About this product: Earn more. Learn More. It’s that Easy. Attention retailers: Are you feeling a bit overworked and thinking you’re not nearly as profitable compared to the effort you’re putting in? While this book won’t get the carpet vacuumed or your orders put away, it will show you how to generate a higher cash return and help you achieve the success you do deserve. This is not another how-to retail book; there are plenty of those. There are no fancy theories or case studies here. Who running a store has time for that? Instead, this is a collection of fun and practical lessons written for retailers - by a retailer. They cover the crucial aspects of your business – strategy, marketing, customer service, operations, and employee relations. From them, you’ll learn how to: ·Instantly drive more traffic, more business, and more loyal customers through your door. ·Create a better ROI for your marketing and advertising dollars. ·Attract and retain the best staff possible. ·Get more cha-ching for your hard work. Learn more. Earn more. It’s that easy.
"For the Love of Murphy's is an excellent account of the history of a great five-and-ten. Jason Togyer has truly captured the "behind-the-counter" view of an innovative retail organization.
The G. C. Murphy Company is very special to me. My management style and work ethic grew from the experience and training I acquired over a sixteen-year period as a G. C. Murphy employee. I worked as a part-time stock boy in the early 1950s and then spent five years full time in the management training program, working in seven different stores. After serving in the Marine Corps, I returned part time to the G. C. Murphy Company—and while attending Penn State University, I worked in the downtown State College store.
I highly recommend For the Love of Murphy's to anyone who has had the experience of working in a five-and-ten retail store. Students of marketing management and merchandising, young entrepreneurs, and small-business owners will also gain immensely from the wealth of information in this book." —Larry R. Pollock Chancellor Emeritus, Penn State-New Kensington
Five-and-ten stores were immensely popular during the middle fifty years of the twentieth century, selling cheap, dependable goods to people from all walks of life. Now the product of a bygone era, these stores were revolutionary in their time, but few today appreciate how important they were in creating our present-day consumer culture. In this caring but honest look at one of the best-known chains of five-and-tens, Jason Togyer traces the history of the G. C. Murphy Company, headquartered in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
Though not the largest chain, nor the first, Murphy's is remembered today as a commercial trailblazer, a corporation run with honesty and integrity, and, at its peak, a retailer whose more than 500 stores managed to outsell those of the giant F. W. Woolworth Company by a factor of three to one. Making extensive use of both the company archives and anecdotes from former employees and customers, McKeesport native Togyer recreates with outstanding detail the world in which the G. C. Murphy Company emerged; its survival and growth during the Great Depression; its response to a strained economy during World War II; its fight against rapidly expanding competitors such as K—Mart; its struggle and recovery in the 1970s; and its unsuccessful battle to stave off Wall Street raiders in the 1980s.
Though modern-day shoppers may not know the Murphy name, they know the legacy it left behind. From its adventurous selling tactics to its strict code of corporate ethics, the G. C. Murphy Company should be remembered not as a dusty relic, but as a pioneer in the American business world.
About this product: Learn the ins and outs of retail and get your product on your favorite retailer's shelves. Thinking about selling your product to retailers? This no-nonsense guide walks you through the process of selling to and working with retailers-from designing, pricing, and presenting your products to getting repeat orders. Discover: • The key questions that retail buyers will ask you • How the four P's in marketing relate to retail and affect your bottom line • How not to under-price your products • Five ways to get a retail buyer's attention • How to help retailers market your product Retail Bound: Learn How to Sell Your Products to Retailers helps entrepreneurs, inventors and small manufacturers learn how to get noticed by retail buyers big and small. Yohan Jacob has worked as both a sales rep and a merchandise buyer for retail, online, and catalog companies and has helped many prospective vendors break into the retail world.
About this product: Ready, set, grow your independent retail store with 33 easy-to-implement secrets! Create a new model for your small to midsize shop that allows you to increase your profits, improve your performance, and lighten your workload. Discover how to: - Reverse the paradigm and put your store to work for you. - Create a pricing structure that ignores the competition and shatters the "big box dilemma". - Secure a place in your community and delivery unparalleled customer service. - Recruit, educate, and retain a superior team to run your retail store and let you work ON the business instead of IN the business.
