myRetailer.ca

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…)

A Smart Business Builds Loyal Customer Relationships With Loving Customer Service

A great friend of mine, Jim Gilbert, owner of Jim Gilbert’s Wheels and Deals, is known all throughout Atlantic Canada as “Canada’s Huggable Car Dealer”. Jim and his staff really do have a love affair with their customers. Stop by his outlet anytime and it’s not uncommon at all to see hugs being given out.

Over the years, Jim has created a brand as being Canada’s Huggable Car Dealer. It’s what he and his company are known for. They not only talk about it in their print, radio and television advertising, they actually live it each and every day. (more…)

Business Owners – Your business will benefit from time spent on the sales floor and in your office

I recently spoke to a group of independent toy store owners at the NETS (Neighbourhood Toys Stores of Canada) annual conference in Toronto. During the Q&A part of the presentation, one of the attendees asked about my guideline for time spent working in the office and on your business, versus the amount of time spent working on the floor and in your business.

The best way to answer that is that there really is no set rule that you should be striving for. You don’t need to strive for a 50:50 ratio of time spent in the office to on the floor. In order to run and grow a business property, you need time in both areas, and it can really fluctuate, depending on the season, time of week, etc.

It should be the goal of any business owner to have staffing, systems and processes in place so that they can be (almost) completely independent from having to work on the floor. I suggest that your goal should be to have it so that you actually never really have to work the floor. You should do it regularly to stay connected to your customers, your community and your front line staff. However, you should always have the freedom to walk away from the floor at any time you feel it’s beneficial for you to step back, and work on your business instead of being forced to be on the floor working in your business. (more…)

Choose Your Market – Choose Your Competition

Is your business a sexy one? Does your market attract a lot of people? Is your industry easy to break into? If so, then be ready for lots of difficult competition. 

I heard a speaker a couple years ago at The Retail Experience, an industry education series put on by Green Profit Magazine (a division of Ball Publishing). He was part of a panel discussion about profitability in the garden centre industry. He mentioned something in passing that really got me thinking. When asked about profitability in the industry, he stated something to the effect that; “Hey, you guys chose the horticulture industry. No one gets rich in horticulture.” 

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Feedback from customers can be invaluable, and customers are usually more than willing to tell you just how you’re doing.

You never want to lose touch with your customers. Here’s a quick survey that you can use when soliciting feedback from your customers.

 We’ve recently implemented mandatory customer calls that must be performed each week by our managers as well as myself. We built a simple survey, using SurveyMonkey.com’s free online service (free version has a 10 question limit). Each one of our managers has to call at least two customers each week and fill out the online survey with the feedback they receive.  Below is the format and questions we use. 

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