sábado, 30 de marzo de 2013

OUR WEEKLY RETAIL VOCABULARY LESSON.




OUR WEEKLY VOCABULARY COURSE.
Week 12








Data-Based Retailing: A form of retailing, by gathering, storing and using information about customers and using this information to sell.

Floor-Ready Merchandise: Goods wich are delivered straight into the store and placed into the shelfs, without any further preparation.  Mainly, used by discounter stores like Lidl, Aldi, Dia,...

A Horizontal Cooperative-Advertising Agreement: When various retailers, mostly located close to each other and complementary in their product range, share the costs of an advertising ad.

A Marquee: A store sign, mainly used to communicate or display the stores name or logo.

Mystery Shoppers: A form, used by retailers, to control, how their stores and services are working.  Mystery shoppers, mainly are hired persons, which visit stores as clients, analyzing and reporting their results to the store management.  A ideal form and important tool, to see, how employees, behave towards the clients and a perfect tool, to change and ameliorate the service towards the clients.  

viernes, 29 de marzo de 2013

TOUS, OR HOW A LITTLE BEAR BECOMES A LEADER IN INTERNATIONAL JEWELLERY RETAILING.



Talking about Tous, is talking about the famous little bear, worldwide image of this Spanish jewellery family company, based close to Barcelona, Spain.  It was founded in 1920 and today sells its products around almost 400 stores around the globe, having a turnover of a roughly 320 milions euros. 
Tous is not just a some jewellery,.. it is image, concept, a cult lifestyle, offering a wide range of fashion accessories like bags, jewellery, leather goods and perfumes.


Its always returning cute little sympatic bear image returns in almost all its products and is the perfect marketing image a company can dream of. It is the redline through out the story of Tous. The perfect icon, a company needs. The apple of the famous Apple company.  What should Rosa Oriol, during her visit to Milan, have seen in an innocent little toy in a window shop in Milan.



In the last years, the company has been increasing and changing its familiar way of working into a more profesional company, with an open structure and management mentality, still respecting its typical Tous family image. 
Exporting more than 60% of its turn-over, it is the world image of famous people like Kylie Minogue and Jennifer Lopez.

Today, Salvador Tous, de presidente and owner of the company, together with her wife Rosa and their 4 daughters, have shown a tremendous energy and creativity, to manage this amazing very sucessfull concept.
Market leader and cult icon in Spain, Tous is focussing its strategy to conquer the rest of the world.  Their is no doubt, that they will succeed.







Have a look inside the Tous family company...





Or have a look to some of their collections....just click on the Tous Collection.







miércoles, 27 de marzo de 2013

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST ANNOYANCES FOR THE CONSUMER WHILE SHOPPING IN YOUR STORE.





THE TOP ANNOYANCES...
GOOD TO KNOW....










According to various researches, it has been showing that the biggest annoyance for consumers, visiting your store, is the rude inappropriate behavior of the staff.  Four out of ten clients attach a lot of importance to the right greeting, when entering in the shop.

Some of the most irritating attitudes are:

*Staying at their sales desk, without greeting nor looking to the client. (eye contact)
*Using the mobile phone, during the visit of a client.
*Lack of sales staff, overstressed existing sales crew, creating long waiting lines, when paying at the  checkout.
*Promising something, but not completing, what have been agreed with client.

Behind above, there also exist a number of annoyances on the product, price and presentation in the store.
Clients hate disorganized and or dirty stores, wrong marked prices or sizes, too small changing rooms
or bad quality products.

The direct contact between the client and the store personnel, is considered as a vital part in the shopping process for the customer and should be considered as a key point, when hiring you shop staff.
By creating a kind of ideal store behavior, to be followed, you can base your hiring criteria on above.
This store behavior should be reminded continuously on all store level, in order to maintain the ideal quality level.  Important to realize, that an irritating sales staff experience, can push the customer to never come back to your store.

Although mayor annoyances depend a lot of your internal system, sometimes, the attitudes of clients, can also provoke the irritation.  Not respecting the waiting line or slowly swarming clients are also considered as top annoyances.  
As you can see,...not everything can be controlled..






martes, 19 de marzo de 2013

RETAIL IS JUST DETAIL, SIMPLE IDEAS TO SELL MORE.




