John’s Blog

Food tourism is the “hot” trend and retailers are using their fresh offer to grow sales, everyone is on the fresh fruit and vegetable band wagon, or are they? A new report from the UK reveals that many children believe farms grow mud. The key results say: One in 50 pupils believes that farmers harvest potato waffles Just 9% of youngsters have visited a countryside location in the past year Some 1.8million

Garden Tourism is a major tourist sector. One third of tourists around the world visit at least one garden when on vacation and garden centre customers visit at least one garden a year. These are some of the facts that Prof Richard Benfield revealed when he conducted a series of workshops in Western Australia during July. Richard is the “garden tourism” guru, based at Central Connecticut State University where he is

This podcast has a special focus on tips for the speaker presenting to international audiences, recorded for Thomas Murrell’s Media Motivators e-zine. It looks at how as a speaker you can “think global and act local” with the customisation of your content. This special podcast was recorded at a National Speakers Association of Australia (NSAA) event in Perth where John was a guest speaker. This will take 10 mins and

This month is focused on Asia as I have been travelling through Hong Kong and working in the Philippines. I have been working with food retailers and developing merchandising strategies. Watch my intro video…

Looking at merchandising in this part of the world there is one simple message..keep it simple. When it comes to displays we often make displays too complicated. Look at the innovators in the market place and they are focused on a simple message using simple props and a few products. The challenge with simple is that it often takes more time to make it look simple. These pictures will illustrate

The book on the plane…Whilst flying to Manila I read “Influencer” by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler. This book is published by Mc Graw Hill in 2013. This book focuses on leading change in businesses and life and presents a very simple formulae that we can all use. It talks about the three key influencers that can make a difference. Focus and measure Find

50% of most food the farmer produces is wasted, this is one of the major issues of the globe today and also a retail opportunity. This month I came across two examples of what we can do to overcome this problem. One was a health store in Ortigas City in the Philippines that promotes its health business by focusing the consumers mind on waste. The other is an article from

One of the things the Asian retailers do well is the use of vehicles as marketing tools. I love the way they can take a vehicle and make it a billboard on wheels. These are just a few pictures from my walks around Manila.

Looking to the future and how retail will change. This excellent article 9 Ways Retail Will Radically Change In The Near Future from the Business Insider this month that Sid Raisch discovered. Well worth the read! “For the past few years, brick-and-mortar retailers didn’t have a fighting chance to compete with the personalization and convenience provided by online shopping. By cultivating mountains of rich customer data, online retailers had the upper hand.

I was recently asked to contribute to the 2014 Retail Experts Survey in the United Kingdom, the following is a snippet from the results. “Retail is always an exciting, dynamic and somewhat challenging space. We have assembled some of the brightest minds in Retail to provide you with their opinions on how technology, e-commerce and social media will change the way Retailers do business in the future…” Key findings and predictions from

At one retail trade show I attended one of the big new trends is “queue busters”. These are hand held iPads that team members use that allow the consumer to pay anywhere in the store. Over recent months I have been promoting that the cash register is now a dinosaur and the move to handheld devices is occurring quickly.

Who are your customers? Like many of us in recent years I was focused on Gen X and on trying to understand what made them buy in store. These days however, I focus my clients on Baby Boomers and Millenniums as their real customers and I now advise that less focus should go towards Gen X. This theory was supported with research carried out in the US and published in

How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. This is not a new book, it was written in 2009. It has just taken me a long time to get around to reading it. WOW, this is a must read book. I found it so valuable. The title really tells you what you are going to read and it challenges and alters the way you think. Published by Portfolio Penguin it

According to Dr Richard Benfield from the Central Connecticut State University in the USA more people visit gardens in the USA than go to Disneyland and Disneyworld combined. Although garden tourism is one of the fastest growing tourism activities it is often not understood and poorly promoted. Richard is the author of the book “Garden Tourism”, the only book that looks at this tourism sector. As well as lecturing on

It is five hour flight from Perth to Singapore and an ideal time to read a book. I came across this gem that was actually posted to me by the author to read. “Life in half a second…How to achieve success before it is too late” by Matthew Michalewicz published by Hybrid Publishers is one of the best reads I have had in a long time. It was thought provoking and

Debbie Allen, the American motivational speaker has been a friend for a number of years. Her sixth book is about to be launched in July It will be a NY Times Bestseller book launch in July. “The Highly Paid Expert: Turn Your Passion, Skills and Talents Into a Lucrative Career by Becoming The Go-To Authority In Your Industry” will be must read book and you can be one of the first

The following report was discovered by Jim Bradley from Mid Ulster Garden Centre. It highlights that 44% of Americans will not shop at a store if they feel the retailer is stalking them with a mobile device. Interesting, we have used security cameras and mirrors for many years and have not had a reaction. Now that the smart phone is being used it is becoming an issue. It will be

This month saw a new research report on retailing come from France. This report talked about the 7 new tendencies of consumers and how retailers should react to them. The 7 tendencies are: Consumers are looking for luxury and a bargain in the same store Retailers should not ignore the older consumer and develop intergenerational marketing strategies. Connect with people using face to face and virtual communications. The report suggests

One of the secrets of success is creating a shop window that stops the customer. Many high end retailers do this very well. I have just been judging the Nannup shop window competition based in our own town. The hardware store is a independent store and has done a brilliant display to get the message of safety and safe working gear across. He has used two mannequins and one has

Retailing is constantly changing and a vision of the future can be obtained from Singapore. This is a city of green walls, futuristic architecture and progressive retailers. It is also a city that has maintained the traditional quarters and the wet market and Arab quarters are still some of my favourite places. It is also one of the most expensive cities to live in. 90% of produce is imported and

Sold out, who killed the High Street?, published by Filament Publishing is a thought provoking book targeted at retailers. Bill is a retailer himself in the UK where the High Street has been devastated over the last few years. As Bill explains it is easy to blame the supermarkets, box stores and out of town shopping, but should we look at these retailers as the villains? According to Bill the problem