October 2008

I was recently in Augusta, West Australia. This is about as far as you can go in Western Australia going south, the next stop is Antarctica. Augusta is a small town famous for whale watching and the tallest lighthouse in Australia. I was there to do a workshop with the retailers. After the talk I […]

Consumers are growing their own food and the UK style allotment, a piece of land in a community dedicated to food production, is booming again. It was obvious that one opportunity was to open “The Allotment Shop” as a serious retail venture and the first one opened in late October in Kingswinford, West Midlands in

That may not be the thought going through your mind after the last few weeks. Wexe2x80x99ve already talked to people in the retail industry who have informed us that next year they will only invite speakers to their conferences that are xe2x80x9cfreexe2x80x9d.xc2xa0 Do you think customers are going to attend a conference expecting ideas on

October 2008 will be remembered as the month the world was forced to create a new order when it comes to the financing of business. The ups and downs of the global stock-market (alas, mostly down) means that every business around the world will see change take place. Retailing may take a little longer to

Over the last couple of months the world economy has changed almost daily, alas, very rarely for the better. Many of my clients have asked how I feel this will affect the retail sector over the next few months. As in all situations there will be winners and losers. Firstly, some retail sectors will find

Retail Rethink Promoting your products used to be easy. Placing adverts in newspapers or on the radio or T.V. would ensure that the majority of consumers would be exposed to what you had to sell. But, times change, the new consumer is not reading newspapers, downloading their music on to an iPod and picking up

Australia, like many countries, has an Open Garden Scheme. This year the Stanley’s bit the bullet and opened their garden to the public for the first time. We had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be a fun two days. Plus, an opportunity to chat to consumers in a relaxed environment.

Rethink Retail I recently went to my local hardware store with a planned purchase in mind of $800. Since no staff were available in store to ask a question I went to the checkout to ask for advice. The reply was disappointing “I don’t know, I’m only a checkout operator” and she let me leave