h&b merchant member CT Baker has announced the results of its NMBS Show Challenge competition, run to help counter staff understand the benefits of good buying, as well as selling.
The winner was Paul Hewitt, Senior Counter Assistant at CT Baker’s Aylsham Branch.
He and the other competitors purchased a basket of suppliers’ goods to the value if £1,500 at the NMBS Show and were tasked with promoting and selling them through their branch in eight weeks, with the winner being the competitor who made the most gross profit..
CT Baker designed the competition to help staff understand the processes of buying, administering, promoting, and selling products through the business with bonus points given for selling all the stock on in an eight week period.
Winner Paul picked a clever mix of products including items that he was able to sell on to his customer base as additional sales on their usual orders such as Forgefix screw organisers and Elbow Grease in trigger bottles.
All the products he selected were part of great h&b buying deals, with special rebates from the NMBS show to maximise profitability.
“The whole process has really demonstrated to everyone exactly how products are sold – right from great buying, through setting them up on the system, getting buy-in from the team, using all the resources of the business to promote them, and actually selling the products to customers at the counter,” says CT Baker’s Paul Pamment who runs the competition annually.
“It demonstrates the importance of buying right, one of the main reasons why being an h&b member is so vital to our business.”
C T Baker is one of the longest-established builders merchant in England, formed 250 years ago in Holt, Norfolk in 1770, and is still family owned and run.
In that time the business has gone through various incarnations including ironmonger, blacksmith and brewer before evolving into the modern merchanting business that it is today with four branches in Aylsham, Holt, North Walsham and Stalham.
The company prides itself offering an extensive range of quality product, backed up with the great customer service that is synonymous with an independent builders merchant.
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