Measure, Don't Guess
Sitting Margin
The one number that says whether your pricing strategy is working
Plenty of software will change your prices. Far less of it will tell you whether the change was worth making.
Sitting margin is your blended gross margin, weighted by what you actually sold over the last twelve months — so a nail you sell ten thousand of counts ten thousand times more than a tool you sold once. Margin Master reports it two ways: your current sitting margin at the prices on the shelf today, and your future sitting margin at the prices a strategy would set. Same cost, same volume; only the price moves.
The future figure, and the annual gross profit change reported with it, are projections from your last twelve months of sales, holding volume and cost where they are so that only the price moves. That is what makes two pricing options comparable on your own items - it is not a forecast of realized profit. The realized figure is the current sitting margin you read the next time, once the prices have been on the shelf and your own volumes have had their say.
Why a weighted margin, and not an average
A plain average margin across your catalog tells you almost nothing. It gives a slow-moving special-order item the same vote as the item at the front counter, so it can look healthy while the items paying your rent quietly lose ground.
Sitting margin weights every item by its own twelve-month unit volume. It moves when the prices that matter move — which is exactly what you want from a measure you are going to make decisions with.
What is left out, and why
Items with no cost, and items whose margin falls outside the valid range, are counted in your item totals but kept out of the margin itself. One miskeyed cost can otherwise swing a blended margin by points.
The same rules the Profit Analyzer uses, so the number you see in an assessment, in a strategy run and in your profit analysis are the same number.
Where it fits
Margin Master does not just suggest new prices — it closes the loop
Analyze
The Store Assessment reads where your pricing stands and what the options are worth
Build
Margin targets, rounding schemes, SKU exceptions, custom groups, minimums and maximums
Implement
Run the strategy, review what it priced, and send the new retails to your point of sale
Measure
Current to future sitting margin, and the profit impact at your last twelve months of volume
Adjust
Change the steps that did not earn their keep, and run it again
Where you see it
Before you commit
Every option and every potential plan in the Store Assessment carries its current and future sitting margin alongside the number of price tags it would change. You compare approaches on the measure, not on a feeling.
On every strategy run
The execution summary reports the sitting margin the run moved, from current to future, and the profit impact at your last twelve months of volume — plus which items it left without a new price, and why.
Any time, for the whole store
The Profit Analyzer shows current and future sitting margin for the store and breaks it down by department, class, price range, vendor and non-vendor items, so you can see where the margin actually sits.
Start with the measure, not the prices
A Store Assessment gives you your current sitting margin and shows what each pricing option would do to it — before you change a single price tag.
