John’s Blog

I checked into a hotel last month and there was a little orange book on the bedside table entitled “Get me out of here”. A strange title for a hotel room book, but I ventured further. I was in a Nordic Choice Hotel in Copenhagen and the owner is an advocate for healthy eating, saving the planet and sustainability. Plus, he wanted to get his message across to his guests

And finally, a must read book… Many of you will know the name Ernest Wertheim, a fellow consultant and good friend from California. Ernest is now in his 90’s and still consulting around the world, we met in Germany in January. He gave me a copy of his book “Chasing Spring” which is the story of his life. He lived in Germany and then escaped during the war and moved to

A vital guide to the development and direction of one of the fastest growing sectors in tourism. The fastest growth in tourism is the culinary sector. Farmers markets, taste tours, agri-entertainment, glamping, restaurants, farm shops, wineries, and boutique food retailers … food tourism has become an important part of holiday and business travel as well as a purpose in itself. Growth in food tourism is occurring in most developed countries

To accompany the launch of John and Linda Stanley’s book “Food Tourism”, John has prepared a conference presentation “Food Tourism…Making the Most of the Opportunity”. This practical presentation provides a “tool kit” of ideas for businesses already in the sector or thinking about entering the food tourism sector. The presentation includes: Identifying the key drivers in making a success in Food Tourism Why customer service will not grow your food

Many of you are aware that I have been promoting Day Maker skills for our clients rather than promote customer service. I have redesigned our Day Maker package and have launched a brand new workshop. It has been presented twice this month already and anyone interested in Day Maker training this is the programme for you. One of the handouts I use to help delegates with the thinking process is

John Denton is a fellow consultant based in Perth. I have asked him to contribute a couple of articles to the newsletter. Below is the first and I will include his next one in my next newsletter. John has some interesting ideas… The most dangerous number in business is ONE…one of anything! Article by John Denton on preparing businesses ‘ready for sale’ because a business that’s ready for sale, is well

There is a big shift taking place in retailing, being led by the retail food sector, I commented on this in my October newsletter and have just followed this up with the following article. Weekday convenience means retailers need to change tactics Over the last few years we have seen the consumer rethink the way they spend their time, as far as shopping has been concerned. We have seen the

Chris O’Conner from the Australian Nursery Association alerted me to this great promotion concerning the recycling of Nespresso capsules as a promotion activity. TerraCycle Australia invite florists, garden centres and nurseries to participate in a free and easy-to-operate environmental program initiated by the pioneer of portioned coffee, Nespresso Australia. TerraCycle, an internationally recognised recycling pioneer launched in Australia in 2014. Worldwide, they have diverted over 2.6 billion pieces of waste

Over the Christmas break one of the books I read was “The Retail Revival” (ISBN 978-1-118-48979-6) by Doug Stephens a futurist in retailing from North America. The book is published by Wiley. The title is self explanatory, this book looks at the future of retailing in a changing world. It is upbeat, but points out that the “middle” will disappear quickly and no business can be average. It promotes the idea,

There are so many trends taking place at present. One of them is Brand denial that is coming from the Millennial generation. They are promoting the fact that they are not hooked onto specific brands. Having said that 90% of iPhone users express loyalty to Apple, up from 73% in 2011. (ref: Morgan Stanley, March 2014) The key trend is that they are looking for businesses that can tell the

One of our stops was at Sillico a small village of less than 100 people in the Apennines at the back of Lucca in Garfaganana, Italy. Like many small communities it needed to focus on an identity to survive, many small villages in this part of the world are literally dying as the young people have moved to the cities and the village is left full of old people who

During this tour I have seen a blending of autumn displays blending into Christmas promotions and wonder if this will continue to be a trend. Pumpkins are an ideal product for getting the autumn feel across, at our hotel in Torino they were used as part of an autumn floral decoration.    

The main reason Linda and I wanted to be in Torino in late October was to visit “Salone Internationale del Gusto…Terra Madre” which is organised by the Slow Food Movement. This organisation has come a long way since Carlo Petrini objected to McDonalds setting up a store in Rome and felt something needed to be done to promote local foods. This organisation has a movement in many countries around the

Those who read my October newsletter will remember the Dutch retail food offer I mentioned that was being developed based on an Italian model. That retailer was Eataly. One of the top food retailers in Italy is Eataly, which is located in a old warehouse next to the Fiat factory complex in Torino close to where the exhibition hall is located. This is a must see retailer: Eataly specialises in

Research conducted in 2013 by Gallo wines indicated that 32% of growth in sales come from new products. It would be interesting to find if this relates to all products retailed, it does show the “power of new“.  

An associate of mine, Trevor Cochrane from Western Australia, brought to my attention an article that came online on the BBC in September. It looked at the future retail High Street and shows the changes we could be in for. Interesting to note they believed that small boutique retailers would still flourish as the consumer was looking for the unique nostalgia retail offer amongst all the high tech.

This is a message that I have been promoting of late and I have come across two new suppliers to the garden industry that were not part of the industry and hence did not know what the box looked like. As a result they invented unique products for the market. One supplier comes from Oregon and the best way I can describe his product is large lego bricks to design

I do believe a study of what is happening in the UK supermarket industry is an indicator of what could happen in other retail sectors around the world. Twelve months ago Tesco’s was looked upon as the innovator in retailing, not only in the UK , but around the world. This company seems to be going from bad publicity to bad publicity and losing market share as a result. They

A study of what is happening to the British food retail sector may indicate what could happen to other retailers in other parts of the world. Until 2014 the British food retail sector was reasonably stable with a clear market leader with one retail pound in eight retail spent pounds being used to purchase goods from that retail leader. It was a company that aimed to please the whole consumer

Whilst one part of food retailing is looking for new direction, the boutique food retailers are still growing from strength to strength and in the most unusual places. This may look like it is located in a boutique retail area or a farmers market, but it is at St. Pancras Railway Station in central London. Ideas can be found in the most unusual placed. A glimpse into the future of

“If you know what tomorrow will bring…what would you do different today?” That is a byline from chlorosphere, the French trends consultants. I had the opportunity to present alongside this company at a Belgium DIY and garden conference in October. Chlorosphere are the only trends consultancy company that purely looks at trends in outdoor living and they produce a comprehensive book on these trends every October. They look at consumers

Retailing is about being an entrepreneur and some of the winning ideas can be quite simple. Take for example the peach truck in Ohio. A farmer in the southern part of the State contacted local garden centres and asked if he could place his peach truck in the parking lot of garden centres of a weekend when peaches were in season and sell his fruit by the box. This has

While in the USA I presented some workshops with my colleague Sid Raisch. One of his presentations is how are independent retailers building a strategy to combat the Amazon effect and how it is changing all our shopping habits. One person in Sid’s audience mentioned he sold trees and that tree retailing would not be concerned with the Amazon effect. I guess this retailer had not been to an excellent

Whilst I am mentioning Sid, he was adamant we went to Voodoo while in Portland. This is a one-store operator, not in the best retail location, that only accepts cash, will not give cents change, and you have to line up to be served for at least 30 minutes! This is not what I would call a strategy for a destination retailer. Yet, I lined up for my Bacon Doughnut…AND

Following my Voodoo experience Sid and I travelled to Mount Hood and to the hotel and restaurant at the National Park. There we were exposed to a “bacon experience”. The breakfast offered different selections of artisan bacon. Think what experiences you could offer that makes you, as they say in Portland, WEIRD