Contributors
About the Author
John Stanley
John Stanley is a conference speaker and consultant. He works in 35 countries and is one of the world’s sought-after retail and small business presenters. Follow John on Facebook and Twitter, or contact him at john@johnstanley.com.au.
Are Shoppers Seeking Slower Engagement?
Engagement and experience are two key words in today’s retail scene. That is, until we are ready to pay. Then we need a quick and efficient process. For some, the ideal world would be to simply walk out of the store and not have to cope with the checkout line. Self-service tills have gone some way to help alleviate wait times, but the ultimate ex [...]
Behold the Supermarket of the Future
The 2015 World Expo opened in Milan in early May with a focus on food and the global advancement of food technology. Its theme: "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.” One of the six-month event’s features is a supermarket of the future as imagined by Coop, an Italian retailer that operates 1,190 stores across the country. Fully operational, the [...]
Your Store Product Mix: What’s New About It?
Over the past few years, consumers have been afraid to spend their cash. When they have opened their wallets, they’ve consciously avoided the status buyer moniker. As a result, retailing has been more challenging. But a shift in consumer pattern might be underway. Many of the trend reports for 2014 are highlighting a change in consumer attitude a [...]
January: Still an Afterthought?
As I write this article, I am seeing retailers getting ready for Christmas, one of the main selling months of the year. But, once Christmas is over, then what? In the northern hemisphere, retailers often hunker down, as there is a chance that bad weather might keep consumers at home. In the southern hemisphere, it’s a vacation month and going sho [...]
The Customer Is Your Marketing Department
Remember the days when larger retailers had marketing departments, and those departments developed the marketing strategies for the businesses? Companies tried to decide their own destiny. Not so anymore.
Today, the rules have changed and the consumer, rather than by the retailer, is increasingly controlling marketing. The introduction of the sm [...]
Safety First
“Volvo.” If I mention that word, what ideas and words come into your mind? You probably thought Swedish, car, luxury, comfort and I bet most of you also thought of safety. If I said “Qantas,” you would probably think Australian, jumbo jets, red kangaroos and, again, safety. Are Volvo cars more safe than others, and is Qantas a safer air tra [...]
Wrapping Up Christmas and Ringing In the New Year
Retailing for Christmas 2011 is now behind us and many forecasted it would be one of the more difficult trading periods we have had for a number of years. In the lead up to Christmas, I traveled through Europe and the Americas and found that businesses were coming up with novel ways of creating ideas and experiences for their customers.
These ar [...]
Building Sales Is about Building Relationships
Over the past few months, I have been working with clients in eleven countries. All of them have had economic difficulties. Some retailers are looking at the state of the economy and complaining about lost sales, while others are looking at the same economy and seeing business opportunities. However, beyond attitude, there are other important eleme [...]
Price Yourself Back into the Market
Take a walk through the local shopping centre and the challenge is to find a retailer who is not having a sale. Sales and discounts in the past were a special event in retailing, but since the global financial crisis they have become the main way of retailing for many businesses.
Research carried out by Harvard Business School found that 70 perc [...]
Click Into Action
The author of a government-sponsored report that was recently published in Australia predicted that small retail businesses would cease to exist in five years. No more independent bookshops, news agents, garden centers or travel agents. I can accept that we are seeing dramatic changes, but the disappearance of entire sectors of retailing takes some [...]
Turn the Christmas Tree Upside Down
Your consumers feel they’ve had a rough year. They’re probably looking forward to a stress-free Christmas and to enjoying their shopping experience.
According to American researcher Emek Basker, each consumer spends on average an extra $6.50 a day in the crucial 32 days before Christmas. Your role is to get as much of that spend as possible. [...]
Gifts with Purchase: Bribery or Added Value?
Retailing has gone through a lot of changes in 2009. But if you had to select one trend as the newsmaker of the year, gifts with purchase would surely make the shortlist. The promotional tactic’s sheer popularity would lead one to believe that it has been the productivity salvation for the struggling sector. Yet to the industry observer, the ques [...]
Perkonomics: a Way to Build Your Customer Service
One of the trends in retailing in 2009 is what the Americans call perkonomics. This is where you attract customers during a difficult trading period by offering them a perk, like Ben and Jerry does. The American ice cream retailer has its Free Cone Day. It‘s offered one day a month, but the day is never announced to consumers. You have to go to t [...]
The 5% Club
Price has become a major marketing tool over the past few months, but new ways of generating sales have to be developed for retailers to prosper in a new economic environment.
Sports Power, the Australian sports apparel retailer, developed a promotion that encouraged consumers to purchase a pair of sports shoes and then purchase a pair of socks. [...]
Strategic Merchandising in a Recession
When customers are in a spending mood, they will buy almost anything. However, when a recession occurs, their wallet or purse stays closed for a lot longer.
Tom O’Toole, a baker and conference speaker from Beechworth, Australia, has a wonderful quote: “Retailing is simple; not easy, but simple.”
In good times, we forget about the simple [...]
Can Joe The Plumber and Subway’s Jared Help Grow Your Business?
I recently spoke at a landscape conference in the USA. In front of me was a group of landscape contractors who were facing the toughest time in their business lives. They were trying to sell expensive landscape design and management to a market that had seen house prices tumble and unemployment increase in an economy that was in its worst state in [...]