SIMPLE IDEAS TO SELL MORE INTO YOUR STORE.
Week 12







Internal system, idea 6
It is important that your store transmit change and excitement.  So, it is necessary, to bring continuous new products and change time to time your decoration.  These changes, require a good organized planning, as they mainly happen, when your store is open to the public and bring most of the time a negative impact, with lower sales results,  due to the following situations:

*Your salespeople are not focused on the clients, as they are busy preparing the store.
*Your store presents a disorganized look, your clients don't find the products,..

In order to avoid above, try to plan in advance the changes, like staff and product reception and preparation.  Try to follow a logical line and order.  Use the less busy hours in the store, to make the major changes. 

Employees, idea 5
Always take note and consider the social and family life of your employees.  Always consider, that maintaining and offering, a good balance between social and professional life is a key to have motivated employees. So, be understandable and flexible with your employees.
The use of terror management in your company, will only harm your business.  

Clients, idea 7
It is very important to know your clients.  By setting up a membership or club, your clients will give you a permanent flow of information and will allow you to learn everything about them.  You will be able to learn their needs and adapt your way of working.
Sometimes,listening to the opinion of your clients, can avoid you, to make big spending errors.






lunes, 18 de marzo de 2013

HOW AND WHAT TO CONSIDER, WHEN SETTING UP THE RIGHT WEBSITE.


In line with our previous post about '10 reasons, why you should have a website', we like to give your some key points what to consider, when you start setting up you web.  Starting up a website, is more than a just a good idea or a good looking website.  You will get confronted with a the technical part of it and a lot of questions.  How to set up the right web, where and how to start, what kind of design, payment process, etc....

We can detect 4 problem areas, when entrepreneurs start to set up their website:

*Those who have no website and do not have the knowhow where or how to start up.
*Those who let make a website by an external company, but do not know, how to handle or manage to work with it and depend completely on above external company for whatever use.
*Those who have a website, but not a good one.  (few visitors or marketing functionality, lack of clear marketing strategy)
*Those who have a website, but not profitable. There few websites, who makes money.  (you can have a lot of visitors, but few sales results)

As entrepreneur, try to focus on the things you do well.  Making a website, is business of specialists in E-commerce.   So, make use of their knowledge.  Do not waste your time, trying to create one your self.  However, be aware, not to be depend completely on your website builder, as each time you will have the need to change something , it will become a very expensive situation, using above service for whatever change needed.

As retailer, you are used, to do in your daily business, almost everything.  Your managing, programming, designing, selling and taking care of the distribution and client service.  A good and easy to use website, will allow you to dedicate your time mainly on managing.  An automatic well organized website will manage all above process, allowing you the change, adapt or even ameliorate continuously.



A good sales page with continuos offers will take away, part of the role of a salesperson and a including blog will allow you to be updated with vital client information and being continuously in touch with your clients.

Maybe you have it in mind or maybe you have started already your website,...but do not underestimate the POWER of a good website.  A lot of retailers, see the website as something to have, just next to their store (because it is the talk of the town,....), but not as an very important tool to captivate future clients.  So, make use of it.

When starting with your website, you can select various ways of website solutions. 

*You can make your own website or let it make by a professional.
*You can use special auction web sites like E-bay,..
*You can use a pre-instaleted standard website, which you can personalize the way you like. (Ex. Strato)
*You can use open source websites software packages. It is a kind of standard software, available for everybody, but adaptable to your specific needs. (Ex. osCommerce)

Example to visit...strato.com

It is clear that, depending the size and importance of your company, you will have to select one of above ways.  By experience and in order to start, we like to recommend you to use a pre-installed standard website, as they relatively cheap (you pay a monthly fee), very well organized and developed and easy to use.  
They will allow you to set up easily and very fast a very attractive website.  On a later base and if your website starts to be profitable, you can always upgrade to another solution.

In order to have a good website, it is important to know the basics and essentials, about a website.  So, start reading.  Visit and learn about existing websites.  Define your strategy, product groups, suppliers, way of logistics and payment systems.  Once, you have set up your website, make use of the existing tools, like google, blogs, Facebook,... to create continuous interest in your web, changing and or adapting your website on a regular base.

SO DO NOT FORGET, MANAGING A WEBSITE IS A DAILY BUSINESS.










sábado, 16 de marzo de 2013

RETAIL CITY OF THE MONTH, BORDEAUX, A WORLD HERITAGE SITE.

