May 2011

On May 24th 2011 a survey was released and mentioned on ABC News in Australia. The survey asked consumers how much profit or mark up a retailer should be happy with. The result was that customers feel that retailers should be putting a 34% mark up on products. This gives the retailer a about a […]

My mate Jurek Leon invited me to a marketing meeting recently held at the Brand Agency, one of Australia’s top agencies. It was an excellent insight into how that side of the industry operates. One of the presenters for the Brand Agency had recently been on an STW Group Training session where they presented their

You have heard it said before, men know the price of nothing and are easy to sell to. That may have been true in the past, but recent research published in the USA magazine Supermarket News on 23rd May 2011 would disagree with your findings. According to the latest research; 44% of men are making

Consumers are being driven to retailers with price. This is defiantly the case in the food industry…or is it? In Australia the “Masterchef” TV programme is now in series three and again getting the nation hooked on cooking. It is relying on product placement to promote specific brands and Coles, the supermarket chain are a

Consumers are being driven to retailers with price. This is defiantly the case in the food industry…or is It?. In Australia the “Masterchef” TV programme is now in series three and again getting the nation hooked on cooking. It is relying on product placement to promote specific brands and Coles, the supermarket chain are a

Imagine you are going to the airport and are one of those passengers that enjoys being checked in by a person. You arrive and are told that if you can self check in or you and go to the desk to be checked in, but that to talk to somebody will cost you $10.This is

Every retail conference that I attend there is a discussion about the needs of the retail industry to improve customer service. Alas, many retailers are not sending team members to workshops on customer service training and as a result most surveys I look at indicate that customers believe customer service is on the decline. You

Over the last two days I have received a number of communications concerning the price war going on in the hardware and garden market around the world. Many parts of the USA are seeing bad weather delaying the spring rush into the garden. This means that many large retailers have asked nursery suppliers to reduce

According to researchers the three industries that get the most complaints from consumers are retailing, budget airlines and Telecom providers. We can relate to the last one as we are in the process of having a dispute with our own provider. They billed us for an unknown $1,500 and we then contacted them to ask

Take a look at consumers, more and more of them are walking in and “fiddling” with their phones. What are they doing? Well according to the research 52% of those new customers have used that phone to find your store, 48% of them are browsing products using their phone, 40% are comparing your prices with