, you got to let it time to marinate, right? You got to let the customers get introduced to it. You have to put it out in your marketing. You have to really try everything you can to make it a success. And if it does and it. It kind of hits, you continue to build on it. And if it doesn't, they know when to walk away and move to the next idea swiftly. Right. They don't get bent out of shape. They don't let it ruin, you know, their. Their entire year of business. They say, this didn't work. I'm moving on to the next thing, and I'm going to measure that and soon, but surely they're going to find that right thing that's going to accelerate their business. And that's what I find in common with the kind of innovative retailers is again, that risk knowing when to build, knowing when to stop, and then being able to move forward to the next project.

I love how you put that. Isn't it ironic that the fear of failure is something that pretty much every business owner has in common? Right. Like we all fear it to a certain extent, but in retail, you literally are setting yourself up to fail fast every single day. Some inventory is going to win and some inventory is going to be a dog and you're facing failure every single day. But it's how you build on it that that really matters. Yeah.

And I think to look at that the other way, kind of the glass half full way, is every day you open your doors, you have a new opportunity. Right. You have a new opportunity to connect, you have a new opportunity to sell. And as long as we are. You know, I always like to say this in my presentations. Your customer is voting with their wallet. Right. It's not about what they say on the sales floor. It's not about what the Yelp comment says. They are voting with their wallet. So the product that they gravitate towards, you have a record of it. Your pos, your point of sale system is telling you what your customers think and feel.

So good. Dean, this has been incredible. We could go on and on, but I think there's been so much wisdom shared. Is there anything else you want to share about management1 and what people should know? I think there's a big misconception. It's more than just this report that's being generated for you. Tell me more about Management One and how it works.

It's much more than that. And I think that the biggest thing that we're trying to connect with our retailers on is we want to set you up right from the get go. We want to help build out your category structure, make sure it is strong in your point of sale system. We want to make sure that you understand the profit potential of your business. So that's why with all our new clients, we do a financial literacy beginning where we're really explaining, hey, here's the amount of sales that you need to do in order to be a profitable business. So this is a huge education both in, you know, retail math, the financials of your business, and then understanding how to get on a buying program that's going to work for you and your cash. And so there's this really unique blend of education, reporting and coaching. And I think the biggest misconception about Management one is that it's unattainable for certain retailers. Right. There is a point that it starts to make sense to do inventory planning on a month to month, you know, category by category basis. And we do want to support those growing retailers. But there is a place in this program for everyone. And so whether it's a conversation and maybe it's not the right time now, maybe it's something in the future, maybe you're, you know, in a struggling position and need help immediately, but we are kind of there to, you know, between myself, Mary, connect with retailers, understand what they're dealing with and at least pointing them in the right direction and hopefully working together as partners.

Absolutely. Well, we'll link up all of your information, Dane, and Management One's information. We're so thankful for our partnership with you guys. Thanks for being with me today. This has been really, really helpful and.

I'll see you in June.

Sounds good. We will see you there. Thanks, Dane.

I can't wait to be a part of the summit. So we are, we are super excited here.

Absolutely.

Thanks, Ashley.

Thanks for listening, guys. I hope you took away all the all kinds of nuggets and new ideas from this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a rating and review. We love to hear your feedback and give you a chance to be featured on the show each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and to access guest downloads and bonuses and all the resources we talked about on the show, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week.