Viewpoint on Retail - Retail Articles Don't Take Your Hungry Market for Granted: Here's a story about taking your market for granted. You might find it interesting. Retail Sales Training: Don't fall for this training lie! Retail Communications: Meet With Your People…Often. When retail performance management is missing...: We decided to tell this true story to illustrate just how horribly things can go wrong when you're not really on top of... Performance Management Motivation & KPI's: It is extremely important, for the motivation and well being of the management and staff, that all of the KPI’s be looked at relative to one another. It simply does not work to single out one KPI and rush to judgment. It’s just not a very smart thing to do. And here’s why... Retail Math - Managing by Numbers: The first time a Store Manager realizes that their store, and their performance in managing that store, is being judged by the numbers they quickly understand that there is more to managing a store than getting all of the work done, making everything look nice and being good to customers... 75 Ways to Build a Retail Performance Culture Worth Millions:  Did you ever wonder how some retailers manage to build a superb performance culture within a retail organization? You know, that culture that makes people outperform all others; the culture that inspires everyone and turns average employees into Super Heroes? ... Another Day in the Life of a Customer: This chain has been in business for many, many years and, in my wildest dreams, I could not imagine that they would not have an electric can opener for sale. So, assuming that I was just not looking in the right place, I sought out an employee to help me. Empowerment  - Shaping Customer Perceptions: How one seemingly reasonable company policy or one staff member who is not empowered can single handedly disappoint a top customer with a huge life time value... Retail Tips for the Holidays: Here is a handy checklist to help you make sure you’re doing everything you can to make the most of the holiday traffic that comes into your store... What is the Real Source of Turnover in Retail? The biggest impact on ET is bad management. Did you know that 49% of retail associates leave their retail position due to bad management? Missed Opportunities: Quantified: Retailers need to take a closer look at their missed opportunities; they need to quantify lost sales. I am going to do that right now, for a large office supply chain with very little competition... Customer Service and Empowerment: I have recently been subjected to three of the most unbelievably bad customer service experiences of my life. In all three situations, large well known companies were involved. One is a prominent, on-line travel provider; one is a monopoly in the telephone service industry and the other is a huge conglomerate... See and Feel the Relationship Between You and Your Customers: Stop looking at your stores through your own eyes, and start seeing them through your customer's eyes... The Retail Training Equation: Economic times are cyclical. At present, the cycle is in a down phase and needs to recover as quickly as possible. During such times, it is people who will make the difference in your business. It is most often the people who have been trained appropriately that rise to meet and overcome these challenges... Why Every Manager Should Understand Design and Visual Merchandising: Your store should be your #1 Brand Ambassador, providing an image and feeling of your brand that connects with your customer on a gut level and makes them want to buy something - anything - just to take that feeling home with them... Insane Retailing: It has been said by many that an appropriate definition of insanity be ‘repeating the same actions time and time again, expecting different results’... Cutting Edge in Retail Sales and Training : “Cutting Edge Sales” is in and of itself a buzz phrase describing a competitive sales advantage that every retail sales associate is looking for, a bit like the fountain of youth. Like the fountain, though, “Cutting Edge Sales” is something that is more inside of oneself than something concrete to be found... Know how to interpret your Retail KPI’s?: Gaining an understanding of retail math lets the Store Manager put everything in perspective. Once competent in making all of the calculations for KPI’s pertinent to his/her store, the Store Manager gains new insight into exactly what is going on in their store. It’s like having the blindfold removed. Suddenly, everything makes sense... How to Lift Your Retail Spirits During Slow Times: All we hear these days is how bad the last few months of 2008 are going to be. The National Retail Federation, in the United States, is predicting an increase of approximately 4% over last year, and they generally predict a bit on the bright side so the reality, in North America at least, is probably somewhat less than that...  The Value of Professional Training: Industry specific training provides a myriad of advantages to an individual within that field.  They will gain confidence in dealing with day to day challenges.  