Anyone else having a really crappy week? Mailed 900 postcards on Monday, got 2 back so far. Every day this week has been literally half of what it should have been.
jan and feb are very slow no matter what kind of business you are in… for us last week was dead except for friday night… thank god we had a good night because that helped to balance out the numbers last week
heather, at my business last week of the month(last few days) is 50% of the first week. today it was busy. first of the month. Of course it differs by the damographics.
been extremely busy for us bit we are in Indy and everyone is having partys each night for the superbowl
yes… down 15% pretty much every day. Just the time of the year… with foreclosures on the rise as well as interest rates… i have a feeling this will continue…
plus people are getting their credit card bills from christmas so they’re all set with spending money for a while lol
Ye, right. for me jan,feb loss. march break even. apr. property tax. rest profit months.
A lot of truth in that statement. Keep in mind that this winter has been mild and it wasn’t until last week that the temps dropped and put everyone in winter mode= slower sales.
This is the time to cut the fat and to increase efficiency with your business.
If your not planning your summer promos/game plan now, I suggest you do. Your spring marketing should already be done and ready to implement.
Always be one step ahead and your competition will never be in the drivers seat. By the time they recover from your next marketing blitz, you are implementing the next stage - always do this and you will win the game.
Damnit. I’m sorry guys. I feel like I let you down. I’ve been doing this in my store and didn’t think to fill you in, well, because nobody asked…
In October (well, all year long actually; but really starting in October) you need to push your store as a delivery store, offering delivery specials and getting your customers into the habit of associating your name with pizza delivery. Once the hard winter months hit, they will have already gotten into the habit of having you bring pizzas to the house so naturally, when the weather gets bad, your delivery sales should increase while your carryout/dine in sales decrease. What I’m sure most of you are experiencing now are slow carryout/dine in sales and the same number of deliveries as normal, thus slumping sales overall.
I know. I know. NOW I tell you!
I’m sure most of you guys that are feeling the pinch right now usually have about a 50% delivery - 50% dine in/carryout mix. Come October, you actually want to get your delivery business up to around 65%. Once the cold stuff hits, your dine in/carryouts will drop and your delivery % will go up to around 70%-80%. If you plan it right, these colder months should actually be some of the best months of the year.
I don’t brag. I see no need in it. Please don’t think I’m trying to. I try to give everyone the facts as I experience them in my store. Here are the facts:
January just ended and we had a record month. We had 611 new customers generated and had over 1,400 deliveries, accounting for 72% of my business.
In all my years in the pizza business I never had to worry about slumping winter sales because the companies I worked for were already established as being predominantly delivery oriented. When I was introduced to the “independent” pizza market 2 years ago, I ran into this same problem. I took it for granted that sales would naturally increase in my stores (which did about a 50%/50% mix). They didn’t. They slowed down the same way yours are. So I put this lesson learned in the back of my head and really started pushing the following year, and especially now with my own store.
Again, I apologize. I try to help out as much as I can in here and I didn’t think to fill you in on my research. With that in mind, I will tell you this now… come April, start pushing the Hell out of carryout business with some good carryout specials. I’m sure you know spring and summer months can either be hit or miss. Most people that “hit” have superb carryout/dine in percentages. Look at your yearly marketing plans now and get prepared. Until then, I think pizzatime came up with the best suggestion yet:
This is the time to cut the fat and to increase efficiency with your business.
If your not planning your summer promos/game plan now, I suggest you do. Your spring marketing should already be done and ready to implement.
Those words are backed with some wisdom. -J_r0kk
i’m here in the northeast too and i look forwrd to this time of year as my busiest. this is when people don’t want to go out so they order pizza. as j-rokk said positionyourself as delivery this time of year! this is wher your money is. these should be yoyr busiest months, not ones where you down.
Even here in Australia it is normally slow at this time of year with the kids going back to school after their 8 week summer holiday, new school uniforms and books, fees etc, credit card payments due from the christmas spend up.
Last week we saw the beginning of the slowing up but we still come out $500 (+6.5%) on last year even with the worst Friday for ages (down to $1600 from an average of $2200 - ouch !!!). Though here we go, now entering the quiet time.
Lo and behold we start this week off with a Monday result of just over $1,000 up from an average of $500 and up from $425 for the same night last year. (would love to do this increase every night :lol: )
Can’t put a finger on why this happened. We did have some new customers from the weekend Family Day the shoppping centre where we ar located had on Saturady - we had a stall with junior dough tossing etc - but not enough to make such a big increase.
Funny thing is that our sales have been up since my manager has been off after injuring his hand falling down a cliff ( refer to previous messages on this some time back in November). He is still not back to work as yet and won’t be for a few more weeks yet. Am thinking it may be better not to have him and keep the sales up 
(only joking). No really the introduction of daylight saving this summer has helped immensely.
dave