myRetailer.ca

Generate Cash Flow With Gift Cards

Do you generate enough cash to keep your business strong? How about using gift cards to help boost your cash position?

You hear the talk these days about the slow down in the economy and how many businesses are suffering. With sales down in some categories and some customers slow to pay, small businesses can find it tough to keep cash flow positive.

Here is a little trick I have used at times to generate cash in slower season. I run a promotion where we pre-sell gift cards for the upcoming summer season, and in turn, give a discount off today’s purchases.

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April 20 – 26

Retail sales edge higher in February

Canadian retail sales rose unexpectedly in February, led by home supplies, and food and beverage stores. Sales were up 0.2% during the month to $33.7-billion, Statistics Canada said Thursday.

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Atop a Toronto Hotel, more Urban Beekeeping

Last summer the Fairmont Royal York hotel installed a three-hive apiary 14 stories up above the streets of Toronto. Affectionately named the Honey Moon Suite, The Royal Sweet and The V.I.Bee Suite, the three hives are home to as many queens and their accompanying entourage of more than 10,000 other bees, each of whom forages for nectar in the hotel’s decade-old rooftop herb garden and on nearby Toronto Island.

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Lock in historic 1% loan rate now

Canada Revenue Agency recently caused excitement in the tax community when it set the prescribed interest rate for family income-splitting loans at a historic low of 1%.

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Key to survival is ‘mass customization’

As Canada’s manufacturing sector buckles under the pressures of recession, a contingent of young entrepreneurs at the helm of their own manufacturing businesses is thriving.

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How important is it to find and hire the best employees? Most Important.

Bradford Smart, author of Topgrading (the best book I’ve ever read on hiring), says to never hire an employee unless you are truly happy with how they interviewed and every single reference is glowing. Unless you’re 100% confident in your choice, he says that you should stay the course and keep searching. I have to say that I agree.

Recently I was hiring for an outside company sales position, a key position within our store. In our first round, we interviewed our top six candidates from the stack of resumes we had collected over two weeks, to no avail. After going through the interviews, both myself and my Managing Partner agreed that even though we had a couple of good candidates, the person we were looking for was not in that group, so we started over and kept looking. We simply refuse to settle for second best. I’d rather start over and continue the search, than settle for second best.

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Can you honestly say that you’ve never had a bad day at work in your life?

These words were said to me recently by a gentleman I know very well. He recently retired from a huge multinational corporation where he worked most of his life. He ran international divisions and was tasked with buying companies and leading divisions throughout Europe for his company.

Speaking about business one day, he uttered those words; “I never had a bad day at work in my life.”

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April 13-19

Marketing for small business: The basics can yield big results!

Producing results with small marketing budgets is tricky. Many don’t have the funds to invest in profitable campaigns, and they don’t have the time to manage them.  Frequently, they push marketing to the bottom of the pile when more urgent business concerns arise.

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Entrepreneurial success: Masters of one

It’s said that great companies focus on doing just one thing really well. Let these red-hot firms show you how to be a master in five key disciplines that produce big results.

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Retail 3.0: Keeping customers in an economic downturn

Local merchants have an advantage over the big guy: They intimately know their community, can closely monitor store traffic, form personal relationships with shoppers to gain insight and give discounts without corporate hierarchy.

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In search of the next new thing

Having others run the company plays to his creative strengths – and this trend spotter says getting older shouldn’t hurt the process

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There’s more to green IT than good public relations

Saving money is reason enough for companies big and small. Smaller businesses aren’t as conscious of the need to shut down unused equipment.

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Does Your Business Have to Be Registered?

Yes, in most cases. First, there’s the issue of the business name, and whether or not it has to be registered with your province. This depends on what form of business you’ve chosen for your business.

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Attention shoppers: beware of false eco-claims

More consumer products are claiming to be environmentally responsible, but nearly all of them make at least one claim that is unverifiable, according to a study released Wednesday.

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For the fortunate, there are bargains

Canadians not directly affected by the recession are taking advantage of one of its few upsides: deals

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