JOHN STANLEY ASSOCIATES

John’s Blog

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John’s Blog
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Every year, John travels all over the world to speak at conferences and to work with his clients to help them stay ahead of their competitors.  As economies and lifestyles change, new trends emerge and successful businesses adapt.  John blogs about the trends he sees.  You can keep in touch with global events, adapt your business to optimise the trends and stay abreast of your competition through subscribing to John’s Blog.  Scroll down to read his blog.

Getting the Basics Right

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 eleven pounds and average sale. I remember Paco Underhill showing that a difficult customer flow

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Stealing is a Trend

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 accident and kept the goods 15% deliberate stealers He mentioned that the supermarket Sainsbury’s has

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It is important customers know what you stand for

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 a tour of retail stores in this region and none of the stores we visited

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The Night Economy

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 success are; Food Theatre Design and merchandise guidelines Village Environment Organised chaos Strong management Retail

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Independent Retailer Month

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 Chambers of Commerce to get together and promote the month. It is a reason for

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Movie Time

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 on YouTube …every second. That is a 30% increase in usage in eight months. That

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It Is Time For Coffee ….. But, know your target

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 million consumers visited garden centre cafes in 2011, up from 36 million in 2008 and

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Major Retailer Starts Two Tier Retailing

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. They are introducing a two tier model; In less affluent communities they will merchandise the

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Training Ten Minutes a Day Can Make a Huge Difference at the Register

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. Customer service is the easy way of making a difference in the consumers mind. I

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Toys for the Boys

One of the main focuses for many retailers is how do they attract women into their store. Men are often neglected. Research carried out in Ireland by Jim Bradley revealed that when women went shopping with men , the average sale of the transaction and shopping time went down. The challenge is to either put men off shopping or to create “Toys for the Boys” and entertain them while their

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Confidence and Optimism

I am in the USA and after the gloom the optimism is slowly coming back. Recent sales figures for retailers is up and the consumer has turned the corner. They are starting to spend, slowly, but they are starting. Let’s hope this becomes a trend that is followed around the world. Trade show exhibitors are also confident that the consumer is more confident and optimistic.

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Show your Passion

Successful retailers are passionate The key is how do you show that passion to your consumers. I recently came across this promotion in Ohio which really gets that message across “Our Family, Our Farm, Our Life Pastimes Farm and Bakery” This is so simple ,yet I still go to businesses where there is no message that passes on the values of the business. I am told all our customers know

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Life is Beaverful

I recently stopped in the town of Squamish on the road to Whistler in British Columbia, Canada. The hotel I stopped in was the Howe Sound Brewing and I was impressed with the business card they presented me. The business is famous for its Traditional Handcrafted Ales, they promoted this on their business cards, but in a different way. They had three beavers, one with a bronze medal around its

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How do you Become Memorable?

William Taylor of the Business Harvard School gave a talk at the ANLA Management Clinic last week in Louisville, Kentucky. One of his quotes is valuable for all our businesses; How do you become memorable? Passion + Emotion + Identity = Memorable It is worth looking at all our businesses and asking what are we doing to be memorable in the customers eyes.

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Imagine Being in the Korean Underground

Imagine you are in the subway in Seoul at Seonreung underground station. You go down to catch the train, smart phone in hand. While you wait for your train you get your phone out and go to the online poster from Home Plus supermarket. You have a virtual supermarket in the underground with 500 items promoted on the poster. You order your milk and other groceries and they will be

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Three ZARA lead the way

In my presentations over the last few months I have been promoting that all retailers need to start thinking like Zara, the Spanish fashion retailer. This company takes a product from invention to store in two weeks and can turn fashion clothing in two weeks. A formulae for success. It is now official. In the UK they have been voted the countries best retailer, ahead of John Lewis, Marks and

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Get SMART quickly

It is the week that the geeks head to Las Vegas and do not go into a casino, but head for the International Consumer Electronic Show. There is one strong message coming out of Las Vegas this year. SMART, whether it is a phone, fridge, TV or car… it has to be SMART. It used to be that what was displayed in this show was something the rest of us

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Did you interact with your customers during Christmas 2011?

One of the keys to having a successful business is interaction with the consumer. Most of us rely on face to face interaction and alas if often fails as we are relying on a number of people in a team. This Christmas I received a number of Christmas cards from clients. All of which were appreciated, but one stood out, it was from Brownfalconer, I have included a picture of

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The last Blog on the road for 2011

This is my “last blog” on the road for this trip. Pantone have just released the fashion colour for 2012. They are promoting Tangerine Tango as the colour of the year. When building displays next year remember if you want to be seen to be tune with fashion, this is the colour you should be introducing into displays. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and I will be Blogging

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Pimping in Denver

My trip has now brought me to Denver and Pimping.Some of you may be confused by what I am discovering in the Rockies. Happy Canyon Flowers are the leading pimpers in the USA. This is a term used by the car industry when they use 3M adhesive to cover a vehicle in a promotional wrap.This florist has converted a standard white Ford Transit van into a complete promotion on wheels.

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Specialism is a Trend

I remember when Hamburger restaurants sold hamburgers and nothing else. Then they diversified and you can now buy a latte, breakfast and cakes at my local MacDonald’s in Perth. But, the latest trend is back to specialisation and it will be interesting to see how this develops. In Manhattan in New York the home of thousands of pizza shops there is the Artichoke Pizza shop. A restaurant that just specialises

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Solve Customer Problems

Research released today looks at what Americans dread about the holiday season that is now upon us 68% dread lines in shops etc 37% gaining weight 37% going into debt 28% gift shopping 26% travelling 24% seeing certain relatives Having just had a nightmare flight across the Atlantic I can agree with one of the above. Ref; Consumer Reports 2011 Holiday Poll reported in USA Today 5 Dec 2011

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The Future of Garden Retailing

Around the world there are garden retailers looking at the future and wondering what they need to do to develop their own business in a changing world. Many of them have downloaded the White Paper from our website to look for new trends and ideas. The challenge for many garden centre owners is how do they take a traditional business and transform it into a business that meets the needs

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Facebook Christmas Tree Promotion

Chladek garden centre in prague are the bioggest single outlet seller of Christmas trees in Czech. This year they have invited Ghristmas tree buyers to decorate their trees take a piture and place it on Face book. They will then judge the bes tree and award a prize. A great way of integrating socila media with traditional retailing.

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Make a Candle

One of the important elements of retailing is customer interaction. At Chladek Garden Centre in Prague this St Nicholas weekend they hade a Make A Candle session for children. All the staff dressed up as angels or wicked elfs and St Nichiolas greeted all the chioldtren.To malke the candle the children had to collect different elements of the candle from different parts of tyhe store. This encoureged there parents to

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