Lisa,

I manage the gift shop and do all the ordering. I have a full-time person that assist with the gift shop and volunteers. I also have a part time person that works around 20 hours a week. I do all the merchandising. I tried letting the lady that works with me, and she struggles so recently I changed some of the things I was doing to her and now I will be inputting all new merchandise as it arrives and displaying when it is appropriate. I also have volunteers that work in the store. It used to be all volunteers until COVID but we can't seem to get back to that place.  

Our hospital is a little over 100 beds with 1400 staff members which include outside facilities. 

Hope this helps.

Nancy

Hi Lisa,

I don't know your background/experience with retail, so I don't mean to offend, but I have a couple of questions:

- Does the merchandise that's being ordered eventually sell, so it's more a matter of too much being ordered at one time, or is a lot being ordered and then it doesn't sell?

- Are items being marked up appropriately? We try to "keystone" (buy it for $5, sell it for $10) but of course that's not always possible. Something is always going to have to be marked down, but doing this helps us maintain an average 40-43% gross profit margin.

- Does the "buyer" have a budget? If not, perhaps setting a budget based on the previous year's revenue would provide some boundaries. You could even spread the budget monthly or quarterly to take holidays into consideration.

I have a paid manager/buyer, although I have done it myself in the past, so I'm not the most experienced person, but the above are just some thoughts that came to mind when I read your post. I know it must be a frustrating situation, so I hope you've gotten other/better advice that will help.