Category: Retail

With temperatures already soaring in the UK, many shops and retailers will be wondering whether we are in store for another summer of 06. This renowned year saw recorded temperatures as high as 97.7oF in Wisley, Surrey and the two month period during June and July has gone down on record as the hottest summer since records began over 200 years ago.

If New York is anything of an example to the rest of the world, then retailers can benefit from periods of excessive heat, as consumers seek creative ways to escape the temperatures and resort to some retail therapy on their local high street and out of town retail parks.

And therein lies the issue. Consumers now expect to enjoy their shopping experiences in cool environments and in particular, the air curtain was designed to keep cool air in the stores and dowse the shopper in a refreshing wave as they enter a store.

However, it is estimated that the UKs high street stores waste 300million a year in energy costs to keep shoppers cool in summer and warm in winter, so how can retail bosses align this excessive waste with the demands of their consumers? Perhaps we can learn from our counterparts over the pond, given that they deal with a heat wave on an annual basis?

1. Have your existing, in-built air conditioning serviced well ahead of summer to make sure it is running efficiently. And if you are concerned about any mini-heat waves during downtime, then consider hiring portable air conditioning to cover the intervening period.

2. Have an emergency back-up plan in place if your air conditioning breaks down. Portable air conditioning companies can supply units that replicate the existing system and they will be able to act most efficiently if you put a contingency plan in place before an emergency strikes.

3. Plan ahead for busy periods within the retail outlet: if you are planning a sale, a new range or something similar you may choose to hire in portable air conditioning as extra capacity for key areas of the store, such as the changing rooms and till areas etc.

4. It is also common sense to have a contingency plan in place if temperatures spiral so high that your shop or retail outlet requires additional air conditioning.

5. When your air conditioning is in use – make sure you use it effectively by keeping doors and windows closed. It is a retail myth that propping the doors open may entice more consumers in to a shop. In fact New York has passed legislation actually banning many stores from leaving their doors open during the summer months. This not only helps reduce your carbon footprint and greenhouse emissions but will also reduce your energy bill. It has been estimated that stores that leave doors open waste around 20-25% of the air conditioning they produce.

6. Set the thermostat to a reasonable temperature. The Carbon Trust recommends that buildings do not need to dip below a temperature of 24 degrees Celsius but in the summer of 2010, some outlets were found to set their indoor temperature as much as 8 degrees less than outside, which is unnecessary.

7. Talk to employees about the most suitable temperature in your shop or retail outlet. If they are forced in to wearing their winter woollies to work during the summer months, then the air conditioning settings need a rethink.

When a heat wave hits, it can be tempting to hire the largest available air conditioning unit. However, it is always worth seeking guidance on the type and size of system for individual circumstances to both maximise the effective removal of hot air and avoid unnecessary operating costs. In particular, within a retail setting, it is necessary to consider the health and safety aspects of hiring portable air conditioning to ensure there is a suitable location away from the main areas of highest footfall.

Whilst some shoppers may momentarily appear to enjoy being engulfed in cool air, increasing numbers of consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and appreciate the need for shops to exercise restraint when temperatures start to rise.

In this tenth and final part of a series of articles about how to survive as a small retailer, I will summarize the main points from the articles and have a look at what the future holds.

Retailing is one of the toughest businesses there is. The reason is that, although trade may be steady, it is a low margin business. This means you work long and hard for little reward. You are in a market where the customers are very knowledgeable about the products they are buying and the have a preset idea of what range of price they are prepared to pay. You are in a business where “the big order” never comes. All you can do is grow your business steadily and hope that a superstore doesn’t open over the road and steal your customers. If you seriously struggling as a small retailer, the first thing to ask yourself is “am I ready for the fight?”. If you have doubts, it may be time to quit right now. On the other hand if you are up for it, by working to your strengths as a small retailer and by hanging in there, the rewards may be better than you imagined.

Some people bemoan the demise of small stores and blame the large chains for their downfall. Superficially this is true, but this is like Yahoo! blaming Google for its downfall (should it ever happen) or radio stations blaming television for losing audience and advertising revenue. I suspect that few of the people who want small stores kept as museums would be prepared to support them by buying goods from them if they are given the choice of better value for money in a chain store over the road. So get real. Forget blaming the opposition. You need to do this for yourself. You never know, you

may one day expand your business into a large chain yourself – and then the little guys may all blame you!

