From Purchase to Profit
About
UNLOCKING RETAIL specialises in providing small to medium sized independent Retailers the keys to best retail practices so businesses can reach their full potential.
With the right planning strategy and processes, you can confidently make the purchasing decisions that will create more profit and cash flow in your retail business.
Founder of Unlocking Retail, Merrill Allen, has 30+ years experience working for some of Australia’s largest retailers.
Like many retail specialists, Merrill began her career as a sales-associate. Her passion for product and sales would see her fulfill a successful career, holding senior executive positions in buying, planning, product-development, merchandising, retail finances, and business strategy.
Today, Merrill is passionate about ensuring small to medium independent retail businesses have access to the same proven inventory planning and buying strategies that she has used successfully throughout her career.
Understanding that retail finances and inventory planning is the forefront of buying, and a must in any successful retail business. Merrill has developed tools and processes specifically for independent retailers to manage this part of their business with ease.
Drawing from her experience as a Manageing Director of an independent business for 7 years, Merrill can also guide start-up businesses by creating budgeting and inventory planning strategies for their first 12 months of trade.
Whether your a start-up or established retailer, Unlocking Retail can help you unlock proven inventory management strategies and planning processes that will help you maximize your businesses full potential.
We have the keys to increasing sales, margins, and cash flow!
Let us tailor a suitable success strategy for your retail business that will take you from Purchase to Profit!
Learn how we can work together
What are our clients saying?
Testimonials
Merrill started consulting with Busby (Guess Australia) in April 2014 following the departure of the Senior Planner. With an initial focus on the retail channel she subsequently also assisted the GM Wholesale with structuring the wholesale buying process.
Merrill provided vital planning cover during the transitional period and then an important role in setting up an appropriate planning and buying process. She successfully works in an unstructured environment with relatively unsophisticated systems, providing and implementing solutions.
In addition to her excellent technical skills, Merrill has is an engaging personality, who interacted well with all levels of staff. She was importantly able to develop a strong relationship with the new planner and played a significant role in mentoring and developing him.
Overall I believe that Merrill can provide a very effective Planning and Buying solutions, at a cost effective price -making her ideal for SMEs. She can also provide a role in mitigating vacancy risk where lack of cover can have significant impact on future outcomes.
Merrill continues to provide support to Guess Australia in both Retail and Wholesale channels. I would highly recommend her.
I have had both the pleasure and have reaped the benefits of partnering with Merrill Allen during my time as General Manager at both Guess and MJ Bale. I engaged Merrill to overhaul the merchandise planning practices and deliver immediate and ongoing value to both businesses.
Merrill has provided planning frameworks that delivered both discipline and transparency that enabled reduced stock holdings, improved forecasting, increased sales and improved profit.
In addition to this, Merrill has also provided mentoring services which have enabled new planners the benefit of an industry expert with more than 30 years experience in retail to fast track their knowledge and planning expertise.
In any retail business, one of the most important roles of a merchandise team is to produce facts and data, analyze the data, provide insights to tell a story about what’s happening and why, and then propose solutions and influence decisions to help grow the business. Working with Merrill enables this to be achieved quickly and effectively and the team have fun doing it, making it an experience that is as enjoyable as it is beneficial to the bottom line.
Any retail business that needs to take control of their stock and wants to build a strong, disciplined and talented merchandise team while improving their profit should engage Merrill without delay.
As a growing footwear retailer with a strong wholesale background we needed to apply effective planning and buying systems to cater for the current size of the business and any future expansion.
Merrill has extensive experience both working for large retailers and running her own business. She has implemented multiple business plans to suit our individual departments including a category plan, buy plan and range plan. We are now able to effectively forecast sales, purchases and any sale/promo activity. Merrill is easy to work with and approach if you need further clarification. She has also adjusted our internal systems to ensure we are receiving the correct information to make the right decisions.
We highly recommend Merrill Allen to other retail business owners who need structured planning/buying processes due to either a growing or changing business. We are so impressed with her work ethic we have kept her as a consultant ongoing. Merrill caters to your specific needs and adjusts the methods to best suit your business.
I opened my footwear and apparel boutique in McLaren Vale, South Australia 4 years ago.
As I have spent many years in the retail industry, I was very comfortable with most aspects when opening my own store.
However, before I started working with Merrill, I had no limits or boundaries around my buying. I knew about planning processes and how it can improve your buying decisions, but didn’t know where to start or how to implement this into my small business.
Because I was in South Australia and the workshops were held in Queensland, I participated via Zoom. After my initial hesitation around this concept, I found the process easy and being part of a group from other states was fantastic and very interesting.
Putting the science behind buying was one of the biggest take outs. I can now confidently make critical decisions with supporting facts.
Learning how to clean up, categorize and utilise the data in my POS system has proved invaluable by enabling easier stock entry and stronger more accurate and effective reporting.
There are many practices I will change as a result of the UNLOCKING RETAIL workshops, including paying more attention to Gross Margin, planning the buy to ensure I am buying what I “need” and taking the emotion out of the process to help me make better business decisions.
It was great working with Merrill, her experience and passion for retail is amazing and is happy to go above and beyond to share her knowledge.
If you are an independent retailer wanting to give yourself the best chance of success, via learning more about retail finances and planning, I would absolutely recommend working with Merrill.
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