About this product: From corsets and bell bottoms to Pucci and Givenchy, this comprehensive sourcebook provides information on the shops where vintage looks can be found. Written for both die-hard vintage collectors and those simply in need of powder-blue ruffled tuxedos for the prom, it offers not only listings of stores from coast to coast, but tips on which stores specialise in particular eras and those that carry the best genuine items. Covering every state, metropolitan area, and even some out-of-the-way places, it offers easy-to-navigate maps for finding the stores that are usually only known by word of mouth. Complete with addresses, contact information, and price and quality ratings, this guide is an indispensable tool for the vintage fashion aficionado.
About this product: "Small Store Survival should challenge retailers' views of small store retailing by questioning key areas of business. What is the vision for the store in 10 years? How have the customers changed over the past few years? How current are the managers about what customers genuinely like and dislike? What is being done to attract, educate, and motivate the best retail talent in the area? How effective is the merchandising strategy? What plans exist for succession?
"The real lesson of this study is that the best retailers never stop learning. They never stop growing. They never lose their enthusiasm for the customers and the business. And they never cease to revel in change and the chance to deal with it." —from the Executive Summary of Small Store Survival
Small Store Survival
Over the past decade, thousands of small retail stores have fallen victim to overwhelming competition from huge discount chains determined to take in every retail dollar in sight. But not everyone succumbs to the megastore invasion; many small retailers grow and prosper in spite of this cutthroat competition. How do they do it? Even more important, how can you do it?
Small Store Survival is the how-to book that belongs behind the counter of every independent retail store. It analyzes small-store operation in detail and lays out optimal survival strategies and tactics for seven key areas of business practice that are critical to success: customer service, marketing, merchandising, store operations, management, human resources, and finance. Its clear and logical organization enables you to evaluate your business practices function by function, identify strengths and weaknesses, and develop action plans to improve operations in each of these crucial functions.
Written by a team of experts from Arthur Andersen LLP, this guide presents detailed solutions and best practices culled from retailer surveys, site visits, and industry research. Its recommendations are applicable to a broad variety of retail formats, including stores that specialize in apparel; appliances; books; drugs, health, and beauty care products; electronics; hardware; home and garden supplies; pets and pet supplies; as well as other specialty stores. Numerous case studies illustrate the problems that plague many retailers and demonstrate ways you can overcome these obstacles and improve your business. You'll learn how to:
Identify customer expectations and meet or exceed them at every turn
Identify, pursue, and capture a distinct customer market
Establish a vision and culture for your store, plan where the company needs to go, and take steps to get there
Compete for quality employees and, once you hire them, keep them
Establish budgetary controls and contain costs
Negotiate effectively for favorable terms from vendors and suppliers
The most successful retailers never stop learning, growing, and adapting to changing circumstances. The hundreds of sound ideas presented in this study were developed and implemented by the most successful small store operators in the industry. Here is your chance to learn and grow with them by adapting these solutions to your own business needs.
About this product: Serving the best coffee in town won't help your business if no one knows about it! In Effective & Essential Marketing for the Specialty Coffee Retailer, Bruce Milletto gives you access to his vast knowledge of the specialty coffee industry and explains how thoughtful attention to promoting your business can mean the difference between becoming your community's "third place" and being in third place.
Effective marketing creates awareness of and loyalty to your brand in your community, even when the mega chains come to town. This book gives you the tools you need to use your passion for coffee and your distinct advantage as a local business to compete effectively against the corporate giants. A successful marketing program doesnt have to be the brainchild of a highly trained professional. Nor do you need to throw big advertising dollars in front of potential customers with the hope they will stumble over them and into your store. With some expert guidance and your own commitment to success, you can develop a loyal clientele and outwit the competition.
About this product: “Through engaging and direct analysis, Joanne Thomas Yaccato has drawn the line clearly for businesses—any successful client relationship strategy must consider the unique perspectives of women. Small, medium and large organizations can benefit from her witty and poignant observations.”
David I. McKay, Group Head, Canadian Banking, RBC
“In a lifestyle based company, Joanne’s thoughts come at you like a ‘best friend’ who’s not afraid to keep you grounded. In our case, Joanne’s perspective has allowed us to meet the changing needs of our customers over the years in a relevant and authentic way. The Gender Intelligent Retailer pushes the right buttons and creates dynamic conversations that make valuable differences in the retail shopping experience.”
