Superior Retail Consulting Services

PRC is your source for exceptional retail consulting services in North America. We have the skills and expertise to help you manage your business effectively.

A business plan includes a narrative of the company’s operations and financial projections. PRC guides management via a narrative approach encompassing the project’s scope and is specially tailored to meet the client’s needs.

PRC has discovered that the real value of writing a business plan resides not in having the finished product in your possession but in thoroughly researching and formulating an idea for your gift shop. When management completes the planning process using the PRC system, they have the tools to continually:

1. Evaluate the business thoroughly, including the mission statement.
2. Aid in the study and research of the company.
3. Look at business goals and ideas critically.
4. Plan for success and avoid costly mistakes.

Strategic management is “the ongoing process of interfacing the mission and vision statements with the business plan objectives.” PRC instructs gift store leadership on how to define and allocate resources that:

1. Set clear, visionary goals and priorities for your organization.
2. Effectively manage the strategic planning process.
3. Evaluate the questions: where we are now, where we want to go, and how we will get there.

The guiding concepts and regulations that help an organization achieve its long-term objectives are known as policies. Procedures are the specific techniques used in a regular procedure to put policies into practice and state long-term objectives.

Hospital gift shops require an employee orientation manual for dealing with human resources and a gift shop policies and procedures manual for daily retail operations. However, hospital gift shops usually lack a manual of procedures. Gift shop procedure manuals need to be created simply to avoid superfluous details and complications that deter personnel from using them.

PRC’s on-site evaluation process ensures a thorough analysis of operational procedures. The information collected during the evaluation is condensed into a comprehensive manual to integrate the gift shop policies in line with operational procedures.

The financial plan is a document that details the financial situation, objectives, and methods for achieving those objectives. A financial plan or budget can include an annual forecast of income and expenses. It is possible to anticipate revenue and expenses for up to five years in the future. A road map-like tool for tracking a company’s success, the financial plan gives guidance for reevaluating and revising goals over a predetermined period of time.

An old adage reads, “If you fail to plan, then plan to fail,” and this still holds true. PRC leads the gift store management through the process of creating and monitoring a financial plan.

An effective accounting system is necessary for financial planning. Accounting, which is the process of documenting and reporting financial data in classifications that allow data analysis over a specified period of time, is frequently referred to as the language of business. All businesses require a mechanism to manage their finances and keep track of their financial activities, even though every business has different accounting needs.

Instead of using an accrual basis accounting system, most hospital gift stores use cash basis accounting. In a cash basis accounting system, the month in which the invoice is paid is recorded as the expense month for goods purchased. When a product is sold, an accrual basis accounting system records the cost as an expense. PRC can lay the groundwork for constructing a purposeful financial process by conducting an exhaustive audit of the shop’s financial records and a review of accounting procedures.

Professional development is a broad term that defines the way for professional growth in both management and staff. Those who engage in professional development share a common purpose of enhancing their ability to do their job. The individual’s interest in lifelong learning and enhancing their own skills and knowledge is at the core of professional development. Retailers work in a unique environment in hospitals.

When you enter the hospital gift shop business with a real desire, magical things can occur. Spending time doing what you love gives you great happiness, but it also motivates and excites everyone you come into contact with, including coworkers, volunteers, clients, patients, and guests.

Your professional development is a journey; where and how far you go is up to you. Lilly’s professional development guidance instills a patient-centric culture that benefits you and the gift store staff.

Buying and Merchandise management is the process of developing, securing, pricing, supporting and communicating the retailer’s merchandise offering. The ultimate objective, also referred to as the “3 Rs,” is to provide the right product at the right time, at the right price, and with the right appeal throughout the product’s life cycle.

Lilly creates a buying and merchandising strategy in collaboration with the current workforce and predetermined shop objectives. The hospital gift shop will prosper if you can “tell a story in merchandise that sells a story.” Her knowledge of creating open-to-buy plans, goods assortments, and visual displays leads to successful sell-through and patient/customer satisfaction. Her method aids in the analysis, planning, acquisition, promotion, and control of items by gift store management.

The gift shop’s physical day-to-day operations, such as its opening and closing times, employee scheduling, cash handling, visual merchandising, housekeeping, pricing, and customer service, are referred to as retail operations. Buying, merchandising, financial reporting, and accounting are a few overlapping sectors that are not included in operations.

Gift shops with high operational standards create a positive shopping experience and find many hidden benefits such as customer loyalty. High operational standards are exemplified by simple operations, like a shop opening on schedule, with a competent staff trained and willing to assist. Although it can seem extremely easy to open on time, many hospital gift stores frequently ignore this feature in addition to many others.

PRC evaluates the practices and operations of gift shops. We create a thorough operations plan, resolving even the most minute issues, and then we identify, define, and implement best practices.

Planning for stores and spaces involves both art and science. According to Michael D. Kelly, vice president and director of design for Stone Marraccini Patterson Architects (a San Francisco-based firm), today’s hospitals should be more like hotels than hospitals, providing a warm and comforting setting that dispels the anxiety, fear, and trauma connected to the establishment.

“The hospitality aspect becomes much more difficult to plan because the health care facility cannot simply appeal to the senses, but must also exude a high level of technical competence. The challenge for the space planner is to find a balance between the technical component and the human component, a more difficult planning and design problem than is the case with hotel or corporate facilities.”

More and more patients realize they are the focus, and that the hospital should serve them rather than process them. As a result, hospital gift stores are remodeling their locations to create a warm atmosphere that dispels patients’ anxiety about visiting a hospital. Space planners investigate the merchandise categories by examining dollar-per-square-foot metrics to balance the human and technical components. Sales are influenced by store design more so than aesthetics.

Different from office environments, retail space planners focus on the number of physical areas beginning with the entrance, merchandise visibility, and circulation, while interpreting the operational aspects of the hospital gift shop space.

Providing adequate on-floor inventory to reduce the amount of relatively expensive stockroom space is perhaps the biggest problem in developing retail space. For you to accomplish this, the design plan includes shelves and hanging bars to limit the stockroom’s use of space to 15–20% of the overall area. PRC is available to help with your hospital gift store and has experience creating hospital gift shops and space layouts.