Having the knowledge that professional development training provides can enable the individual to approach, assess, evaluate and resolve problems with less stress and expedite an appropriate solution much more quickly... External Conditions: Most retailers generally plan their targets, or budgets, based on the actual sales of the previous year. As the saying goes ‘past performance is a great indicator of future performance’. But every wise retailer will also carefully look at external conditions before committing a target or budget to paper; before using the numbers as a basis for buying merchandise and setting expense budgets... Introducing the 6th Pillar of Retail: It started out with 4 pillars (or 4P’s): Product, Promotion, Price and Place. People did not count for much back then. In early 1980’s with the revolution in management fueled by such publications as “In Search of Excellence”, “Re-inventing the Corporation” and many others, suddenly people woke up to the importance of people and added that to the retail arsenal. We’re now able to talk about the 5th pillar of Retail; People... How I Went from $7.00/Hour to $100,000.00/Year in Less than 5 Years Working in Retail - A True Retail Career Success Story The Effect of Incompetent Middle Managers - Retail employees can rise up through the ranks fairly quickly compared to a lot of other industries. It makes a great career in that respect. Entry into retail is easy and promotions come quickly provided the individual can operate a retail store, make the sales happen, follow the Policy and Procedures manual to the letter and always say the right things to visiting Head Office executive... Performance Culture and Retail - A recent shopping trip to a store - one of many stores in a large, well recognized chain - indicated clearly, that a performance culture does not exist in that organization.   How Important Retail Associates are to Your Retail Business - A study recently published by Wharton, University of Pennsylvania and Verde Group discusses the findings of a survey of 1000 randomly selected consumers. The objective of the survey was to discover what problems shoppers were encountering during their shopping experiences at retail stores and which of those problems were most likely to be discussed with others and which actually put customer loyalty at risk... DMSRetail's Top Selling Success Guides: 1. Retail Math Made Simple 2. Super Retail Success Bundle 3. Store Manager's Organizer-Planner Get Your Copy Today! First Response - Cut Hours/Wages at Store Level - Retailers often respond to a financial problem by cutting hours and wages being used at store level... Sustained Motivation Through Performance Discussions - We know that many Retail Business Owners and Store Managers look for ways to motivate their employees. Rightfully, they believe that motivating their sales associates will increase business. Creating a motivational environment and culture, and maintaining the positive effects are not easy; but not impossible either... How to Hire Right and Keep Them - Recruitment isn’t just about hiring, it’s about retention, and that means hiring the right person in the first place rather than someone who merely appears to be the right person. It costs far more to hire and train a new employee – on any level, in any industry - than it does to retain them... Pay More, Expect More, Get More -  It's time for more retailers to test the 'pay more expect more, get more' theory. It seems that retailers have always argued against higher wages, benefits and full-time positions citing exorbitant wage costs as the reason. While it is true that the expense, in dollars would increase it certainly does not follow that the actual wage percent would increase. And it is the percentage that is key... Get Out of Town - Really - It is impossible to direct an operation without knowing how it works. How it really works, not how it is supposed to work. If you are in charge of a retail operation and don’t have your next out of town store visit trip booked …do it now. It’s more important to visit out of town stores more often than you visit stores in close proximity to Head Office. Culture: What a difference it makes! - Have you ever wondered about the impact a true leader can have on the culture of a company? Having worked for several prominent retail organizations I have seen the impact of both positive and negative cultures on the workforce, the customers and, of course, the success of the business. Have no doubt whatsoever, the head of the organization dictates, through words and actions, what the culture will be... Retail Employees vs. Customers - Customers are NOT the retail employees’ enemy. After viewing a ‘down with retail’ website today, I find myself very disturbed at the distance that has developed in the understanding between some retail employees and customers. Wild generalizations are being made such as ‘customers have no respect for retail employees’ and ‘retail employees don’t care about their customers’... Communicating for Profits and Customer Satisfaction - The real reason retail personnel appear to be indifferent to their customers.... The President of a 200+ store division of a major retailer learned of a serious communication problem and commented that ‘this was to be expected in large organizations’.  