Retail Store Blog

Business Blog Roundup

2006-09-25T22:24:00.000-04:00

The latest Carnival of Capitalists is online at Crossroad Dispatches. Always an interesting batch of posts about investing, the economy, management, and business in general. Check it out.

Self-Serve Retail: the trouble with Lowes and Home Depot

2006-09-23T06:36:00.000-04:00

Huge home improvement retailers Lowes and Home Depot have hit a rough spot with investors and customers. Both had soft second quarter earnings and warn of slow sales. Their stocks are down about 15% for the year, and the housing market slowdown isn't the only cause.Home Depot is famous for rotten customer service and Lowes isn't much better.I went to Lowes last night to look for kitchen cabinets

Formalized Services in Retail Stores

2006-07-29T05:11:00.000-04:00

Retail stores have always given away advice along with selling products. Now some stores are turning helpful services into a profit center. Medical services are leading this move into retail stores. Medical clinics are popping up in pharmacies across the nation, and thousands of new clinics are planned to open in stores over the next couple years. No appointment is necessary to get quick, cheap

Retail Location: Malls and Towns

2006-07-23T08:15:00.000-04:00

Malls are scrambling to find new anchor tenants. Department stores are no longer an attraction for many shoppers, so malls are recruiting restaurants and big box discounters like Target to generate traffic. "New" downtowns are cited as the hot retail location.Obviously the "location location location" for retail changes over time, so what's a smart retailer to do? Work toward making your business

Retail Store Success: Blinds.com

2006-07-16T08:10:00.000-04:00

Jay Steinfeld has grown his business from a single bricks-and-mortar store to a thriving online retail store success story. Blinds.com generates $45 million in annual sales and is the 10th fastest growing ecommerce site. Steinfeld opened a drapery store with his wife in 1987, and the online store started in 1994 and has grown in sophistication and sales since then.His ecommerce business grew

Selling Overcomes Fear

2006-07-09T06:27:00.000-04:00

Seth Godin tells a short story about effective retail selling at a farmers market. He reminds us that good selling overcomes the buyer's fear -- in this case the fear of eggplant.If you sell products that you're genuinely enthusiastic about, you can often pass that enthusiasm on to a shopper. It's not about giving a "hard sell" ... it's about retailing good stuff with passion. If you can't

Stock Photography for Ads

2006-07-02T20:25:00.000-04:00

Okay, you accept my argument that professional photography is critical to marketing success for retailers and other businesses. But hiring a photographer to create custom photos is expensive and time-consuming. Is there another way? Yes. You can often use stock photos in your advertising.Stock photography can be downloaded in an instant, and might be as cheap as $1. Yes, at online stock photo

The Marketing Power of Good Photography

2006-06-29T06:04:00.000-04:00

Professional photography is worth a fortune to a retailer or other marketers. Consider the famous retail catalog and ecommerce website of the Pottery Barn. Would the products be as sought-after if the photography wasn't so good?The Pottery Barn catalog and website are like a home design magazine -- full of decorating ideas that inspire the purchase of the products. The Quality of the photography

That's why you use models instead of athletes in ads

2006-06-22T17:33:00.000-04:00

The dismal showing of the American team at the World Cup is just the latest example of why you should use models in your ads instead of athletes. Athletes can embarass themselves with crappy play on the world stage. Imagine if you'd signed a U.S. soccer player to represent your company - and then the team only scores one goal in 3 games and is (mercifully) eliminated in the first round. Yikes!

$1,400 a Day from a Simple Website

2006-06-18T07:21:00.000-04:00

A month ago, I wrote about the opportunities for making money from sharing your knowledge on the Internet. I also pointed out that retailers can make money from websites without selling anything. But how much money can you make just by presenting what you know on a website?Tim Carter makes more than $30,000 a month from his website. Tim is a syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about home

Retail Store Success: Staples

2006-06-09T20:11:00.000-04:00

Office supplies retailer Staples has become a retail success story with memorable marketing and an improved shopping experience. Their "easy button" is a wonderful iconic object that helps spread the company's message. I was tempted to buy one when I was recently in a Staples store. About a million have been sold for $5 a piece.The easy button icon is also available on a downloadable toolbar for

4 Cheap Ways to Get Into Retail

2006-06-03T11:00:00.000-04:00

You don't need an expensive store or thousands of dollars of inventory to become a retailer. Entrepreneur magazine has this article on 4 cheap ways to break into retail.The 4 ways:1. eBay - begin by selling unwanted stuff from around your house and then build your own niche2. Amazon - sell your products alongside the ecommerce leader3. Direct sales - demonstrations at home parties sell cookware,

