The spend reality
A retailer’s non-merchandise spend is the same purchase made over and over, in every store. Every location needs cleaning, maintenance, security, waste removal, pest control, landscaping, snow removal in the right climates, and a steady flow of bags, receipt paper, cleaning supplies and signage. Each of those needs is small at the store level and large across the portfolio.
Around that base sits spend that moves with the business: store build-outs, remodels and fixtures tied to the real estate plan, freight and last-mile delivery tied to the channel mix, in-store and campaign marketing tied to the promotional calendar, seasonal labor tied to peak, and the payment processing and point-of-sale technology behind every transaction. Merchandise gets the attention because it drives margin directly. Goods-not-for-resale (GNFR) is often managed by whoever happens to own the budget: store operations for one category, facilities for another, marketing, logistics and IT for the rest. Each owner optimizes its own line, and no one sees the full cost of running a store.
What’s actually broken
The same service priced differently at every store. Janitorial, maintenance and security contracts are signed region by region or store by store over years. Scopes drift, rates escalate on different schedules and nobody compares one store’s cost to the next. The portfolio pays many prices for what is essentially one service.
Work orders with no price discipline. Reactive maintenance runs through work orders, often with not-to-exceed limits that quietly become the price. When a national integrator manages subcontractors, the markup on each job can be hard to see, and repeat visits for the same issue rarely get challenged.
Store programs sourced one project at a time. Build-outs, remodels and fixture rollouts are often bought per project under schedule pressure. Pricing, specifications and supplier performance aren’t carried forward, so each program starts over.
Payment processing nobody fully understands. Processing statements are complex, pricing structures vary, and fees accumulate over the life of a contract. Finance pays the bill, but few people can say what portion is negotiable and whether the current terms still fit the business.
Seasonal labor and supplies bought in a rush. Peak demands temporary staff, extra supplies and expedited freight. Without agreed terms in advance, peak-season buying defaults to premium rates.
Top addressable categories
- Store facilities services: janitorial, floor care, maintenance and repair, HVAC, security, pest control, waste and recycling, landscaping and snow removal.
- Store build-outs, remodels and fixtures: general contractors, fixtures, millwork, signage and rollout programs tied to the real estate plan.
- Logistics and last-mile: store replenishment freight, parcel, last-mile delivery, returns and the accessorials behind them.
- Packaging and store supplies (GNFR): bags, shipping and e-commerce packaging, receipt paper, cleaning and operating supplies.
- Marketing and in-store marketing: agencies, print, point-of-purchase displays, signage and promotional production.
- Payment processing: processor pricing, gateway and equipment fees, and the contract terms behind them.
- Technology and POS: point-of-sale hardware and software, store networks, telecom and enterprise software renewals.
- Seasonal and contingent labor: temporary store and distribution staff, agency markups and peak-season terms.
Where value leaks
In retail, value rarely leaks in one large decision. It leaks store by store, in amounts too small for anyone to notice individually.
Illustration: a retailer contracts store cleaning through several regional providers, each signed at a different time. Stores of similar size and format end up paying noticeably different monthly rates, scopes include tasks some stores no longer need, and annual escalators have compounded at different rates in different regions. Separately, maintenance work orders are routinely approved at their not-to-exceed limit rather than the actual cost of the work. None of it is visible from any single store’s P&L. Across the whole portfolio, it is a meaningful and recurring cost that no one is managing.
The same pattern shows up in waste hauling, security hours, signage and supplies. The fix is rarely a single national RFP. It’s a normalized view of what each store actually receives and pays, a pricing structure that matches how stores actually operate, and the data to see variance as it happens.
The S2V approach for retail
Potential. We map GNFR spend by store, region, format and category, not just by supplier. That shows where the same service is priced differently across comparable stores, where work-order spend is running on not-to-exceed limits, and where contracted terms and invoiced reality diverge.
Priority. We rank opportunities by value, feasibility, operational risk and timing, including contract renewals, remodel and new-store schedules, and peak selling periods when stores can’t absorb a supplier transition.
