On a family holiday to the US a few years ago, we were walking the streets of Washington. (An interesting holiday destination, really.)  My eldest daughter was about 10 at the time, and she suddenly realised something about the traffic and she s...

1: What is The Next Big Thing? The Internet has delivered many, many next big things over the last 20 years. (I date back to when AltaVista was the search engine of choice - and they are still around!) Right now THE CURRENT BIG THING is soc...

I belatedly caught the Jack Nicholson movie (The Bucket List) on pay-TV. Sad case that I am, I saw lessons for retail in that.The general idea being that everyone should have a list of things to do/see before the ‘kick the bucket’.So, if ...

Westfield recently started a Facebook campaign. (Or did they?)To summarise the online chatter about the campaign here are a few typical snippets of conversation:· Tweet 1: 12,349 Westfield mentions in statuses. 67,423 Westfield mentions in comme...

The best strategy question (IMHO) is one that forces you to think about severe business disruption. For example:If my core product was made free tomorrow, what would I be doing today?Do you really have the answer to this question? If not, I suggest ...

Recent developments triggered by Subway’s growth which have been attributed to a new $5 sub price point in the US. My understanding is that a franchisee simply said ‘to hell with it’ and made all subs $5. Not $4.95, but $5.00.Double...

Almost without fail, in every sales training session we do, someone (usually more than one) will say something to the effect that they ‘hate being pushy’ or hate selling stuff to people but they don’t mind helping them or offering a...

On a mid-week evening somewhere in suburban a mystery shopper enters the restaurant. It is early, just after 6pm, and she is a little self -conscious being the only one in the room.  The owner seats her in a great spot, offers the menu - the...

Here is a tip that you can use that will save you a lot of money. * Go to twitter.com – register for free (Stop - don't run away, trust me on this one ) * Go to hootsuite.com – register for free (Hootsuite is a software applic...

Do you believe that:  1. Suppliers must be screwed for the last cent on every deal?  2. The competition must be beaten?  3. The Government is out to rip you off? Readers of this blog will know that I was presenting at a conf...

Much is being written about shopper marketing, and it is time to apply the RetailSmart scalpel to a few myths. Shopper marketing is not much more than good old trade marketing, albeit now with a fair mix of consumer behaviour thrown in. It won&#...

The opening statement (of a conference presentation I am preparing) is this: The purpose of merchandising is to make more money.Many may disagree. What about branding? What about communicating merchandise benefits? What about customer convenience?My ...

Continuing the theme of focusing on the retail basics that will deliver incremental returns at no/low cost, I thought I might talk about space allocation. (The series - 12 posts in all - on visual merchandising continues here.)The accompanying graphi...

There are two main things you can do to boost sales which are free or nearly free.   One is great customer service, and the other is through the greatest silent salesmen of all - visual merchandising. For instance, moving a product from the bott...