Business operations consulting for owner-led retailers doing $2M to $20M: grocery and specialty food, apparel, hardware, furniture, pet, liquor, and the rest of Main Street. We walk through staffing, vendors, software, marketing, and inventory, then hand you the three operational problems costing you the most, with your own numbers next to each.
US independent hardware stores reporting to the North American Hardware and Paint Association, 2025 Cost of Doing Business Study, fiscal 2024 data: gross margin after rebate 42.6%, pretax profit 4.7%. Your category will differ; that is what the diagnostic is for.
These are the figures we could trace to a named survey or dataset. Several only exist for one category, and the table says which.
| Measure | Figure | Who it covers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shrink as a share of sales, all retail | 1.6% | US retailers surveyed by NRF, fiscal 2022; $112.1 billion in losses | NRF, National Retail Security Survey, 2023 |
| Shrink, gross margin, inventory turns: independent grocers | 3.9% / 27.9% / 16.1 | US independent grocers, fiscal 2025; store-level employee turnover averaged 44% | FMS Solutions and National Grocers Association, via The Shelby Report, 2026 |
| Gross margin and pretax profit: hardware stores | 42.6% / 4.7% | US independent hardware stores, fiscal 2024; home centers 32.4% margin and 2.0 inventory turns | North American Hardware and Paint Association, Cost of Doing Business Study, 2025 |
| Returns as a share of annual sales | 16.9% | US retailers, all channels, 2024; $890 billion | NRF and Happy Returns, Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry, 2024 |
| Card processing fees | $187.2B on $11.9T | All US merchants, 2024: about 1.57% of card volume across all card types; Visa and Mastercard credit averaged 2.91% per CMSPI | Nilson Report, Merchant Processing Fees in the United States, 2024 |
| Median wage, retail sales workers | $17.10 per hour | 4,271,400 US retail sales jobs, May 2025 | US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025 |
| Inventory on hand | 1.18 months | US retail trade excluding motor vehicles and parts, inventory to sales ratio, August 2026 | US Census Bureau, Monthly Retail Trade (FRED), 2026 |
| Owners with openings they cannot fill | 34% | NFIB member small businesses, all industries; labor quality the top problem for 18% | NFIB, Small Business Economic Trends, 2026 |
These are published figures from the sources named, not Syboost results. They are here so you can see where your own numbers sit. Your readout uses your numbers, not these.
The register tells you what sold. It does not tell you what the sale cost to make. That gap is where these live.
The default in specialty retail is keystone: retail price equals wholesale cost times two, roughly a 50% gross margin before freight, overhead, and fees. Higher-end categories go above it, with fine jewelry and luxury often at three times cost. Grocery, liquor, and hardware run on far thinner category markups, which is why independent grocers show a 27.9% total store margin and hardware stores 42.6%.
Branded goods usually come with a manufacturer's suggested retail price and a minimum advertised price. MAP controls what you can advertise, not what you can sell for, and it is legal in the US when the manufacturer sets it unilaterally. In practice most owners mix all of this: keystone or category markup on unbranded goods, MAP on branded, and gut feel on everything else.
The slip is in the "everything else." Markdowns taken by whoever is on the floor, freight that was never added to landed cost, rebates that moved the real margin and never moved the price, and a point of sale that cannot tell you any of it. The diagnostic puts your real margin by category next to your pricing, which is usually the first time an owner has seen the two side by side.
Cycle counts by category on a calendar, shrink measured instead of guessed, and a buying budget tied to what actually sells so the rep visit stops setting your inventory level.
Hours by day and time pulled from the point of sale, a schedule template that matches them, and one person who owns it. Payroll as a share of sales tracked weekly.
Freight, rebates, and fees folded into cost so the margin you see is the margin you earn. A markdown rule the floor can follow. Card processing re-bid or restructured, with the surcharge or cash discount decision made on numbers.
Enter your own numbers. The calculator does nothing but multiply them.
Arithmetic on your own inputs. The 1.6% starting point is the average shrink rate across US retailers in NRF's National Retail Security Survey 2023 (fiscal 2022 data); independent grocers reported 3.9% in the FMS and NGA study for fiscal 2025. Move the slider to your own count. Nothing here is a projection or a Syboost promise.
Two or more of these and it usually is. The 30-Day Operations Diagnostic is $5,000, credited toward implementation if you continue within 30 days of the readout.
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