                                                                                                                                                            



BORDEAUX, HISTORICAL RETAIL CAPITAL OF THE SOUTHWEST OF FRANCE.





www.bordeaux-tourisme.com




COMING UP....

lunes, 11 de marzo de 2013

WEEKLY RETAIL PRESS RELEASE, IKEA GOES HOTEL.



IKEA GOES INTO THE HOTEL BUSINESS.

THE MOXY HOTELS.








What has been a rumor, has been confirmed.  Retail giant IKEA, starts its hotel adventure.  



A joint venture between IKEA (via its Inter Hospitality company) and hotel chain group Marriott, are planning to open around 150 budget 3star Moxy hotels around Europe (with UK, Germany and Scandinavia as key markets), focusing on the increasing young travelers market.  Each hotel will have around 150 to 300 rooms, build up in a low budget assembly and construction way and presenting a modern design look, but low budget price concept.


The first hotel will open its doors in Milan around 2014, while all mayor European capitals will follow...

moxyhotels.com








Have a look inside....



Good to know,...the hotels will not have the IKEA logo nor be decorated with the typical IKEA furniture.













jueves, 7 de marzo de 2013

SENIOR CONSUMER RETAILING, A MARKET FULL OF OPPORTUNITIES.



THE SENIOR MARKET IS BOOMING,...DONT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY....











For those retailers, looking for new opportunities, markets or concepts,....we like to talk you about one of the fastest increasing markets,...the senior consumer group.  It has been proven (according to a study of the European Community, that each year, the senior market is increasing by 2 million people, achieving around 2060, a 30% of the total EU community).  
We are in front of a huge potential group of consumers, with interesting big spending possibilities and time availability to buy or consume.
While most of retailers, try to focus their strategy on the young, fashionable, trendy and very technology oriented consumer, buying fast rotating cheap fashion items, there are tremendous opportunities to capture this older group, looking for quality, long life and mostly more expensive items.



As mentioned in previous posts, today, to be successful, you have to stand out, of the crowd, being different.  Here you have the possibility....why not tackle the senior market and specialize your store into above segment...
However, as in all consumer segments, we need to see the reality.  Today, the senior market is not any more, what we sometimes have in mind and its habits, needs and ways of thinking are changing very rapidly, adapting to the todays reality.  A clear analysis is needed before starting.
We face a tough, well informed and prepared, very savy consumer, who has seen it all and know it all, putting them self continuously in doubts,..if they really need this know? 
As in all groups, there does not exist an homogenous group of senior consumers, but various age groups, from 55 to 95 years, divided by its cultural values, eduction, employment and social class situation.




Imagine you run a gym,..so why not organize special gym exercise classes for the above consumer group...

To be successful, you will you haven to adapt your store, products and or services to their needs and desires. Lets analyze them...

*Be patient, as above clients do prefer a personal service.  So well trained staff and eventual some senior sales person, working in your store. (will create more empathy between consumer and staff)

*A clean and well organize shop and or product presentation.

*Easy access to the products in the store and clear, clean and easy to read price tags and product information.

*Older customers like to be greeted, when entering in your store,....try to feel them easy going and important.

*Older consumers DO know how to manage internet or the latest technology, (it has been proved that it is the fasted growing internet user group)...so be aware of it, when trying to contact them.

*There is general change and perception of viewing senior consumers as active important market,..so you marketing message should be optimistic, energetic and transmitting or creating active life expectations to themselves.

*Adjust your interior decoration and lighting. (ex. a to strong lighting can give wrong color perceptions)

*Well presented and clear product groups, presented on an easy to catch level.





As you can see, a lot of work to do,...

In order to transmit your message, make use of the existing local social senior clubs, associations and eventual state or government social, medical, funding and prevention programs,...creating your client base. 
Have a look to enclosed presentation....with Dick Stroud, to learn a little more about a quiet complex market and what to know or consider before, when starting, to tackle above market.




For those, who have seen new opportunities, we like to recommend you, to read a very interesting book, called 'MARKETING TO THE AGEING CONSUMERS' from Dick Stroud and Kim Walker.
Have a look to this  book and just ordered it.  

You will learn a lot, how to make from this already existing fast increasing senior retail market a very successful business.
Have a look to this interesting explaining video.


So,..just tap into this Boomer Market......don't loose your time.


                                                
     The fasted growing internet user group...