Strategy consulting · Kamloops + Sun Peaks, BC
In one two-season engagement, a Kamloops-area retailer grew gross-profit dollars 18.1% year over year.
Its own records showed where cash, sales and margin were leaking: about 30% of owned inventory had quietly stopped selling, proven sellers kept running out, and best sellers were priced below demand. Nobody had taken notice. In days, the owner had the full picture and a ranked plan.
Measured year over year from the shop's own sales records.
Treeline Consulting helps owner-run businesses find the cash trapped in their inventory, lift the margin and turn their best sellers already earn, and secure, connect and sharpen the technology they already run, automating reporting, saving time and sharpening decisions. We are based in Kamloops and work with owners across British Columbia and the Alberta Rockies. We read your own records and your own floor across cashflow, inventory turn, margin, and technology, show you where the business stands, and build a ranked plan of the changes that will pay back most. You run the plan with our scheduled reviews, or we lead it with you. It starts with a complimentary call.
Book a complimentary callOur model
The four pillars of business performance.
Our work is four areas of performance and nothing outside them: cashflow, inventory turn, margin, and technology. The Performance Diagnostic reads all four, and you choose where to act. Each carries its proof from one two-season engagement.
Cashflow
Frees trapped capital and puts cash flow under control: clearing dead and slow stock, speeding up receivables where the business carries them, negotiating longer payment terms with suppliers, examining the size and timing of orders, wages and equipment spend, and establishing a cash-flow calendar to map operations to.
17.2% of owned inventory cleared, freeing $27,925 across two clearance seasons at a 39.7% margin (measured). Extended purchase terms were explored with every vendor, resulting in multiple term extensions and new terms set with new vendors. One extended its terms by 50% in return for larger orders matched to the shop's cash flow (observed).
Turn
Increases inventory velocity by finding why stock is or is not performing. We analyze past inventory performance alongside display and merchandising standards, stockouts of top sellers, how long underperformers stay on hand, clearance strategy, and staff training and product knowledge. That quantitative and qualitative read lays out the plan to speed up turn.
10.8% faster turn of owned inventory, year over year, across one two-season engagement (measured).
Margin
Repairs and lifts margin by working every factor that builds or erodes it. We start with demand, what shapes value perception on the floor, and the owner's own beliefs about pricing, to find every area where repricing into value is appropriate. Then we work the cost side: where purchasing incentives make sense, and how to cut freight and the other costs added to products and operations.
A repriced cohort of 370 items lifted its realized, sold-through margin 60.1% to 64.7% (measured; cohort, not the store). And despite an aggressive clearance program that cleared 17.2% of owned inventory over six months, the store's margin held within one point of the year before (measured).
Technology
Secures, connects and sharpens the systems you already run. Security comes first: we address weaknesses from day one. Next, we investigate where integrating the software, applications and tools you use can cut duplicated work and the errors it invites. Then the AI engine compiles and analyzes your numbers, surfacing initial findings and raising flags for further review within each pillar, so decisions run on better data, faster. For owners who want their own system, we also build and implement a custom Claude-based AI operating system you own, and teach your team to run it; the AI for Owners page shows how.
In one two-season engagement, security gaps were closed first, the point of sale, accounting and email were integrated to end duplicated work, and an AI system with access to them now puts better data in front of operational and strategic decisions (delivered; not measured in dollars).
Why this matters
This is not a local quirk.
Retailers lose an estimated $1.73 trillion a year worldwide to inventory distortion: being out of what sells and overstocked on what does not (IHL Group, 2025). Cash is thin: the median small retailer holds 19 days of cash in reserve (JPMorgan Chase Institute, 2016). Pricing is a skill, not a guess: small firms that set prices from market and customer information, rather than gut feel, get better pricing results, and better pricing results track with stronger firm performance (Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 2018). One in six Canadian businesses was hit by a cyber security incident in 2023 (Statistics Canada, 2024). And Canadian small businesses using generative AI report being 24% more productive, yet only 30% use it (BDC, 2026).
You watch your winners. Few act on the leaks.
Most can name their best sellers from memory, and that is where the attention stays. Winners get watched. The leaks around them do not. Stock that sits ties up cash and display space. Proven sellers run out and stay out, often through the end of the season. Pricing set by feel is rarely reviewed against cost or demand. Underperformers get cleared too late and at a heavy discount. In one engagement all four were true at once, and nobody took the time to notice.
A key constraint for many retailers is having the right data at the right time for scheduled decision-making cycles. We build automated reporting and data analysis, strengthen your inventory management, and schedule recurring inventory-strategy coaching time, so you build the discipline to get more back from your investment in inventory. In bringing together modern technology, industry best practices and an unbiased, external perspective on the top opportunities for your operation, we are here to help you level up your business.
