Cultivating better buying

By Kacey Cramer

Strategic retail buying such as the tactics used at The North Carolina Arboretum involves several factors that can help lead to increased sales and strong customer engagement.

Retail buying is more than selecting the right product at the right time, in the right quantity, for the right customer. It is a seamless blending of data analysis with collaboration and creative vision. From understanding your customers to collaborating with vendors and applying analytics, strategic retail buying can prove to be a success and fun!



Understanding your customers

Your customer is your treasure who needs to be clearly defined. What is your customer demographic? What is your company’s mission? Blend the two answers to buy for your ideal customer. The mission statement for my institution, The North Carolina Arboretum is, “Cultivating connections between people, plants, and places.”


We attract both locals and tourists who enjoy visiting our floral and bonsai gardens. Our retail store features functional items to use on the property, such as hats and walking sticks, as well as unique, botanically themed gift items primarily sourced both locally and nationally.



Working Within a Budget

Buyers will manage their budget either through an open-to-buy model or an annual cost-of-goods budget. Exemplifying the practice of my institution, I will focus on an annual cost-of-goods budget. Traditionally this budget allocates an average purchasing amount per month. Because we are a seasonal destination, it is necessary to adjust this model so that the early spring and early fall months are budgeted larger amounts. Slower months like January have a very low budget.


Capturing data from a full buying cycle will offer the most accurate data patterns for the following year.



Profitable Merchandise

The first step toward selecting appropriate product is to determine your markup. The industry standard begins at “keystoning,” or doubling the wholesale cost. The markup for my store is higher to cover freight, tariff charges and store discounts. Keep the markup as your baseline because the retail price is determined by perceived market value and by your customer demographic.


Use the “Rule of Thirds” as a starting point: buy 33% of what you like + 33% of what you don’t like + 33% of what vendors recommend.



Collaborating with vendors

Invest your time into developing strong relationships with vendors, sales reps and independent artisans. Building trust provides the opportunity to grow creativity through collaboration on branding and institutional events. Earlier this spring, we launched our “Spring Into the Arb” campaign, which highlighted a different event for each weekend of the spring season with a variety of custom products. My vendor rep personally delivered the order to save on freight costs, and he recommended who we use for custom stickers for the campaign.


North Carolina Arboretum adds unique finds to its gift shop in part from customer and vendor suggestions.

There is negotiation power in collaboration. It improves the vendor’s understanding of your customer and your institution to make better product recommendations.



Utilizing analytics

Reviewing and analyzing data will determine profitability, appropriate inventory levels and effective buying strategies. It is helpful practice to consult a sales analysis report before reordering any product from existing vendors.



To summarize, the successful retail buyer melds creativity with collaboration and analytics to curate a captivating visitor experience that supports the company’s mission.

Kacey Cramer is the retail manager and buyer at The North Carolina Arboretum. She has worked as a successful retail buyer in a variety of settings for over 12 years. During that time Cramer has successfully increased annual sales by an average of 10%.