Performance. We source and negotiate: normalized store-service scopes and rate cards, facilities delivery models compared on total cost, build-out and fixture programs sourced as programs rather than projects, payment processing terms, logistics structures and peak-season labor agreements set before peak. We work with store operations and facilities teams, because changes only hold if stores keep running smoothly.
Value. We track realized results in actual invoices, store by store, and report them in terms finance can verify. Then we identify the next wave before the next renewal cycle or remodel program.
Data readiness in retail
Retail GNFR data is scattered across systems that rarely share a common key. Invoices sit in the ERP or AP platform, maintenance activity in a work-order management platform or a facilities integrator’s portal, store attributes in real estate and lease systems, freight charges in carrier and freight audit reports, payment processing costs in processor statements, and a lot of low-value spend on P-cards or store petty cash.
The identifiers break in predictable places. The store number, the one key that would tie everything together, is often missing from invoices, especially consolidated national invoices that bill many locations at once. Supplier names differ across regions and entities. Work-order categories don’t match the general ledger, and store formats and square footage aren’t attached to spend at all.
Before any analysis or AI tooling, we establish whether that data can be joined reliably: a common store identifier on every cost, a normalized supplier list, store attributes linked to spend and a consistent category taxonomy. If it can’t, we tell you, and we scope the foundation work separately rather than burying it inside a fixed-fee project. Once it’s in place, store-level cost visibility becomes a permanent capability rather than a one-time study.
Outcomes we target
In retail, GNFR procurement succeeds store by store, in results that add up across the whole portfolio.
- Realized savings, validated in invoices — results confirmed store by store against actual supplier invoices.
- Store-level cost visibility — a normalized view of what each store receives and pays, so comparable stores can be compared.
- Consistent store-service rate cards — normalized scopes and pricing for cleaning, maintenance, security and waste across regions and formats.
- Work-order price discipline — reactive maintenance priced to the work performed, not to not-to-exceed limits.
- Supplier performance and scorecards — facilities providers, integrators and logistics partners measured against contracted service levels.
- Peak readiness and lasting governance — seasonal labor, supply and freight terms agreed before peak, with a renewal calendar the team keeps running.
Every result is tracked to realized value — measured in invoices and operating performance, not negotiated estimates.
Related spend categories
- Facilities & Janitorial Services
- Payment Processing
- Marketing & Agency Spend
- Contingent Labor & Executive Search
- IT Infrastructure & VAR Agreements
- Telecom & Wireless
- Logistics & Freight
- Print, Packaging & Promotional
- Energy & Sustainability
- Fleet
Frequently asked questions
Do you work on merchandise buying?
No. Merchandising and product sourcing belong to your buying teams. S2V focuses on goods-not-for-resale and the services that run stores, distribution and the corporate office, which often receive far less commercial attention than merchandise.
Why does the same store service cost different amounts at different locations?
Some variation is legitimate, driven by local labor markets, store format, hours and traffic. Much of it isn't. Contracts signed at different times, scopes that drifted, regional suppliers never benchmarked against each other and work-order markups nobody reviews all create price differences that have nothing to do with the store itself.
Should we use a national facilities integrator or contract suppliers directly?
It depends on store count, geography, internal facilities capability and how much visibility you need into subcontractor pricing. Both models can work. We help you compare total cost, including management fees, markups on work orders and not-to-exceed practices, against the service levels each model actually delivers.
Can procurement really affect payment processing costs?
Partly. Card network interchange is largely set by the networks, but processor markups, pricing structure, gateway and equipment fees and contract terms are negotiable. The first step is understanding exactly what you're paying on your processing statements, which is often harder than it should be.
Where does an engagement usually start?
With the S2V Compass, an assessment of store-level and corporate spend, contracts and data readiness. It produces an evidence-backed opportunity portfolio sequenced around contract renewals, remodel programs and peak selling seasons.