If you are struggling as a small retailer then the most obvious thing you need to do is to change what you do. Some changes may be low cost and easy, others may require you to invest in the business and will mean a lot of effort and commitment. The key thing is to compete with other stores by working

to your strengths. The greatest strength a small local retailer has is that it is small and local. Large chains cannot be small and, although an individual branch is local, it’s primary focus is to the company and not the community it serves. Large chains will never be good at buying local products. Fragmenting buying power from localities is a contradiction of the way large chains are structured. They buy in bulk for a large customer base spread over large areas – that is why their prices are competitive. On the other hand, a small retailer can forge links with local producers. There may be a factory down the road that makes toy cars (OK then, a factory down the road that imports and packs toy cars that are nowadays made in China). You may also have a local dairy that sends their milk to a large store chain but may be happy to sell you a few pints each day. Explore your locality – you may be surprised at what you discover, and the bargains that you can negotiate by going straight to the source rather than through a wholesaler. Offering your customers local products is a good way of demonstrating one of your greatest strengths and having your own unique selling point (USP). You may even be first in the queue for new product trials. This will give your store a very specific and potent USP.

The retail industry exemplifies the maxim, change is constant. Still, the approach of the industry towards emerging technology of cloud computing is somewhat baffling. Cloud computing, a paradigm shift after the client-server model break-through of the eighties, is starting to show up in every other business. Curious, retailing industry is clearly lagging behind. It happens when the practical applications of the technology can do wonders to the industry. The word ‘cloud’ in cloud computing is actually a metaphor used for internet. Using internet would have robbed the concept of its novelty.

Although everyone is familiar with information sharing through internet and worldwide web, performing all the operations of computing through the internet is not so familiar. Cloud computing exactly does the same. It shares information, software-applications and operating system-and infrastructure-hardware like servers and storage units – using internet. A revolutionary cloud computing model can avail high power computing to the customers who need to have only typical input/output infrastructure.

Software industry giants have already started providing their services on cloud. CRM of salesforce.com, office applications from Microsoft and Google and IBM enterprise solutions have already become popular. Sadly, retailing – one of the largest sectors of the economy – has not yet begun its experiences with cloud computing.

In the context of retail industry, cloud computing is particularly efficient in collection and analyses of huge volumes of sales data and in real time inventory management.

In retailing, points of sales generate large amounts of data each day. The sales data can be obtained through loyalty cards and discount coupons also. Most low and medium level retailers do not have the necessary resources to capture or utilize such enormous amounts of data. Cloud provider in retail can collect such data from sophisticated server networks connected to the supply chain to independent cash registers at family owned small stores and store it for the retailer. Such stored data may be accessed from anywhere, provided internet is accessible. A cloud computing provider can track performance of products in comparison to previous time periods. The cloud provider can identify the trend and seasonality component of each product, brand or category and identify and monitor the performance. Then it can provide analytical results to the retailers. The provider of the service can serve many retailers at the same time, without making each retailer do it individually for themselves.

The sales data collected from the point of sales is currently under-utilized. It is more due the incompatibility between volume of data and the processing power of the system. Such time consuming analyses fail to provide any useful insight in to customer behavior or trends in sales. The cloud provider can utilize high power computing resources and statistical models to analyse data in much shorter time. This is more so with to real-time analysis. Real-time analyses require huge capital expenditure and it incurs significant operating cost, often unaffordable to retailers.

A good cloud provider can easily help the retailer in understanding patterns and trends within large databases. It can be further utilized for creating analytical models, and to provide an edge to decision making. Thus retailers can increase their ability to forecast their customer’s behavior and plan accordingly. Retailers can then develop customer programs, marketing, merchandising and pricing strategies to attract more business. The cloud provider themselves design and provide such retailer specific plans.

Another important area of cloud application will be inventory management. Real time data and cloud architecture will largely reduce the problems like stock outs and overages. As well known, online retailers do not have inventory managed by themselves. Instead, it is done by the manufactures. Cloud computing can provide an efficient utilization of logistics, which will keep losses to the minimum in inventory management. What the online commerce does can be extended to whole of retail sector. Besides, as the cloud provider will be serving numerous retailers, they can very well manage difficult situations like stock unavailability. Cloud providers can provide valuable advises to retailers regarding product availability and back-up stock from forecasts. They can get realistic forecasts by analyzing huge amounts of data from numerous retailers. Thus retailers can develop a supply chain where the right product arrives at the right time.

Tier one retailers can save lot of expenditure in IT management, if they switch to cloud computing solutions. The complexity of keeping and managing individual systems can be avoided. Today large retailers struggle to keep tens of thousands of computers across hundreds of locations. The management of such a complex system causes enormous expenses for them. Such operations often cause poor decision making in their field of competency – retailing. Large expenses of management and administration of IT and networks can be reduced by simply switching over to a trusted cloud provider.