Hooters: an American success story

2006-05-26T15:04:00.000-04:00

Hooters succeeds by catering to the tastes of men. For more than 20 years, the famous restaurants have provided girls, finger food, and beer for millions of happy customers. Like Wal-Mart, Hooters appeals to the common man (if not the common woman) with a simple strategy well carried out.The original Hooters restaurant was opened in Clearwater, Florida by 6 partners. Beer, chicken wings, and

DSL Customer Service

2006-05-19T09:06:00.000-04:00

Verizon and the other phone companies catch a lot of flack for their customer service, but I recently had an excellent experience with Verizon DSL. My laptop computer self-destructed and I bought a new desktop to replace it. The new machine didn't have the correct settings to use my DSL modem, and I hadn't saved the documentation from when I'd installed it on my laptop.So I called Verizon DSL's

How retailers can make money from websites without selling anything

2006-05-01T07:14:00.000-04:00

Last week I wrote about my Internet home business and how I make money from website publishing. Can retailers take advantage of the web in the same way? Yes they can.Retailers are in a great position to make money from websites without selling anything. All you have to do is share your expertise about your products on your website. You know what questions your customers ask. Answer them online

Internet Home Business & Life

2006-04-28T06:37:00.000-04:00

A year ago I started a little home-based business in my spare time. It's a good thing I did -- my regular job was eliminated a few months later. Instead of finding another job, I decided to commit my time and energy to my fledgling business, which was showing great promise. It's the best decision I've ever made.Now my little website-publishing business makes enough money to cover all my expenses,

Franchises

2006-04-23T07:29:00.000-04:00

Franchises are a short-cut to small business success. The franchise buyer spends money upfront to buy into a successful business and reduce the risk of failure. The heart of this business model is the franchise system, which spells out every little detail of how to successfully run the business.A good franchise is based on concepts proven in one or more prototypes. There the system has been tried

The Fair Tax

2006-04-17T06:37:00.000-04:00

Once a year we're all reminded how crazy our system of taxation is. There is an alternative: support the FairTax. The FairTax is a national retail sales tax that would replace federal income and payroll taxes (including personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security/Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes).The FairTax proposal features dollar-for-dollar revenue

Customer Loyalty Rewards Programs

2006-04-14T15:03:00.000-04:00

Customer loyalty rewards programs are a fairly common way for retailers to entice repeat business. A small bookstore near me runs a "bakers dozen" program -- if you buy 12 books, a 13th book is free. They keep the records right there in the store so you don't have to remember to bring your punch card (a nice touch).The kings of customer loyalty programs are casinos. The giant Harrah's casino

The Best of the Business Blogs

2006-04-10T06:38:00.000-04:00

This week's Carnival of Capitalists presents good business blog posts from the last seven days. From "changing the rules in your market" to "5 lessons from a marketing guru" there's lots of interesting posts to read. Enjoy.

The Power of Credit

2006-04-08T14:10:00.000-04:00

Credit has the power to drive your business and improve society. It enables companies to build a loyal relationship with customers, and enables people to improve their lives now.I'm building a small house and over the next several weeks I'll spend tens of thousands of dollars on building materials, fixtures, tools and more. Building supply companies have long recognized that it is worth extending

Website Hosts 2

2006-04-08T08:40:00.000-04:00

A while back I wrote about problems I'd had with website hosts. I'd like to revisit this important issue and provide an update on my own experiences.Here's what I've learned about Website hosting (I won't reproduce that entire page here). This is a service that almost every business purchases, but customer satisfaction is the pits. The industry is extremely fragmented but it's growing so fast

The Sweet Smell of Retail Store Success

2006-03-12T07:36:00.000-05:00

Does your retail store smell? Some companies are targeting consumers' sense of smell to market brands and products in an almost subliminal way. They're hiring scent marketers, who concoct odors and serve them up using blowers strategically placed in public places.The scents are designed to be subtle. Most companies want to create a signature smell that people will forever associate with their

Carnival of Capitalists

2006-01-17T10:50:00.000-05:00

Did you see us in the Carnival of Capitalists posted at the Social Customer Manifesto? Mine was the "spotlight post".Thank you. Thank you very much.

Sexy Advertising: GoDaddy

2006-01-17T10:18:00.000-05:00

It's time to take another look at the state of sexy advertising. Today's we focus on the Go Daddy commercials, which star Candice Michelle in provocative and humorous bits. Let's consider how these GoDaddy ads do with our famous 3 tests for evaluating sexy ads to Go Daddy:Do you remember what the ad sells? Or do you only remember the sex?Yes, you remember the company. The "Go Daddy" name is used

Retail Store Success: 17th Street Surf Shop

2006-01-15T06:20:00.000-05:00

17th Street Surf Shop has grown from a single small shop in Virginia Beach (on 17th Street naturally) to a prosperous regional chain. Growth in the popularity of surfing explains the company's success somewhat, but strong results from related merchandise is really the driver of this retail store's business.Actual surfing gear is a tiny niche market. But it also conveys an image that 17th Street