Kerri Molinaro, President, IKEA Canada
“Joanne has done it again...empowering not only retailers, but consumers, employers and employees with market insight we need to know, and in many cases, should have known by now. Her research and analysis is filled with practical examples that will be an eye-opening read for businesses wondering why they aren’t connecting with the influential female consumer. The Gender Intelligent Retailer is a recipe for success.”
Mark Kelley, CBC News, The National
“Joanne Thomas Yaccato has done us all a big favour.The Gender Intelligent Retailershows us the ‘real’ world of women consumers. By helping to open our eyes to the world we live in, the book opens the doors of opportunity. It is often difficult for old institutions first to recognize and then to react to our changed and changing demands as a society. Joanne and Sean help us see and then navigate the new world with sound insights and an eye that sees our follies and then focuses on a better way to meet the demands of the future.”
Premier Gordon Campbell, Province of British Columbia
“Once again Joanne Thomas Yaccato has hit the mark with her new book The Gender Intelligent Retailer! Following on the footsteps of her previous bestseller – The 80% Minority – Joanne and her retail partner, Sean McSweeney, continue to unlock the secrets of marketing to women in an intelligent, caring, and holistic manner. She finds a way to intertwine humorous stories, imaginative analogies, and real life examples with quantifiable and powerful advice.”
Diane J. Brisebois, President & CEO, Retail Council of Canada
About this product: Introducing the chemistry of essential oils, this work sets out to help students learn what they need to know of the subject in order to approach examinations with confidence, and provides beauticians and retailers with information on the fragrance area of cosmetic science.
About this product: By: Timothy Boe
www.eco-tects.com
The US banking calamity and subsequent credit freeze has left the entire Retail Industry struggling to walk in "wet sand." In a hotly contested Presidential election year, the only thing that everyone can agree on is that the new heir to the oval office will be inheriting problems of an historic magnitude. In the meantime, savvy retailers are using the slower interim to look at future ways to decrease their operating costs. They know that when the Retail Industry finally does begin to inch it's way forward again, the best informed will become those who will ascend most quickly to the top of the retail mountain and maintain the best chance of staying there.
One thing of which we may be sure is that the future will always remain uncertain. No matter how prescient we become...things will always turn out to be at least slightly different than we had planned. Nonetheless, looking at the range of possibilities, with death and taxes at one end of the spectrum, and winning the lottery at the other...we can rest assured that energy costs will rise and continue to do so. Accordingly, and with this as a reliable vantage point, cutting energy usage is a smart place to be starting from, in terms of plugging the leaks in future revenue streams.
In the quest for energy savings a lot of attention is being paid these days to considerations involving sustainable, or "green" design options. It's a very intriguing topic about which people either claim to know a great deal...or not much at all. To add additional interest to these deliberations is the fact that the sustainable design sciences are changing almost daily. The reason for this is that the demand for green alternatives has become so great that a significant amount of time and effort is currently being devoted to the research and discovery of new and improved products and methodologies aimed at reducing energy consumption.
The good/bad news in this context is that similar to buying a new flat screen TV...while the latest model represents a quantum leap from the past...next week it will be replaced with even better and cheaper technology. Nonetheless I don't see anyone these days clinging to their old black and white TV set, due to techno-phobia, or fear of technological change. In terms of energy consumption...new technology will pay for itself as it goes...even as it is eventually replaced by better and less expensive systems. This is where advanced knowledge provides a big advantage... intelligent sustainable planning anticipates and accommodates the future and the likely changes that will be revealed in it's wake.
Energy consumption, however, is only a small, albeit an important part in the quest for sustainability. Compelling conclusions from our top scientists have demonstrated that global weather patterns are rapidly changing, impacted largely by our built environment. We may be able to find a new way to knock 40% off of our annual energy costs, but what do we do if the frequency and unpredictability of weather occurrences continue to damage and even destroy real assets? The question now becomes one of basic viability...if weather related damages soar along with insurance premiums, subsequent "down time," and loss of customer loyalty...then what are the "true" costs resulting from our lack of global stewardship?
