Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor® blog at Retaildoc.com

Stop asking, “Where are the customers?” and realize we’re right there. Sometimes even giving you a second shot. The sale is yours to lose.

Retailers, monitor your open rates of your email blasts. If they are below 30% it probably is due to your messaging. Make your message all about the customer using “you” and “your” and eleminate “we” and “I.” Come up with five things your customers could use quick advice on. Start a contest that uses your products. Be creative.

There’s a new book out by Barbara Ehrenreich, ” Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.” It’s hard to get past the first chapter for me with her rant against people telling her to be positive after a breast cancer diagnosis. It seemed she wanted to to say that positive expectations are bad.
“So, what’s the alternative to a positive outlook?” She doesn’t seem to answer that question.

Retailers, that’s what you need to remember this holiday, it isn’t the cheap, it’s the love they will be showing. Yes its materialistic, that is what retail is.

It isn’t that Penney’s is the cheapest or off-price; they are truly there to serve. Treat yourself sometime and put them to the test. If nothing else, you’ll get a lesson in what makes one customer choose a store over another and it isn’t due to selection, location or the fact they sponsor a parade, its about the people who serve them.

Reasons not to open a retail store or your own business:

I need to get out of the house.
I have some money I need to do something with.
I’m bored with my present job.
I want to be my own boss.
I want to do something with my husband/partner/wife.
I want to get the manufactuer discount and never pay retail again.

I’m looking for your thoughts on what, besides price, you look for when shopping at a toy store? Is layout important? Is cleanliness? Places the kids can try them out? Any places you would avoid? How about your experiences with Toys R Us, FAO Schwartz or others? Do they earn your business? Do you look for a specialty toy store in particular? Why or why not?

What if employees got bonus scrip for filling in at short notice, or meeting an above average number of items per sale, or having the highest average sales for a week? They could use their script to not have to clean the bathroom for say 25,000 or they could buy a longer lunch, or be able to go home early and not clean up. There are thousand things you could come up with that would be rewarding great performances.

The trouble with so many retailers is they don’t price according to what the market will bear but what they fear they can’t go over. They don’t figure in their time or talent.

We all have needs and desires to feel worthy, important, and valued. The Five Parts to a Successful Sale process gives you the chance to do this for others and for ourselves. It begins by connecting to the person in front of us as a person, valued and worthy of our respect and in turn, rewards us with the same.