Customer Service, Dell, Yahoo, Flames and Blogs

2006-01-07T07:07:00.000-05:00

On December 30, Jeremy Zawodny (who works for Yahoo) complained about Dell's customer service on his blog. The post was titled What the F--- is with Dell Technical Support?!. Well, Mr. Zawodny, from personal experience I can tell you that Yahoo customer service is just as f---ed as Dell's.Jeremy recently purchased a Dell LCD monitor that arrived broken. In dealing with Dell's customer service he

Largest Online Retailer Sets Record

2005-12-27T13:07:00.000-05:00

Amazon.com Inc., the world's biggest online retailer, set a sales record this Christmas season. Demand was led by iPods, video games and jewelry. Shoppers bought more than 108 million items between November 1 and Christmas.Online sales in the U.S. were expected to jump 24 percent from last-season's level to about $19 billion in November and December as the convenience of Internet shopping and

Is there a future for small retail stores?

2005-12-16T16:48:00.000-05:00

Ted Hurlbut has posted a thoughtful response to the question, "Is there a future for small retailing?" at Fresh Inc.Focus, planning, decisiveness, execution, financial acumen, systems aptitude, employee empowerment, and moving forward. Don't let inertia keep your retail store from succeeding in 2006. Take steps now to change for the better.

Retailing Experience

2005-12-15T15:05:00.000-05:00

BusinessWeek has an article that is an effective synopsis of where retailing is headed. Smart retailers try to make their store a destination, a place where people choose to spend time, learn, or have fun.A noted success that we've noted here before is the reinvention of clothing retailer Topshop from cheap teen brand to high street style-leader, helped by the Oxford Circus flagship store, which

Retail Success: Willmar MN

2005-12-13T07:08:00.000-05:00

Here's an article about retailers succeeding downtown in little Willmar, MN. As always, finding a niche that avoids direct competition with the big box discounters is a key. One shop does a thriving business online. Retailing isn't rocket science, but its amazing how few retailers do it well. It sounds like Willmar has some well run stores.

Sexy Internet Icons and Promotions

2005-12-09T15:49:00.000-05:00

Veronika Zemanova is a famous Internet icon with tremendous name recognition and a huge following -- at least amongst men. Photos of the model are everywhere on the net, even though she is no longer actively modeling. Ms. Zemanova's popularity has potential commercial value, if harnessed in a contructive way.Jason Rothwell is attempting to cash in on Veronika Zemanova's fame by making her a

E-Commerce Non-Profit Fundraising

2005-11-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

Non-profit organizations are using e-commerce retailing to raise money for worthy causes. The Christian Appalachian Project in Kentucky predicts it will raise $100,000 through online sales in the next year. The non-profit launched GodsNet less than two months ago. Area residents donate books and other items. Volunteers post them on Amazon.com and mail them. They have more than 3,500 book titles

Where are retail's stars?

2005-11-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

What retailing needs is a few "stars" -- retail industry leaders that you can name off the top of your head. I doubt that most Americans could name a single retailer now that Sam Walton is gone. Maybe Dave Longaberger (oops ... also deceased) or Anita Roddick (from her days with Body Shop). Paco Underhill is known in the industry but not outside.Why don't more retailers use their founder or CEO

Attract shoppers with holiday retail events

2005-11-15T14:00:00.000-05:00

The Downtown Holiday Open House attracted hundreds of shoppers to the stores in downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia. For 32 years the event has helped kick-off seasonal sales in the historic city. Free parking at a new parking garage was an added attraction. Merchants offered snacks and drinks, and stores were well decorated. Marilee Meek, president of Downtown Retail Marketing Inc. and co-owner

Retailing in Jamaica

2005-11-14T14:00:00.000-05:00

The challenges of retail management are different outside the United States. How would you like to deal with extortion and a lack of public order?The Jamaica Gleaner has an interview with Micheal Ammar Sr. and Michael Ammar Jr. Their family name is synonymous with clothing and dry goods retailing in Jamaica.

Retail and Kickball

2005-11-06T10:08:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post has an article about kickball as a mating ritual. Single folks in Washington DC play in a co-ed kickball league to get hooked up. After the short game, everyone heads to the bar that sponsors the league.This is exactly the sort of thing I was getting at in my entertainment-retail post. People are eager for opportunities to have active fun. Throw in a chance to get a date ...

Retail Success: TopShop

2005-11-02T18:00:00.000-05:00

Read about TopShop's Jane Shepherdson, "the most influential woman in British retail."36-hour shop-a-thons. 7,000 lines of fashion clothes. Ordering 500,000 tank tops and selling them all in a week. Constant store updates. Home delivery. It's all part of the TopShop retailing success story.Does it work? This year, in a British consumer downturn, TopShop made a profit of £100million.

