Think Retail!

Think retail. This is easy to say, but not so easy to do if you operate a traditional reimbursement-driven HME business.

Retail businesses reach out to attract and sell on a daily basis. To retail is to sell. This means selling physically in the store as well as via marketing and advertising within the respective sales territory.

Following are a few guidelines to consider when retailing HME.

• Location

  Retail businesses offer physical locations that are highly visible, easy to access and convenient. They are easy to see, easy to turn into, easy to park at, easy to shop and easy to check out of and exit. Just visit any national fast food chain or drug store location to see how these components fit together.

  Aside from visibility, another way to attract customers to a retail HME is to locate adjacent to or nearby a related business, such as a chain drug store, major shopping center, hospital or medical center. Any of these health-related businesses translate into a 10 to 20 percent crossover of their customers/patients into becoming your HME customers.

  Retail space does cost more than industrial or commercial space. Plan accordingly by using your retail location only for selling. These activities include a showroom, customer service area front-and-center, fitting room and minimal storage. For all non-retail functions such as rental equipment, warehousing, billing and delivery, use a garage, warehouse or other location that is priced accordingly, i.e. at industrial or commercial rates.

• Showroom

  A retail HME business devotes half or more of the total space to a showroom that prominently displays the product selection. Not rows of rental equipment. Not row upon row of gondolas. Simply create a wide open showroom floor that highlights a wide selection of products within each of the core categories sold.

  In HME there is an interesting correlation between products and sales: The more products displayed, the higher the sales. Most retail HMEs generate $1,000/sq. ft. in annual gross sales. This means a 500-sq. ft showroom will only generate approximately $500,000 per year in gross sales, while a 1,000-sq. ft. showroom generates a minimum of $1 million per year in gross sales.