power

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

On this tour I attended the NABMA Conference in Birmingham. One of the speakers focused on Night Entertainment and the role of retailers. Melbourne in Australia has an excellent retail night market and this was used as an example on how night retailing should be a part of the future retail mix. The keys to

International Retail Month started in the USA in 2009. The aim is to get the message across to the public that independent retailers are essential to the vibrancy of the retail scene. The key is Impact-Connect-Engage. The promotion is now spreading to the UK and Australia. This is an ideal opportunity for retail groups and

In my article on trends for 2012 a few weeks ago I mentioned that video communications would be one of the driving trends of the year. Well three weeks into the new year and YouTube releases new figures that highlight the success of this social media trend. Another one hour’s worth of footage is placed

There is a lot of information coming out at present about how the older consumer shops versus the younger. Both groups expect a different offer. I have just received the Great Cafe’s blog form the UK and this reinforces what is happening out in the market place. According to the HTA in the UK 55

One of the golden rules of retailing is knowing who your customers are and then addressing their needs. When you have a national or international chain this can be quite challenging as the easiest model to adopt is “one size fits all”. Tesco in the UK are about to change their model to improve sales.

Retail sales in UK and USA were better than expected over the Christmas season. This is a good sign for retailers. However this does not mean we should become complacent, there are still a lot of changes ahead. Retailers need to focus on the little things that will make a difference to the bottom line.