Retail Success: Old Town Root Beer Company

2005-10-31T07:00:00.000-05:00

Old Town Root Beer Company in San Diego is a sweet retail success story. Article from the North County Times. John Montgomery found a recipe for root beer in an old family Bible, tried it, and liked it so much he decided to open a root beer shop by his printing business. Five years later, the family business manufactures 16 types of micro-brew sodas sold through their 3 stores. They plan to open

Retailers can learn from Wal-Mart

2005-10-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

Wal-Mart has had a long run of bad publicity, but now the retail giant is trying to polish its image. Wal-Mart announced Monday that it will add a new health care plan for workers, reward environment-friendly suppliers, and reduce its energy use. Wal-Mart says its full-time workers are paid an average of $9.68 an hour.How does your little retail business stack up on social and environmental

Entertainment-Retail

2005-10-28T15:35:00.000-04:00

This isn't strictly a retailing story, but I find it a fascinating commentary on business success in America today -- Headrush Inc. starts construction next week on a $15 million expansion of its paintball park and BMX track in Syracuse, New York. $15 million!The existing 31,000 square foot building gets upgraded paintball fields, an arcade, a full kitchen and a 12,500 square foot addition that

Dinostore discovered alive in Mississippi

2005-10-24T10:08:00.000-04:00

Reeds of Tupelo, Mississippi is one of the last "dinostores" -- downtown department stores left from another age of retailing. The Northeast Mississippi Journal has a good long article about the store and the family that owns it.Maybe the revitalization that's helped so many small downtowns across the nation will enable these retailers to survive and prosper. There certainly seems to be a niche

Retail Success Story - Apple

2005-10-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

Apple has announced it will open up to 40 new retail stores next year. Average quarterly revenue per store is $5.7 million. It has sold 202,000 Macs through its retail outlets.Most impressively, the company says that 45% of those buying Macs from its retail outlets are new to the platform. The stores are evangelical outposts, converting heathen Windows-users to the Way.The brand's "cult" status

Williams-Sonoma Roots

2005-10-07T16:00:00.000-04:00

The Seattle Times has an article about Chuck Williams and the kitchenware business he started: Williams-Sonoma. Mr. Williams was on a two-week vacation trip to Paris in 1953 that he got the idea for an upscale kitchenware store. Williams-Sonoma now has $2.8 billion in annual sales.Big chains from little pots grow.

Sexy advertising: Sports by Brooks

2005-09-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

Sports by Brooks is a small Los Angeles event promotions and weblog business. It has unblushingly made sexy women an integral part of its brand image. This promotional strategy is appropriate and relevant because the company targets young men and attempts to draw them into the bars it promotes. The SportsbyBrooks girls are so popular that the business has spread its services to New York and

Retail Store Blogging - to host or comment?

2005-09-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

A recent article from the USA Today highlighted some of the many retail stores that are setting up their own blogs. The companies included were BlueFly, eHobbies and GourmetStation. Setting up your own blog is a good idea if you have a steady flow of new products or the occasional clearance item to promote ... and you do, don't you? If not, then you have a lot more to concern yourself with than a

Christie Brinkley: the perfect Baby Boomer spokesmodel

2005-08-18T08:00:00.000-04:00

Christie Brinkley, at age 51, will again be the face of Cover Girl cosmetics. That's a stroke of genius for the brand -- Brinkley is the perfect pitch-person for cosmetics aimed at aging Baby Boomers. She's a healthy, beautiful mom who fits right in the middle of the Boomer demographic (she's 10 years older than the youngest Boomers).Ms. Brinkley had a long association with Cover Girl in her

Carnival of Capitalists

2005-08-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

The latest Carnival of Capitalists roundup of business and economics blog entries is at Weekend Pundit. There are 7 entries under the category of retailing and marketing. Be sure to read about the Andre Agassi Foundation and the good work it supports. Enjoy.

Why you read and write retail business blogs

2005-08-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

At Inc. magazine, Hillary Johnson has an article about "Why I read business blogs". This paragraph about a retailer's blog is great:It's done the same for a lot of small-business owners. A friend turned me on to a blog by a mother-daughter team who operate the Cracked Cauldron, a bakery in Oklahoma City. Aside from posting snapshots of yeast formulas as if they were baby pictures, the owners have

Wealth Creation and Destruction - don't throw it away

2005-08-08T18:00:00.000-04:00

Wealth is created every time value is added to a product or service. General Motors forms metal and plastic into cars, transforming cheap raw materials into expensive autos. Value is added and wealth is created. Everyone understands that.What doesn't occur to many people is that when we junk that car, value is subtracted and wealth is destroyed. A valuable vehicle becomes raw materials and

