John’s Blog

We do not normally report on the awards in Australia, but this year the Telstra Business Woman of the year came from Fremantle, near Perth and she won the award for a product I believe a number of you would be interested in. The recipient was Leanne Wesche and the product was Safeguard a valuable product for the fruit and vegetable retailer. Safeguard Fruit & Veggie Wash Triumphing over seven

You may feel that you are in the selling business, but if your product will not sell is it the type of product that you could rent? The rental movement in the retail sector really took off in the hardware sector where the rental business is now big business for some retailers. Why get into Rental? When the consumer is becoming more price aware and wanting to spend less, especially

Colour in retailing is so important and many of you have asked how do we use colour correctly in our retail environments. We were recently talking to our brand designer and he mentioned that Voodoo Publications were some of the best books on the subject. This is a link to their website. I hope it proves valuable. http://www.colorvoodoo.com/cvoodoo5.html

Zig is recognised as one of the business guru’s in the world. He recently gave a seminar in the U.S.A. and highlighted some research on closing the sale. Only 4% of business people asked to close the sale five or more times. Research shows that they closed 60% of all deals. Persistence is worth it.

Every supermarket and farm shop sells eggs, but I have come across very little research to help you understand the category. All that has changed with an excellent report that has just been released by the American Egg marketing board. This report is available via the Retail Wire website. If you click on this link, you’ll have to sign up to their website, but you’ll find out all you need

Marketing success is about doing your research and developing a unique niche that relates to your targeted consumer. Sometimes this takes years of planning and sometimes you discover it by chance. I was recently at the Riccaton Markets, one of the bigger markets in New Zealand when I discovered one of these unique marketing gems. I often challenge retailers and suppliers to produce something that appeals to Generation X, the

Those of you who have attended my conferences may be aware of the fact that I am a great believe in “tipster marketing”. Tipster marketing is where a business identifies key people in the community who can become advocates of what you do. I recently stopped at the Quality Inn, Whanganui in New Zealand. The receptionist was in a real bubbly mood. The day before Mark and Claire Wickham of

Daphne Raj and Joe Gehrke are the owners of Teza Juice tea of Auckland, New Zealand. They have a great product, but in a recession climate, they did not have the marketing budget to get the message across using billboards and other conventional “interruption” marketing techniques. What do they do? Well, they “dared to be different” and covered their cars in artificial grass. Teza’s “grassy beast” is working. On November

In May 2008 I gave a presentation to the National Farmers Market Conference in Blenheim, New Zealand. One of the speakers was Johny Schwartz, the owner of Schwartz Restaurant in Christchurch. He was a motivating speaker and talked about two beliefs in his business. One was that there should be no waste and that as a “green” restaurateur he had a responsibility to reduce waste as much as possible and

Spotted in a South American gift shop!

The recent research carried out in the U.S.A. and reported in the I.G.C. Nursery Retailer research report indicated that “how to” guides were seeing a resurgence and the younger consumer was finding them exceptionally valuable. What in mind, I have just discovered two great “how to” leaflets. Palmers, the New Zealand Garden Centre franchisee group produce excellent full colour “Here’s How” guides. These are colourful and supported by “add on”

By John Stanley The world changed in October 2008, have you changed your business practices as well? If you plan to carry on doing things in the same way in 2009, you will be in for a shock. Every business will need to adapt to the new economy we all find ourselves in. The consumer is bound to “cocoon”. With less money in their wallet or purse they will spend

“Successful businesses do not have a manager – they have a leader” When countries move into recession, some businesses fail while others prosper. Success, in business is up to you. Successful businesses operate on the same principles. Many call it common sense, but this is, in fact, “rare sense”. If it were common sense then everyone in the world would be running a successful business. Here a few ideas that

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 took a walk around town. The Augusta Pharmacy has a great idea. I had talked

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 the UK. The store has a 1940’s feel to it, promoting the nostalgia feel. The

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 how to improve their business from xe2x80x9cfreexe2x80x9d speakers? Businesses will take one of two directions

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 see the affects of October. Finance will inevitably get tighter and the consumer will start

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 it more difficult than other retail sectors to build sales. Retailers selling high ticket luxury

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 their morning TV from their own computer. If you rely on traditional means of getting

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. We have produced a ‘movie’ of the garden, you can view below how our garden

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 the store unable to make a purchase. What disappointed me, was not only could I

Arboretum Lifestyle Garden Centre in Ireland their plants as shown. It not only provides a description, but also provides provenance. A great way of showing the source for the consumer.

Tim Smit from Eden Project really caught everyones imagination at the awards ceremony at GLEE in the UK. His thinking is very much inline with mine, here is a snippet from his speech. The above quote comes from Tim Smit, one of the co-founders of the UK’s Eden Project in Cornwall on recieving a prestigious award. Smit said the biggest issue in the next decade would be food security and

By Daily Mail Reporter 28th August 2008 Superfruit: Aronia berries A berry reckoned to be the healthiest fruit in the world will soon be available in Britain’s shops for the first time. The aronia is a ‘superfood’, richer in anti-cancer antioxidants than raspberries and more modern imports such as the goji and acai. It even has three times the level of antioxidants found in blueberries. Now a six-year plan by

Whilst in seminars I have promted the fact that the future includes text marketing, I have had a few worried faces. But, Marketing Trendz magazine from the USA endorse my findings ….. read on. Texting Wonders Can’t get shoppers to respond to your marketing prods? Start texting. According to the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) first-ever quantitative research project on mobile marketing, text messaging is the most effective technique and it