Grocry-Nonfood

VP

Jack, please start.

Jack

My grocery nonfood improved its labor efficiencies by 1.5 percentage points.

Andrea

That’s very good . . . and I wish I could say that I did that well. . . . . But what was your grocery nonfood sales for this year?

Jack

$1,281,000. We lost a bit of ground this year in this department.

Andrea.

This is not good news for your store. Fortunately my nonfood department had $438,000 more sales than yours.

Mike

Jack, it’s good you saved our company some labor costs. Did you increase profits?

Jack

My grocery nonfood had a $1,000 less profit than it had last year.

Mike

Hmmmm . . . . Are you aware that my grocery nonfood increased its profit by $7,000.

VP

Andrea, it’s your turn to tell us something positive about your store.

Andrea

Even though Mike increased his profits, my grocery nonfood department profits are second best in the chain. $470,000! Are either of you the first?

Mike

No, but what is your spoilage expense?

Andrea

Spoilage? . . . In grocery nonfood? . . . Hardly anything spoils in this department. . . . . OK, my spoilage was $2,000.

Mike

Mine was half of that.

Andrea

Wow, you saved a $1,000 more than me. . . . I spent my management time more wisely than getting after employees to check for expiry dates on laundry detergent.

Jack

My store too had only $1,000 in spoilage for nonfood items. . . . But, how did you improve your shrinkage from last year.

Mike

Uhhhhh . . . my shrinkage increased a little . .. from 36,000 to 38,000.

Jack

While you were increasing your shrinkage costs, I was decreasing mine. By about 3%.

VP

Jack. You shall finish up this round.

Jack

Let’s see, . . . . something positive from my grocery nonfood . . . . Hmmm. . . .. . My cost of food, well actually nonfood, is only $788,000.

Andrea

What is your percent of nonfood purchase costs in relation to sales?

Jack

Let’s see. . . . 788 . . . divided by . . . . 1281. . . . 61.5%

Andrea

Unfortunately you didn’t win here. My grocery nonfood manager is a pretty good buyer. His purchasing costs are 1.7 percentage points lower than yours.

Mike

Why are you two quibbling about cost of nonfood purchases? We buy most of our product from the same warehouse and the chain sets the prices. So none of us has a real competitive edge in this financial parameter. Let’s discuss something more important. . . . Jack, what was your profit margin—in relation to sales?

Jack

26.1%

Mike

Oops.

Jack

You should have been listening more closely. I gave you both my sales and profit figures. You could have figured this out before you asked.

VP.

This concludes the grocery nonfood round. . . . . . I’m going to award the point to Andrea, mostly based on the highest profit.

So Andrea leads with three-and-a-half points. Mike with two, and Jack with one-and-a-half.

Andrea

I have a solid lead.

VP

Don’t get your hopes up yet. The next round—the store totals—is worth three points. If Jack wins all these points, he can come out ahead.

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