E-commerce turns 10

2005-07-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

Ten years ago the first e-commerce sites came online. The Washington Post takes a look at the current state of Internet retailing. Excluding travel, online sales in the United States grew 24 percent last year, to about $90 billion, accounting for nearly 5 percent of all retail sales, according to the National Retail Federation. Highly specialized companies like Batteries.com and BBQGuys.com offer

Sexy ads: Lingo

2005-07-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

This isn't a retail ad, but I couldn't resist commenting. What was Lingo thinking when it approved this Internet banner ad? (I chopped it in half to fit this page).The "Lingo sutra"? Position 69? Cartoon babes?Just what do sexy drawings and suggestive copy have to do with Internet telephony? Nothing. Click through to their website and you won't find any more positions or drawings. No

Retail success: Pearl Paradise

2005-07-18T08:00:00.000-04:00

Here's an excellent entrepreneurial success story from the Wall Street Journal: Jeremy Shepherd was a flight attendant for Northwest Airlines on a layover in Beijing. He bought a set of freshwater pearl jewelry at a local market -- earrings, a bracelet, and a necklace -- for $20 and later learned was worth $600 in the U.S. Jeremy was in business. Nine years later PearlParadise.com, offering a

Sexy Advertising: Paris Hilton and the 3 tests

2005-07-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

The sexy Paris Hilton ads haven't made Hardees burger sales jump. This, of course, doesn't surprise us. As we spelled out in our 3 tests for evaluating sexy ads, sexy ads do capture attention and generate word-of-mouth. But to be effective, the ads need relevance and should be part of a whole brand image.Is Paris Hilton and her "slutty heiress" act relevant to burgers? No. A thousand times no.

Lagniappes, bakers dozens and win a vacation

2005-06-28T21:45:00.000-04:00

Freebies have a long and distinguished history of attracting shoppers to retail stores. When I worked for Toys R Us, "R Treat" freebie boxes were one of the most popular and effective promotions for bringing customers into the store. Shoppers love to get something free with their purchase. Give a little bit to get a lot of business in return.The bakers dozen is an early example of the practice.

A renegade retools retail?

2005-06-20T07:01:00.000-04:00

Last month, Evan Cole opened H. D. Buttercup, a 100,000-square-foot retail experiment in Los Angeles. The store operates like one of those antiques "malls" that are scattered about the country. Home furnishings manufacturers place their merchandise in the store, and Buttercup keeps 30- to 50-percent of sales as commission. Buttercup provides the sales staff and collects the money.Cole is in

Print catalogs generate profits for niche retailers

2005-06-16T07:14:00.000-04:00

Print catalogs aren't dead. In fact they're growing impressively. Sales from print catalogs are expected to hit $152 billion this year, up from $143 billion in 2004. Multi-channel retailing is the state of the industry now."The Web site is a passive channel. The mail order catalog is an assertive channel. You decide you're going to call on someone," said Jim Padgitt, president of Direct Marketing

Brands come and go, and so can stores

2005-06-16T06:53:00.000-04:00

Retailers are beginning to realize that if brands and products can come and go, then so can stores. That's the concept behind temporary "pop-up" stores. We've mentioned them before, but Nigel Collett takes a fresh look at this retail phenomenon in The New Look in Retail Design - Popping Up in a Street Near You.The planned spontaneity of the stores gives a fresh feel and exclusivity to brands

Retail Success Story: Perfume Bay

2005-06-11T07:45:00.000-04:00

How's this for a retailing success story? An immigrant family starts by helping selling perfume and cosmetics at a local swap meet. They get their own flea market booth, then take out a lease on a store. Then 2 stores and a wholesale operation. Next came Internet retailing. The online store grossed more than $6 million in 2004.That's the growth path followed by the Tran family and Perfume Bay.

Juice worth the squeeze

2005-06-11T07:33:00.000-04:00

Rick Segel has a blog with real nuts-and-bolts tips on running a retail business. Rick is the author of Retail Business Kit for Dummies and is an excellent speaker.His latest blog entry is titled "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" The article is definitely "juice" worth the squeeze. Give it a look.

Retail Success: Costco in Canada

2005-06-09T06:28:00.000-04:00

The Globe and Mail has an article about how Costco breaks the rules of retailing ... and profits from it. It offers little customer service and few product choices; it piles products high on pallets and doesn't bother to mine the customer data it collects.Costco has warehouse-style stores, an unpredictable stock of often unique, upscale items, low prices and membership fees for

Retail Trends and the Boomer Convergence

2005-06-04T07:54:00.000-04:00

An interesting report on trends in retailing appeared recently in the Christian Science Monitor. In Anatomy of a Shopper, Clayton Collins wrote ... A push from two demographic dynamos - boomers buying younger (and with more attention to environmental sustainability), tweens and teens buying older and savvier - that will hold purveyors of goods and services to a new level of performance and