What the diagnostic shows you.
- Cashflow
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About 30% of owned inventory, roughly $28,900, was dead or slow-moving (measured).
Moving stock: 70% Dead or slow: 30%
Orders were not mapped to item sales or payment terms: large orders landed ahead of each season and squeezed cash, and replenishment came later and smaller (observed).
- Turn
Proven sellers kept running out, costing an estimated $11,228 in sales the year before (modelled, conservative).
Slow stock held prime display space, and visual merchandising standards had slipped: there were no formal display criteria, and display upkeep had lapsed, leaving displays cluttered and taking away from the stock's appeal (observed).
- Margin
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370 best sellers were priced below what customers would pay while the cost of those items rose 7.4% against their pre-season cost (measured).
Freight on the shop's largest supplier nearly doubled as a share of what it paid for stock, while another supplier was negotiated down to almost free shipping (measured). Freight costs proved to be highly variable for the client with the potential to change without warning, presenting a risk of material, unexpected cost increases that cut against margin. They are also a major opportunity: every route to lowering them is worth exploring, from renegotiating supplier terms to consolidating orders to reach free-shipping thresholds.
Card fees went unrecovered: a 1.5% credit surcharge against a 2.4% processing fee now splits the cost with the customer, recovering about $4,000 to $4,500 a year and adding only $0.86 on average to a customer's credit card purchase (measured over the summer, annualized).
- Technology
Electronic security gaps, addressed first.
Duplicated work across the point of sale, accounting software, paper records and email, with no integration between them.
No system for recording or building inventory performance intelligence. Orders were booked straight from the previous season's sales, which recurring stockouts had already held down, so stockouts repeated and underperformers were restocked instead of new stock being tested (observed).
Which of the four is costing you most? That is the question worth a phone call.
The proof
The work inside the 18.1%.
Revenue rose 19.3% and gross-profit dollars 18.1%, with gross margin within one point of the year before despite the clearance markdowns, and with one of the six months spent under a provincial wildfire emergency. Pillar by pillar:
- +18.1%gross-profit dollars year over year, whole store, on revenue up 19.3% (measured)
- $27,925freed across two clearance seasons at a 39.7% margin (measured, pre-tax)
- +10.8%faster turn of owned inventory, year over year (measured)
- +4.6 pointsmargin lift on 370 repriced items, 60.1% to 64.7%, while their cost rose 7.4% against pre-season cost (measured; cohort, not the store)
These results overlap: cash freed and turn are views of the same sales, and the whole-store growth contains all of them. They are shown side by side, never summed. Every figure was compiled from the shop's own records.
Read the full resultsHow it works
Your numbers, your floor, then a plan.
We build the dataset from your point of sale, every item, every sale, every date, three years back where available, so you are not burdened with running reports. Our system compiles and reads an anonymized set of your numbers and surfaces the first patterns for review, while we gather context on the floor: your systems and their security, your seasons, your suppliers, your locals and your visitors, your displays, how your team sells. Then we read the numbers against what we see, weigh the constraints, rank each opportunity, sequence the work, and build the plan with you. This process is focused and efficient, with tangible information you can use delivered back to you in days. Once the report is in your hands, we stay with you through execution. You work the plan week over week and month over month, with our scheduled check-ins along the way, or we lead it with you, and the plan adapts as your business changes.
What the diagnostic covers
Who you work with
You get the operator, not an associate.
Justin Terwiel has 19 years in retail and 14 years of management across retail, home services, and industry, seven with full P&L ownership. At Michael Hill Jewellers he led a store to a national top sales month in a chain of more than 70 stores and won four national revenue and EBIT awards, including his final store at 255.3% of its yearly EBIT budget. At Modern PURAIR he took full P&L ownership and cut accounts receivable by 75%. The through-line is the same method every time.
About JustinFind out what your shelves are hiding.
A complimentary call. No pitch deck. We share what our research is finding in shops like yours, and you will leave knowing where to look first, whether or not we end up working together.
Book a complimentary callAI for Owners
Curious where AI takes this?
The same system that automates the heavy, time-intensive analysis behind our findings can become one you own and run yourself.
See the AI for Owners pageTreeline Consulting is a strategy consulting practice based in Kamloops, British Columbia, working with independent retail and service owners across BC and the Alberta Rockies. Founded by Justin Terwiel, it pairs AI-powered analysis of an anonymized set of a business's own records with fourteen years of operator experience, reading the numbers alongside the floor across four areas of performance: cashflow, inventory turn, margin, and technology. The owner gets a ranked plan, built and executed together, not a report. In one two-season engagement, a Kamloops-area retailer grew gross-profit dollars 18.1% over six months; Treeline freed $27,925 of trapped cash and repriced its best sellers for lasting margin along the way.