Store managers received a fixed salary plus variable compensation based primarily on their store’s performance, with the variable component representing up to one-half of the total, which made their compensation very incentive-intensive. Since prices were fixed centrally, the store managers’ energies were primarily focused on volume and mix. Top management tried to make each store manager feel as if she were running a small business. To this end, clear cost, profit, and growth targets for each store were set, as were regular reporting requirements—with stores’ volume metrics being tracked particularly closely at the top of the (relatively flat) managerial hierarchy.