What is the difference between cloud computing and traditional model? Cloud computing has a number of advantages over the traditional software business in which retailers get licensed software installed in their systems. Here the retailers need not spend huge money on software licensing. They need not buy high end servers with high computing powers. There is no requirement of sophisticated storage units. The administration and networking of computers can be avoided. The pain of providing fire-wall and antivirus protection is avoided. Thus a there can be a significant reduction in investment as well as in operating costs.

One significant benefit for the cloud provider will be that of scale. Affordable solutions can be provided, considering the huge number of retailers in the industry. Most of the tasks to be performed by the provider will be of repetitive nature. Administration and management of databases can be easy due to centralization. The robustness of the whole system can also be ensured. Security and other reliability threats can be minimized due to the salient features of cloud architecture

The future of the cloud in retail starts with small retailers. Small retailers can effectively implement cloud solutions faster. Such solutions offer them significant cost reductions also. Any new venture in retail will also look for quick and easy implementation. An established cloud provider with a successful cloud model can provide quick and cheap solutions. The giants in retail industry may hesitate to adopt the cloud solution, considering the current maturity of the technology. With improvements in cloud applications as well as in internet technology, they will find it cost-effective to switch over. It is significant to note that innovations in most of the fields are taking place in the cloud computing model, not on traditional software business.

Retail cannot shy away from the emerging and powerful trend in the world of computing. With lots of cost-saving and time-saving measures, it will be inevitable that retail will adopt cloud computing once there evolve competent solutions.

Think about this: HOW MANY RETAILERS OR SMALL BUSINESSES IN YOUR TOWN SELL STUN GUNS AND PEPPER SPRAYS? Hmmmmm?

Not too many if your town is like most in the country.

That is one of the reasons why becoming an independent distributor of Self Defense Products virtually insures success. Establish a wholesale account today and be the first to market and sell Self Defense Products to retailers and small businesses in your town.

This home based business is fun too

Convenience stores, pawn shops, liquor stores, hardware stores, bowling alleys, independent drug stores, gun shops, motorcycle retailers and just about any place that draws retail traffic is a likely candidate to be a huge success.

You see the products are packaged for retail sales and practically sell themselves. Most people have heard of stun guns and pepper sprays but few have seen them up close.

These products are hard to find, high impulse, have great profit margins and are in great demand.

Identify stores to sell to and get an order. Residual income is a cinch for repeat orders. If you had only 20 stores and made $200 per store that is a nice income for most people. And you get to be your own boss and set your own hours.

You can do this full time or part time. We drop ship directly to you or your customer with your company name on the label. You can make hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a week.

The products are easy to sell and talk about.

There is no minimum investment other than $3.00 for a 32 page color catalog that you can use to take orders.

Once you get your catalog you can start ordering right away. How hard is that?

What are you waiting for?

Please note: stun guns and pepper sprays have restrictions in some cities and states.

Nowadays if furniture vendors want to keep their sales going they need to reduce their selling prices. There is so much competition out there for your dollar that it’s a must to attract more customers. Having said that, discount or cheap furniture does not necessarily mean quality is being compromised.

Cheap furniture can be purchased from outlets or from wholesalers ready to sell to the public by eliminating the retail middleman. This process obviously benefits the customer because of the money saved. Some of the warehouses and stores also have their own online stores that deal in discount furniture. Online stores constantly update their designs and product lines and make shopping for cheap furniture easier and faster.

If your home is located in a new development, you can try checking out the developer’s model home for discounted furniture. The furniture here may be a little worn, but it’s a great way of getting coordinated discount furniture sets.

Another great source for cheaper home and office furniture is the flea market. However, finding one may involve a lot of time and effort. You’ll also need to pay particular attention to the quality of the furniture piece. Some damage can easily be repaired but others are too pricey to fix and not worth your time and expense. Another option is thrift stores and garage sales. Again quality can be an issue and you’ll need to invest a lot of time trying to find a good discounted furniture product.

With all the options available for getting reduced furniture products, your best bet is still online sites. With less time commitment on your part and a guarantee of a certain level of quality, you’ll easily find good cheap furniture online. One of the best resources for customers is still Ebay. Here you’ll find discounted products all the time and if you’re not crazy about auctions, you have the option of finding “buy it now” products. In many cases you can also find vendors who provide free shipping within certain locations. Read the item details to see what’s applicable to you.