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This business drives me crazy.

Daddio

Daddio

Moderator
Staff member
I am rather puzzled by the events of this week. I have had both the worst day of sales this year and the best day of sales this year within two days of each other.

How does a person plan for this kind of fluctuation? I had to send staff home on Wednesday and I had to call in backup on Friday.

I now realize why I am bald now to figure out the fat and grumpy part of my character and I will have the answers to life. :lol:
 
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Ditto
Thursady for us was our slowest night for the week only doing 40% of normal sales - probably one of the slowest Thursday nights we have ever done. It was our first cooler night for 3 months and I think everyone decided to cook up a home feast to celebrate the end of the unbearable heat we have had since early January.
Luckily we had one of our full timers off for the night and we didn’t get cover for him.
Makes it hard to plan staff especially when our labour laws state staff get a minimum 3 hours once they start their shift.
Friday was a bit slow but Sat and Sun were both good nights
 
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I guess you can’t really plan for wild flucuations like that, it’s just like a natural disaster like a flood. It just happens and you deal with it. But I understand your pain. :cry:

What time of the night do you realize it was going to be a slow night? Was it early like 4pm (i.e. do you get a lot of pre-orders and that helps you assess the sales forcast for the night) or was it not until late like 8 pm?

and were you there when this happened, or did you just monitor the sales the next day and see the dip?

and do you actively promote special deals for each night of the week, or just on the weekends?

this is my first time on this board so I’m just learning, thanks.
 
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Being in the pizza business a long time I have learned a few things. Our sales always seem to even out. Luckily for us our business only fluctuates up and down around 20%.

For instance, this weekend our Friday and Saturday was down 10%. I knew it would be a busy Sunday because of that. We were up 15% on Sunday.
 
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We’ve had a similar experience recently. Business is still slow overall. We have only been open for about 3 months. A monday a few weeks ago was our busiest day yet. And in that same week that Friday was one of our slowest days yet. We just finally had a new record day in sales this last Saturday so that one monday is now second overall.
 
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Funny how things work out.
When we had a major chain open up 100mts up the road last year we had our biggest night for nearly 3 years and our third biggest night ever.
Already know we will get swamped on Good Friday as we are rostering for a 50% reduction in staffing as it is normally like a Sunday night trade. It is bound to be Murphy’s Law that we will get slammed because staff levels will be down.
Plus we have to pay double time wages as well and again on Easter Monday and the Tuesday as we have a very special day (ANZAC Day from the first world war) which is a public holiday fall on Easter Monday so it is carried over to Tuesday. This will make 3 days within 5 as Public Holiday double time wages :cry:
Richard and you think you are bald and grumpy. Try working with our system of wages. You will be grey haired (what’s left of it) bald, grumpy and broke 😛
 
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I was actually thinking of posting something like yesterday. Been open for little less than 3 years. This is one thing I can not figure out for the life of me. It seems like my previous two years numbers mean nothing. I was in corporate buying before this and looked at forecasting everyday. I try to do the same thing here and would have about as much luck at throwing a dart at a number. I am in a college town, but it just seems like the numbers go everywhere.
 
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I’m with you on this one, my sales have been so erratic lately, it’s driving me nuts. We had a LC move in over the winter just 5 blocks away. Dealing with the public perception that pizza is a cheap meal. We’ve dealt with new competition coming to town and were ready for that short term drop in sales while people try them out, but I don’t know if the erratic sales are from that or some other trend.
 
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Good to hear I’m not the only one!

This past week was a roller-coaster for us too! We had 3 VERY dead evening shifts…then ran like cat’s with their tails on fire for Thursday-Saturday night. I’m like Adam, the previous years’ numbers aren’t even looked at anymore…they’re just numbers on a past page. Prep for average, pray for phenomenal I guess.
 
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I can only speak for Deacon, but one thing you will see is when we have a really nice break in the weather (the Monday Tuesday, and Wednesday business will slow, but then (we had a cold front with rain that came in Thursday…and lasted to Saturday)…yeah!!! that drove sales up…I always try to adjust by the weather of the day, if it is nice, i usually cut someone , if it is REALLY nice then I cut me :).
 
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This weekend was a perfect example of this. Easter weekend is usually our 3rd slowest weekend of the year, instead we were up close to 25% in sales over a normal weekend, and that’s with not opening for lunch on Sunday.
 
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My store is located in a downtown urban area with about 40-45% of our business coming from hotel delivery. We are also 5 blocks from Busch Stadium where the baseball Cardinals play. Our high hotel percentage results in WILD flucutations in business; slow week $17k, busy week $25k, crazy week $36k.

We do our best to track what conventions and events are in town, creating monthly charts of sports team games, events, concerts and conventions but sometimes you just get blind-sided. One of the problems is while we get good convention detail, often it is hard to tell what to make of that information. Example: 10,000 lawyers in town = no increase in business (they all go out for a steak dinner and to “gentlemans clubs” after…their never in their hotel room) or 1000 ladies who sell candles from home “Candle-lights convention” makes us super busy (they all stay in the hotel room, get pizza and watch “chic flicks”).

It is definitely enough to make you crazy. Pretty much we have a “normal” staffing level and add drivers and instore employees for events. Often conventions are several days long and if after the first couple days we get the feeling that this event is a “dud” we can always pull staffing back down to normal levels
 
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