“A penny saved is a penny earned,” or so goes the old adage. When you think about improving profitability, it may be easy to spot the big ways to cut costs. But if you start looking for smaller cost-cutting measures to cut expenses, you’ll start adding some dollars to your bottom line.

Consider the numbers from 2016 Cost of Doing Business Study (CODB). Every year in this study, NRHA divides home improvement retailing operations into two groups: typical and high-profit. High profit operations are those in the top 25 percent when it comes to net profit before taxes. While these stores have a high profit, they also spend less on operating expenses. What does that tell us? High-profit retailers excel not just at making money, they are also good at spending less.

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