Well, that clears everything up. Many retail executives don’t believe that communication is important enough to get it right by coming up with a methodology that will ensure accurate and timely communication to field personnel... The House Account – A case for using it. - Retailers use different methods to record and monitor sales and to compensate their associates. Some allow, and in fact insist on, the use of a House Account and others forbid it. Manager Unfairly Perceived as Negative - To really learn about field operations, retail executives need to nurture their relationships with Store Managers. Many Store Managers have a lot of valuable information to offer the organization. They are rarely asked to contribute but often offer it anyway. And that is where the problem starts. Sales vs. Task Orientation - It is reasonable to expect people to do well in activities they enjoy, or at least, do not find difficult and unappealing, then it would be reasonable for sales associates who enjoy selling to be more successful, and to make a bigger contribution than those who do not. For the individual who does not enjoy selling-either because s/he does not have the skills or simply does not want to do it – a position in a retail store may still attract them due to ease of entry. Store Managers should be very wary of this individual. The Store Manager is a Lighthouse - Throughout history the lighthouse has played an important role in navigation and pilotage at sea; its purpose is to guide, to show the way, to warn of danger and generally provide safe entry into harbors. The Store Manager is the lighthouse for the employees of a retail store and the Head Office is the lighthouse for all of their retail employees nationwide. Unreachable? - What? The executive team is unreachable? Impossible, you say? Retail executive, like any others, need to be accessible. Imagine a situation where employees and management cannot have any access to the President. Far, far from the open door policy, there are some retailers who allow absolutely no access to the top executive in the company... Customer Service Fanatics - Be a Customer Service Fanatic and be proud of it! If more retail managers were Customer Service Fanatics we would see a much different picture in the service industry. All customers, not just a fortunate few, would be properly treated as they part with their hard-earned and over-taxed dollars. Isn’t that the way it should be? ... Multi-Channel Retail - One Critical Key to Success - More and more retailers are realizing the benefits of multi-channel retailing. Leveraging brand equity in multiple touchpoints has been proven to drive loyalty and interaction among consumers. With trends clearly showing the Internet as the core component to pre-purchase research, brick and mortar brands can ill-afford to take a wait and see approach as it relates to core multi-channel offerings... Improving the Morale of Your Employees: One Step at a Time - If your customers are to enjoy a positive shopping experience and be inspired to purchase whatever it is you have to offer it really makes sense that your store employees feel like valued members of your team. Pushing for Performance - The fiscal month is coming to a close. The store’s sales performance has been lackluster for several months but, this month, they are doing much better. This coming Saturday is the last day of the month. The Store Manager wants to take the day off to do something with family members. The District Manager says no...   Change your conversation, change your life - The danger we face while taking in all of this bad news is that we may actually begin to focus on nothing but the bad news. We may start to believe it completely. When we believe completely, there is a much higher chance of it being so. More   Retail Math - Why It Is Important - There are sayings that come to mind here: “Look after the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.” And, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”   Amazing Little Store vs. Sluggish Giant - Today, we’re going to look at an important, but often ignored, part of running a profitable business… using a couple of enlightening (and very brief) anecdotes from my recent shopping adventures.   Retail Zigold   If you want to get more relevant articles, tips and information please subscribe to our free newsletter RetailWise: Your Name: Your E-Mail: "How You Can Reach the Maximum Potential of Your Store" with DMSRetail's Mega Retail Success Bundle And Beat the Performance Curve, FAST Management BluePrint to Create Your Own Retail Success Machine New! 5 more Success Guides & Tools and 7 Great Bonuses added! Save even more! Super Retail Success Bundle The Retail Operations Management Workshop Retail Operations Management Training & Workshop This amazing 3-day training course and Workshop is recommended for mid-senior retail managers. Join us for 3 days of top retail management training and workshop to enlighten and energize you just in time for the new business year. This is the best investment you can make in your professional and personal development.   Send to a Friend