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Retailers: How To Beat A Lower Priced Competitor, Your Vendor

competing with vendorMany retailers face a common problem: what do you do when you are directly competing with one of your vendors?

For example, a store selling Sony products has to compete directly with Sony online, which has inherent cost and supply advantages over brick and mortar retail businesses.

Not only is it easier than ever for customers to buy products directly from manufacturers online, but they are opening their own stores and using third-parties to get around the very retailers who built their business.

But I get it, stockholders are looking for additional value and the easy way is to cut out the middleman; just like the customers.

The problem is, the customer I believe still needs a middleman.

As an independent retailer, how do you turn a profit on products like this when your margins are thin to begin with? Continue reading Retailers: How To Beat A Lower Priced Competitor, Your Vendor »

Ten Best Retail Sales Blog Posts of 2012

retail sales training blogsAs regular readers of this retail blog know, I write a lot about how to improve retail from management, to marketing, from managing cash flow to customer service. And of course, the one major brands come to me for the most: retail sales training.

Here are some of the most popular retail sales blogs on my site for 2012. See how many you haven’t read yet and share with your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn friends:

#10 - The Message of Sheep and Goats. You have to teach retail salespeople how to not polarize your customers, associates and each other into the sheep and the goats.

#9 -Why and How To Do A Physical Inventory On A Shoestring Budget. Without scanners or the budget for hiring outside help, physical inventories can seem daunting so many ignore doing one. You can do a physical inventory on a shoestring budget and here’s how.

Continue reading Ten Best Retail Sales Blog Posts of 2012 »

Independent Retailers: Don’t Make These 5 Email Mistakes Like I Did

retailer email marketing mistakesI have a confession to make…

I don’t know it all.

I know, I know, for a Driver personality like me, that’s a big admission.

Even though I’ve taken courses, participated in numerous webinars and read countless articles – when it comes to email marketing, as Roseanne Roseannadanna famously said, “It’s always something…”

So I thought, since email is still the #1 way to contact your customers, that I would share with you five of nine somethings I’ve learned about sending emails. If you like these five, you can download all nine at the end of this post. Continue reading Independent Retailers: Don’t Make These 5 Email Mistakes Like I Did »

7 Incredibly Easy Ways To Attract New Customers

Any retail consultant knows that more traffic to your brick and mortar retail store means more sales.

But when people ask me as a retail expert how they can attract more customers, they often forget about their website. And that is a big miss.

This simple fact has left a lot of smaller boutique retailers left in the dark when they should be thinking about how to attract more eyeballs to their websites. And by the way, I’m not talking an online store, I’m talking your website – your digital calling card.

If you don’t have a website by now, what on earth are you waiting for? I doubt this Internet thing is going away…

The most effective strategies to attract new customers to your site revolve around boosting your website’s placement in search engine rankings. Continue reading 7 Incredibly Easy Ways To Attract New Customers »

What JC Penney Management Forgot About In Their Turnaround Plans

JC Penney threw out the very customers who made them successful to court people who have no history with the brand.  And that’s a big miss.

Read part one of this two-part blog here

It’s as if the shoppers who built their business were lost causes.

And here’s what one of their customers had to say about that on the JC Penney Facebook page, “Always thought of JCP as a middle of the road salon, but I guess they are trying to become a discount shop! Best of luck with your endeavor! You’ll be losing us middle aged people right and left now! (And we’re who’s paying your salaries….not free kids!)”

Boomer customers and their parents are the ones who still have jobs, have discretionary income to some extent and still have an affinity toward the stores that outfitted their families early on. Continue reading What JC Penney Management Forgot About In Their Turnaround Plans »

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