Evidence #1 US Retailer Best Buy identified the following 6 trends and consequently have developed a cogent retail strategy that embraces mobile in a big way. Ø increased smart phone sales and usage Ø dramatic increase in mobile Web usag...

1. What number to use? When it comes to running a retail store, some numbers are better than others. GM% = Good GMROI = Better DPP = Best Believe or not, but many retailers still focus on (either) Sales (daily takings) or net profit. For those retai...

I found an interesting (PowerPoint) presentation about the retail strategy of US retailer Family Dollar. In it they note a few things about consumer behaviour in the current climate. You can download the presentation at retailsmartresults.)Based on t...

What is the hardest thing for people to do? What is the hardest thing for you to do?Have you ever watched IDOL – the TV talent quest (or any show like that) wondered ‘why has no-one ever told them that they couldn’t sing’? But...

Let us nail down the incontestable truths first; or at least those facts about customer service that I hold as true: Customer service is easy to understand.Customer service is hard to implement.Customer service is hardest to copy.Customer service is ...

Consider this:1,000 StoresX50,000 SKUsX26 WeeksX4 Measures (Sales, Inventory, Receipts, On Order)  XPlan, Actual, Last YearX4 Seasons= 1 trillion numbers That is a hopefully somewhat scary. (Retail is detail, is it not?)What I am hoping to hi...

Did you know that a large chain store could easily have a trillion numbers to look at to help its decision-making? (More about that in next week’s post.) Suffice to say that picking the right number to focus on is important, and of course ident...

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 ...

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...