Assessing The Vitamin Shoppe's diminishing Sales and Customer Counts.

1. The Vitamin Shoppe
Solving Customer Count and Sales Issues Within the
Clearwater Location
By: Eric Sawdon

2. Overview
• Sales are Down Past
Year and Monthly
• Customer Count
Down Past Year and
Monthly
• Trying to Identify if
Issue is External or
Internal

3. Introduction
• The Clearwater Location is one of the worst performing stores
in Tampa area in regards of Sales and Customer Count
• Considered high volume store for the District and sales are
same level as lower level store (Citrus Park)
• Customer Count at Clearwater has been steadily decreasing
through the past two years
• More local competition within the Tampa Bay area. Could be
direct result of decreasing numbers

4. The Opportunity
A. The current situation
A. Sales Down (14.1%) For the Year
B. Customer Count Down (14.7%) For the Year
C. Average Doller Per Transaction down (3%) For the Year
B. Key Success Factors
A. Customers coming into the store having a positive interaction
with employees
B. Having more external events and internal events to get more
customers into the store
C. Analysis of Alternatives
A. Refresh store layout (no cost)
B. Sponsor Large External Events (Cost Pending on Event)
C. Research Surrounding Competition and Identify What They May
Do Differently

5. The Opportunity Continued
D.) Strategic Options
• Triangulate between different Vitamin Shoppe locations and
create local events that develop more recognition from potential
new customer base. (Largo, Palm Harbor, and Clearwater
locations)
• Train non-management employees on the importance of the
store sales numbers and get them more involved with external
networking for the store.

6. Benefits and Risks of Strategic Option
A. Benefits
A. Increased customers from external events
B. Increased customers from internal vendor events
C. Sales Associates (Health Enthusiasts) will be more aware of
their sales and customers versus being the stereotypical stock
person
B. Risks
A. Customers could go to other Vitamin Shoppe locations or
competition after events to purchase products
B. Internal vendors could not sell their product or not interact
with the customers
C. Sales associates may seem to pushy to the customers and
actually drive away sales

7. Final Recommendations
Call to Action
• Maintain weekly management meetings, but involve part-time
employees by notifying what we would like to focus on for the
week/month.
• Reach out to external vendors and local events to generate
more name recognition with The Vitamin Shoppe through
sponsorship and/or leading an event.
• Increase customer service interactions with customers with all
employees. Employees should be a friendly as possibly and
stay with customer to help them out with any needs and not
just point out products and then step away from the customer.
• See what we can provide differently from competition. From
recent research the most affective will be better customer
service towards the customers.

8. Highlighted References
• Snyder, L. G., & Shwom, B. (2014). Communication: Polishing
Your Professional Presence (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Pearson
Education Inc.