Retail Marketing: Big Opportunity

2005-05-31T20:02:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reports that plus-size apparel sales last year rose 13.2 percent, and teen plus-size rose 14.2 percent, compared with 5.6 percent for all women's clothes. Yet those shoppers feel belittled or ignored by retailers. Tell me you see an opportunity here. Of course you do.Why is this growing market not getting the attention it deserves? Probably because the people in management

Retail Success: American Girl to Open Third Store

2005-05-28T08:46:00.000-04:00

Mattel is going to open another American Girl Place store. The new store will be in the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles. The first two stores in Chicago and New York are runaway successes and standard-bearers for "experience retailing". American Girl caters to customers for whom cachet trumps price, selling them dolls, books and a bimonthly magazine. Sales ($379.1 million in 2004) come

Sexy Advertising: Asian Ads Swap Gender Roles

2005-05-27T08:05:00.000-04:00

The new face of cosmetics ads in Asia is soft, delicate -- and male. From the Wall Street Journal via the Pittsburg Post-Gazette:Lounging in a pink apartment in a television commercial for Able C&C Inc.'s South Korean makeup brand Missha, actor Won Bin leans in as if to kiss a woman sitting next to him -- but he does her bidding instead, taking her dusky-colored lipstick and carefully applying it

Retail Success Story: Alligator Purse

2005-05-26T07:49:00.000-04:00

The Alligator Purse in Hyde Park is a high-end women's wear boutique with five years of success. The three relatives who started the business with no previous retail experience did three smart things: they chose a high-end niche, found a good location, and were patient. They make quarterly buying trips to New York and Los Angeles to find exclusive goods and they limit the inventory to select

Retail Marketing: Playboy mates with brand store trend

2005-05-24T07:18:00.000-04:00

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. has opened its first freestanding Playboy Concept Boutique in the United States at The Forum Shops at Caesars in Las Vegas. The 2,000 square-foot store offers a collection of Playboy apparel, accessories and lingerie. The Las Vegas location also will offer one-of-a-kind Playboy memorabilia items, select artwork, and vintage product from Playboy's vast archives. The

Retail Marketing: Adidas Brand Stores

2005-05-21T06:47:00.000-04:00

Brand stores continue to succeed and grow. The world's largest Adidas Sport Performance Store has opened in New York City."Our adidas Sport Performance Stores are an important communication platform for us - here we can showcase the breadth and depth of our brand offering in a unique setting," said Erich Stamminger, President of adidas America. "adidas makes products for more sports than any

Retail Marketing: target the kids

2005-04-02T07:50:00.000-05:00

Lowes and Home Depot have taken a page from McDonalds' marketing handbook. They're successfully drawing parents into their stores by offering free monthly do-it-yourself workshops for children. The kids take home free workshop aprons with the store logo on them.Home Depot stores host kids workshops from 9 a.m. to noon on the first Saturday of the month. Spokeswoman Chris Gronkiewicz said

A most unusual retailer

2005-03-26T07:45:00.000-05:00

Garagiste sells wine. But not in the usual way. It began as a co-op about five years ago. Wines are sold one at a time by e-mail only, and the selection process for each wine depends entirely on Jon Rimmerman's taste.He qualifies his offerings by subjecting them to rigorous scrutiny. In order for Garagiste to sell it, he explains, a wine must fit two or three spokes of criteria: "It has to be

Sexy advertising: the Bowflex grandmother and the Baby Boomers

2005-03-25T20:24:00.000-05:00

Bowflex is a "home gym" brand owned by the famous fitness equipment company Nautilus. Bowflex equipment is heavily promoted through television advertising and sold direct via 800-number. Their most famous ad featured Donna McClure, a 50 year old grandmother. Ms. McClure wore a skimpy bikini and sported a body that many women half her age would kill for.As the huge Baby Boomer market ages, there

6 steps to get good PR

2005-03-25T07:35:00.000-05:00

Kim Gordon at Entrepreneur.com offers 6 steps to getting publicity for your business. This is sound how-to advice that any business can use. Check it out.

Lighting and music in retail stores

2005-03-24T07:28:00.000-05:00

The Marketing Eye blog has an interesting entry about the use of indirect lighting and classical music in retail stores. A good ambience is certainly essential to the image and performance of your marketing efforts.

Marvin Traub and Bloomingdales

2005-03-23T07:17:00.000-05:00

Marvin Traub made Bloomingdale's the "greatest retail show on Earth" during his more than 20 years as a top executive at the department store. He used celebrities and grand events to generate inexpensive publicity. Under Traub's watch, Bloomingdale's devoted more of its resources to public relations than any department store ever had at the time.Traub created the concept of dividing the selling

Brand stores: Cross

2005-03-22T07:03:00.000-05:00

Cross pens opened its first store in Harvard Square in Cambridge in April of 2004. A second store opened in a suburb of Boston in November.Cross stores have given the company an opportunity to display their products in an ideal way. Its consumers have a chance to interact with the brand in a bright, modern environment, and the merchandise is easy to explore, presented colorfully and neatly. Items

Latest Carnival of Capitalists

2005-03-21T07:19:00.000-05:00

This week's Carnival of Capitalists is online at Beyond the Brand blog. The Carnival is an always-interesting collection of links to the week's best business and economics blog entries. Give it a try, you'll like it.

