How would you rate your sales for 2005? Up? Down? Same? to What do you attribute this?
Andrew Sears — Sales are up 35 percent over last year. I attribute the sales increase to an aggressive marketing plan. We use direct mail to excite our customers, we send out specials, 30-60 day late offers, a new movers Free Pizza certificate that is followed up with a hand-written thank you note (bounce-back offer enclosed.) We also cross promote with other businesses using our box toppers.
Abe Taha — Our sales grew about 15 percent in 2005. Our T.V. advertising and our continuing emphasis on quality ingredients contributed to our growth.
Richard Ames — I have only been open for 11 months and the city I live in has a population of 45,000 plus. There are 15 other pizza places in the city including some of the big boys like Pizza Hut, Domino's and Little Caesar's. The majority of the new residential development is within a half-mile of my store. Sales are better than I had expected from my initial business plan. I believe this may be because of the new tenants in the strip mall. A movie rental store moved in right next to my carry-out and delivery store.
Have you made any special plans for your business for 2006? If so, what?
Andrew Sears — We are now offering catering and plan to promote and start marketing to local business, city and state departments for their corporate catering business. We are offering drop off catering with pizza, pasta and salads.
Abe Taha — We just ordered a second oven and we are rearranging our kitchen.
Richard Ames — I have arranged a deal with a number of real estate agents to provide pizza meals for their clients. I have also made a deal with the movie store to do a coupon exchange.
What trends did you notice with customer buying habits or sales in 2005?
Andrew Sears — A trend towards gourmet pizza toppings or unusual off-the-regular-menu requests.
Abe Taha — Our pizza sales increased relative to sandwich line sales, and deliveries have increased, especially large business deliveries during the lunch hour.
Richard Ames — The area that I serve has a high concentration of oil and gas exploration so weather is a big factor in how busy I am. The worse the weather, the better for me. I can also notice when the government rebate checks come out each month.
If you could change one thing about what you did in the past year, what would it be?
Andrew Sears — I would not have waited so long to purchase our new POS system, we bought the PDQ Signature Systems. It has saved us time and money in so many areas that I had not even thought of, from employees punching in on the time clock, inventory management, employee scheduling, time savings on the phone with the instant caller ID feature. I could go on and on about the marketing, it's endless.
Abe Taha — I would make the menu sandwich offerings fewer and streamline the menu.
Richard Ames — I would have done more targeted advertising (i.e. schools, hockey teams, churches, etc.)
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