Happily the Retail Industry has been contemplating these very issues as chronicled in the very timely and recently published book..."The RetailGreen Agenda." Comprehensive in it's overall scope...beginning initially by looking back to the early days of the modern environmental movement, and then tracking it's progress right up to it's current implementation by the Retail Industry today...the "RGA" is an essential reference manual for those involved in Retail...no matter in what capacity. Loaded with enough statistics and technical data to keep architects and engineers smiling, the broader applications and reasons behind the conclusions are also presented by the author in such a manner as to remain relevant to readers from all segments of the Industry.
No stranger to retail, author Rudolph E. Milian, SCSM, SCMD is Senior Staff VP and Director of Professional Development Services for the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). Clearly intended as a comprehensive "how to" manual for the Retail Industry, Milian's access to industry data, as well as to retailers themselves has resulted in a chronicle of impressive depth and overall scope. Weaving in and out between observations of keen insight, broad overview and raw statistical data, the RGA at times mimics a docu-drama and at other times a statistical data-bank. Loaded with charts and graphs, the RGA also maintains an historical perspective and acknowledges the relevance of this particular time in the Retail Industry.
In following the impeccable logic presented in the RGA, it soon becomes obvious that it's premise is not being advanced as a current trend in retailing, but rather as an established direction for an entire industry. Numerous case studies are offered regarding the initial probes into green building and operating practices by some of the premier retailers in the global marketplace. Backed by an extensive amount of statistical data and quotes from industry leaders, Milian documents feedback from a movement that is reporting much promise and optimism for the future of retail.
These pioneering efforts by some of the giants of international retailing have cleared a path by cutting back the shroud of uncertainty with regard to new systems, programs and operating procedures to make retailing greener. In recognition that these advancements into the world of sustainability are also resulting in increased customer satisfaction, improved employee morale, expedited permitting and entitlements processing, financial incentives, enhanced relations with municipalities and an elevated platform for corporate social responsibility...the equation is one of the optimum win-win arrangement. Of further interest to the reader are the examples outlining smaller retailers that are also enjoying similar benefits on their own reduced scale of commerce.
Included in this well detailed and documented "road-map" to retail sustainability are numerous photographs adding "flesh" to the skeleton of sustainable practices for retailers and shopping centers. Featuring a host of images, all bases are covered with everything from areal views of successful green shopping centers, to cross sections through low-flow water closets. A nice balance of text and photography, even the more complex green technological advances are supported by easy to understand diagrams, flow charts, floor plans, pictures and graphs. Even the glossary provides enough data to get a newcomer to sustainability conversational after just a short study.
Clearly a "labor of love", author Rudolph E. Milian and ICSC have put together a "user's guide" to green retail practices that is obviously being sold as a public service to the industry. Retailing for $25 (ICSC member price), The RetailGreen Agenda represents more an investment into the time it will take to digest all the valuable information it contains, than it will the cost to purchase it. A valuable addition to any library...a "must read" for industry professionals, as well as for anyone who is interested in seeing how the transition to a green economy is taking shape. The RetailGreen Agenda provides us with a powerful tool with which to peer into the future and imagine what a Green Retail Industry is going to look like.
About the Author
Rudolph E. Milian, SCMD, SCSM is senior staff vice president of ICSC. He is responsible for all programs and services relating to professional education, certification, awards, periodicals and textbooks domestically and abroad. Prior to joining the ICSC staff, Milian was an executive with the Youngstown, Ohio-based DeBartolo Realty Corporation, a large public REIT that later merged with Simon Property Group. There he had corporate responsibilities over property and asset management and administration of companywide real estate taxes. Milian's shopping center career spans more than two decades, having previously held positions in on-site, regional, and corporate shopping center marketing and management as well as director of advertising for a retail chain. Milian has served on many professional committees and boards, including president of the Advertising Federation of Greater Miami, a large chapter of the American Advertising Federation, editorial advisor to the South Florida Business Journal and member of the advisory board of Youngstown State University College of Business. He also served on many ICSC volunteer positions prior to joining its staff management, including MAXI chairman, member of the CSM Committee, and state director for North Texas/Oklahoma and Ohio.
About the International Council of Shopping Centers
The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) is the trade association of the shopping center industry. Serving the shopping center industry since 1957, ICSC is a not-for-profit organization with more than 75,000 members in 100 countries worldwide. ICSC members include shopping center:
ICSC holds more than 250 meetings per year and provides a wide array of services and products for shopping center professionals, including publications and research data. For more information about ICSC, visit them online at: www.icsc.org.
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