2012

Difficult times mean you have to think differently. Imagine if you were Harley Davidson and you were seeing a down turn in your market as male Baby Boomers are keeping their money in their wallets and not spending it on expensive toys for themselves. The answer is that you look for a new market. That […]

Craigie’s Farm Shop in Scotland are making their own jam to sell in store. They, are like many other farms around the world , are looking to this as a unique opportunity to make extra sales via an added value option. Farm jams are common in many countries. It seems like everyone is making their

One of the fun things about my job is discovering the unexpected. I was travelling through the back roads of Virginia this weekend and dropped into a farmers market that did not look the best from the outside. The signage inside was excellent. The one that really caught my eye was the “If Tomatoes’ could

The American economy may be seeing an improvement, but I just had an interesting conversation with a consumer. Her comment was the consumer has “Sticker Shock”. I asked her to explain what “Sticker Shock” was. As you have probably gathered it is the shock when the consumer sees an increase in the price. This indicates

The challenge in retailing is getting people to stop and look at your shop window. How about this idea from Tokyo.. bet it would make you stop.

I am in Amish country at present in Pennsylvania. The retailers here are benefiting from the nostalgia drive in the market place. They are building on the old traditions and what was old is now new. Think about the nostalgia elements in your business that can be developed as a marketing tool. The key is

Six months until the Olympics in London and retail is developing strategies to meet the needs of the market. Here is quick update · The UK consumer is not the big spender this year. London retailers are relying on consumers from overseas. It used to be attract the American, not any more. The big spenders

Just spend a day looking at food retailers in Scotland on a tour. Interesting development. Whether the retailer spend a lot of money or not on the capital investment the majority of them were achieving a sixteen pound average sale. But, the one store that had the customer flow wrong had an average sale of

Many of you will know Jonathon Winchester from Shopper Anonymous. He has just presented a talk called ‘Its a Steal’. He used figures on stealing in the UK which are quite scary; 3.5 million people admitted to stealing in the UK in the last five years 25% by accident and returned the goods 60% by

It is equally important they know what you do not stand for. I am attending a retail conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. One of the other speakers has just come out with this quote which I remember from a few years ago. It is a very relevant quote for today’s consumer. I have just been on