How to turnaround a dot-com retail failure

2005-03-21T06:50:00.000-05:00

Seth Greenberg saved eHobbies.com by getting down to retail basics. He decreased the payroll from 250 to 3, and moved from swank offices to the warehouse. The online retailer was profitable with 2 years and is now back up to 20 employees and 75,000 products.Hobby shops traditionally are hard to make profitable because the of the sparse population of hobbyists in any one location. On the other

Retail marketing: prepare to make money from mature consumers

2005-03-20T07:35:00.000-05:00

Advertisers in Europe have turned their attention to aging Baby Boomers, at least in a small way. The statistics are hard to ignore: In Britain, the 50-plus age group is the only growing demographic segment. Over the next 20 years, the number of Britons older than 75 will leap by 43 percent. In Europe as a whole, the proportion of the population over 65 will grow from 12 percent today to 28.5

Cause marketing: eco-wear

2005-03-20T07:25:00.000-05:00

The New York Times reports on FutureFashion, a fashion show sponsored by Earth Pledge, a nonprofit group that promotes environmental programs. It challenged designers to create fashion using only fabrics that were renewable, reusable or generated less pollution than conventional material.Organic food and beauty products have become a $15 billion industry. Organic fiber clothes are much smaller (

Sexy ads: 3 tests and the Reef girls

2005-03-17T19:57:00.000-05:00

Sex sells. Sexy ads are attention grabbing ... a well executed sexy ad stands out from the media crowd. Sexy ads also generate great word-of-mouth. People will spread the word about titillating ads, and nothing is more powerful in marketing than free buzz.What makes a good sexy ad?In the classic Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy wrote:The first advertisement I ever produced showed a naked woman

Retail marketing: publicity

2005-03-15T07:06:00.000-05:00

Local recognition is grand. It's the stuff of which all successful small businesses are made. But when a mom-and-pop shop receives a positive nod in a national publication, get ready for the phone to ring off the hook.That's what's happened at Legacy Chocolates since owner and chocolatier Mike Roberts' handmade truffles were prominently featured in the March 7 edition of Newsweek.And it's not

Retail marketing: sexy sells

2005-03-14T07:17:00.000-05:00

A model put on a prom dress wrong and created a sensation. The dress became more revealing and was soon a runaway success. Just goes to show that sexy sells ... especially to teens.

Retail success: Michael's Fine Clothes

2005-03-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt was president, Albert Einstein introduced his Special Theory of Relativity, Greta Garbo was born in Stockholm, and a young Russian immigrant named Michael Novorr opened a business in downtown Kansas City, selling everything from diamond engagement rings to shotguns to a few men's suits.Michael's survived on regular downtown foot traffic for years, but when most stores

Spin-up retail stores

2005-03-09T19:06:00.000-05:00

Inc magazine has an interesting article about "instant markets" and "spin-up" businesses. New products and services are introduced so often that as soon as you begin your company you need to starting thinking about reinventing it. The shifting landscape of "instant markets" requires speed and agility. This is particularly true in retailing, where you must constantly update your inventory to sell

University of 7-Eleven

2005-03-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

7-Eleven stores holds a "University of 7-Eleven" conference to teach franchise holders the newest techniques for changing the convenience store image. The company is trying to become known for fresh food -- hot dogs and sandwiches that haven't been sitting around for ages. Fresh pastries three times a day.And they're trying a little healthier and better tasting food too.The company has 28,000

The William H. Whyte of retail

2005-03-07T07:28:00.000-05:00

An interview with Paco Underhill from Metropolis magazine.In your book, you're critical of retail designers. Why? First of all, I don't mean to point my finger at just retail design. It's the entire design profession. If we look at the history of design education, very little of it is about people, sociology, or psychology. It's all about drawing, structure, and form. And I think that's a flaw in

Affordable fashion spells retail business success

2005-03-06T07:34:00.000-05:00

The next collection from haute couture designer Karl Lagerfeld is not going to appear in exclusive boutiques, but at the Stockholm-based mass-market retailer H&M. Has Lagerfeld abandoned his traditional high-end clientele in favor of the great unwashed, who will be able to wear his tops, dresses and turtleneck sweaters this fall?Not at all, says the revered 65-year-old designer with a penchant

