Delivering on the Promise

Specialty Retailers love to tell you how "special" they are. However, from the customers perspective, what makes a retailer "special" is the meeting your clientele's expectation of being introduced to genuinely unique merchandise, artists or designers, and on a fairly regular basis.While cost-effectiveness virtually prohibits brick and mortar retailers from...

Gloomy Outlook, But Not For All

Most retail analysts have already written the eulogy for this years Holiday Shopping Season, and they may be correct. However, not all retailers find themselves facing the same obstacles in their path to a successful, 4th Quarter.There are, in fact, several retailers that should perform strongly in the face of what many are calling the "toughest Holiday outlook...

Thank You Dana Thomas

Deluxe, despite its horribly misleading subtitle, is a book everyone, who is not perpetually naked, should read.It is less expose, than penetrating journey into the world of real luxury manufacturers. I won't spend much time on the details of the book because I want you to draw your own conclusions. However, I will say the book is a page-turner, and...

Layaway No Longer a Laughing Matter

For easily the last 30 years, the word "layaway" has carried a negative, almost comic, connotation with it. Comics from Richard Pryor to Chris Rock, even George Carlin, have found humor in this most "common" way of purchasing items. That is, over a period of time, before taking them home.Oh how times have changed. Layaway is making a comeback!Walmart, the worlds largest retailer, ceremoniously ended their layaway program in September of...

Best Product of 2008 = Consumer Democracy

Shop Savvy is a new application available on the new G1 mobile phone, powered by Google Android and sold exclusively through T-mobile.This is the most promising and impactful development on the retail frontier right now. Why you ask?This is literally the democratization of the pricing process. Imagine a customer armed with the knowledge of how much an item they are interested in purchasing cost at every retailer in the immediate area,...

The Great ('08) Missed Opportunity

There are few retailers having "break-out" business right now.That being said, I wondered if there are any glaring missed opportunities by the major retailers at the moment. It took less than 15 minutes to not only come up with a HUGE missed opportunity, but to have it confirmed by multiple sources as an item each and every one of them had to find new resources...

1st things 1st

If you work with, or within, the Retail community and have not read this book, please try to explain to me WHY NOT?Mark Stevens lays out, quite clearly, the very simple framework for turning any business around. The book is example-driven and done in  very common sense fashion.I really think it the new bible of professional management techniques. You cannot...