myRetailer.ca

Is your business reaching the head of the household?

Mom and media usage in 2009

eMarketer report shows what Moms want from retailers

eMarketer Senior Analyst, Jeffrey Grau reported on Tuesday that “Moms want to do business with retailers that are respectful and responsive to their needs and concerns.”

The eMarketer report demonstrates the purchasing power of mothers and the impact they have on retailers.

“Moms are empowered consumers who head to the Web to meet their many product needs. With mothers controlling an estimated 80% of household spending, or $1.7 trillion a year, retailers must understand how women’s shopping behavior changes when they have children.”

Visit the eMarketer site for the full report

Leverage community excitement with promotions to drive traffic and sales

Alex Bilodeau brings home Gold. Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images from YSportsVancouver via Flickr

With the entire nation following and rooting for Canada’s athletes in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics right now (including my friend John), why not celebrate with them.

Once the games got started, Randall Leavitt, our managing partner in Fredericton had an idea. He thought it would be fun to celebrate with our customers every time Canada won gold at the Olympics. He suggested that we give away free slush drinks to all our customers the day after one of our athletes won gold. (more…)

Valuable edge from get-go

Website lists qualified vendors to get you started. As a Chartered Accountant, Adrian Isaacs found himself too often assisting small businesses with bankruptcies and insolvencies. But what he ultimately learned was that many entrepreneurs who were compelled to call on his services to tie up loose ends after failing had made some dire, yet common, mistakes.

Read Full Story (more…)

Examine your customer demographics and stock new inventory to attract and appeal

I spoke to a colleague of mine who is also in the garden centre industry. His family runs a very successful garden centre called Dutch Growers in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The amazing thing is that the fastest growing category for their business is women’s fashion, apparel, purses and jewellery. In a garden centre! And they’re not the only ones!

As you can imagine, this sparked a lot of great conversations among other garden centre owners. The topic of selling apparel and jewellery in a garden store was discussed and debated, with some believing that these product lines go too far away from a garden centre’s core business, plants and trees. (more…)

Enhance Customer Experience, Raise Prices and Increase Profitability

Take the Retailer’s Roadmap challenge and work your word of mouth advertising by enhancing your customer’s shopping experience in your store, and then increase profitability through strategically raising some of your prices.

If you provide the best shopping experience for your customers, then your customer satisfaction will go up, word of mouth will travel and you can justify higher prices.

The Retailer’s Roadmap Challenge is a 3 step challenge:

1. Decrease your overall advertising budget by 20%
   • Redirect your remaining budget mostly toward direct marketing campaigns.
2. Invest the savings into the shopping experience
   • Dollar for dollar, take the money you saved from your marketing budget and invest it into your people, your facilities and your merchandising in order to enhance your customer shopping experience. (more…)