Grocery store chains prosper in niches

2005-03-05T07:35:00.000-05:00

The Publix supermarket chain recently celebrated its 75th birthday. The company credits its success to a distinct style with delis, bakeries and popular store brands."Wal-Mart's on one end with low prices, Publix with its great quality and customer service is on the other end," said Neil Stern, senior partner of McMillan and Doolittle, a Chicago-based retail consulting firm. "Being in the middle

Proffitt's - faces change, ideals remain

2005-03-04T07:35:00.000-05:00

A heart-warming history of Proffitt's. The Golden Rule helped this chain grow, and now it's part of the Saks conglomerate."He was an incredible promoter,'' Piper said of the store founder. Piper recalls hearing stories about how D.W. would climb to the second story roof at the downtown Maryville Proffitt's at Thanksgiving and throw live turkeys to the crowds waiting below. There are pictures of

Handmade tea bags to uniforms

2005-03-03T08:05:00.000-05:00

Another small retailer success story from the New York Times -- Fortune Restaurant Uniform and Supplies.Maggie Lin W. Leung, a native of Hong Kong, is a slim, dark-haired woman of 48. She got into the business by canny calculation. While selling handmade tea bags in her father-in-law's kitchenware shop in Chinatown she noticed how many restaurant owners were asking if the shop sold chef's aprons

Tiny store has retail market niche

2005-03-02T07:47:00.000-05:00

Science Toy Magic has won the New Mexico Small Business Development Center's Star Client award. The tiny retailer in Santa Fe demonstrates each toy to customers. Every toy in the store illustrates the principles of science. Science Toy Magic was honored because it more than quadrupled revenues with the assistance of the SBDC. The store is only 58 square feet (!), but it acquired 5 new toys at

Retail store success: Painter's Supply

2005-03-01T08:02:00.000-05:00

Paul Olson III opened his fourth Painter's Supply store in 2002 in Bridgeport despite critics who told him he would fail. Two years later, Olson's going through a $200,000 renovation because business is great. The investment in the 43,000-square-foot building will help him serve customers. The stores mainly serve professional painters and have expensive color-matching and mixing machines. He

Dinosaurs Mating

2005-02-28T20:09:00.000-05:00

It's common in declining industries for large companies to merge with one another. The CEOs cannot think of truly productive or creative uses for their still-considerable financial capabilities, so they "grow" by gobbling up the competition.Of course, this isn't real growth at all. If company A's shareholders wanted to own shares of company B, they could easily do so by calling a broker. Merging

Carnival of Capitalists

2005-02-28T06:28:00.000-05:00

The new carnival of capitalists is online at Coyote blog. The "carnival" is a weekly round-up of good business and economics commentary on blogs. Check it out.

Wal-Mart, toys and Seth Godin

2005-02-28T06:01:00.000-05:00

Seth Godin comments on Wal-Mart's impact on the toy business at his blog (he references this article from the New York Times). We've commented here on this issue many times when we featured Out of the Blue, Archie McPhee, Kuma Toy Bears and Playthings ... independent toy retailers succeeding despite Wal-Mart and Target. The point is that there are retailers providing a market outside of the big

Catalog retailers survive, thrive

2005-02-24T07:10:00.000-05:00

Contrary to predictions, catalog retailing has survived and thrived in the face of expansion of online retailing. Retailers are seeing growth through both channels.I expect that the web sales will continue to grow and eventually dominate. It has so many advantages for both the shopper and the seller.

Call of the Mall - 1

2005-02-23T08:02:00.000-05:00

Call of the Mall is the latest book from retail store design expert Paco Underhill. Like his earlier Why We Buy, the book is witty and entertaining while providing well-researched tips on successful store design. The new book focuses on the design of malls, but most of the content is directly applicable to individual stores too.I'm going to provide a series of my favorite tips from Call of the

Retail store success: Blackberry Hollow

2005-02-22T07:22:00.000-05:00

Nearly four years ago, a roadside shop in rural Virginia called Blackberry Hollow opened to sell barn-wood furniture, primitive housewares, candles, lamps, soaps, florals and framed prints. The red brick building with white trim and a big front porch sits next to U.S. 460 in Blue Ridge, only seven miles east of downtown Roanoke. Inside, the air is scented with potpourri, and bluegrass music plays

Marketing with props

2005-02-21T07:25:00.000-05:00

The Marketing eYe blog has an interesting entry about marketing with props. The examples of stores using props to lure shoppers are fun and instructive. This is an ultra-low-cost marketing technique with the potential for both instant returns and long-term effectiveness. What props could you create to bring passers-by into your store?

The power of women shoppers

2005-02-20T07:40:00.000-05:00

Business Week on the power of women shoppers in the marketplace:Who's the apple of marketers' eye? It's not free-spending teens or men 25-50. It's women, thanks to their one-two punch of purchasing power and decision-making authority. Working women ages of 24-54 -- of whom the U.S. has some 55 million -- have emerged as a potent force in the marketplace, changing the way companies design,