Home Wealth Project
Extensive Research On How To Build Wealth From The Comfort Of Your Own Home.
Cheery or Scroogey? Retail Worker Happiness
Dec 24th
Which retail workers are merry, jolly and happy to serve you this holiday season? PayScale.com asked retail workers at various major outlets to rate their levels of stress and satisfaction on the job and came up with a happiness score for each group. It turns out that some holiday workers like their retail gigs much more than others – and pay and benefits don’t always make the big difference.
View full post on Business Pundit
Research Roundup: Independent Contractors and Consumer Retail Spending
Dec 1st
Everybody loves lists — or at least, everybody who reads blogs, so we are told. I don’t do lists very often because it never seems that the information I write about fits well into the format. This month’s Research Roundup post breaks the mold.
Lists take up a lot of space, though, so I’m only going to give you two of them. On the other hand, they’re two good ones. Besides, it’s pleasant to offer you some research that is not all about how badly we small business owners are doing.
The Rise of the Independents
Ego fodder is always a good thing and a recently released study by MBO Partners documents and quantifies a whole slew of things I first wrote back in 2004 in my white paper The Entrepreneurial Economy.
The MBO study is all about independent contractors, and my only beef with this study at the moment is the way MBO seems to underestimate their numbers. MBO says there are 16 million independent contractors; the Census says there are more than 21 million nonemployer businesses.
Can anybody tell me what the difference is between a nonemployer business and an independent contractor? I didn’t think so.
In any event, here are MBO’s key findings:
- 75 percentof independent contractors say that doing something they love is more important than making a bucket of money;
- 74 percent of independent contractors say that making a difference in people’s lives through their work is more important than making a bucket of money;
- 79 percent of independent contractors say they are satisfied or highly satisfied with their work situation;
- 55 percent of independent contractors say it was a proactive choice rather than a case of not being able to find a traditional job that made them become indies;
- 63 percent say they will continue to work as independent contractors, while only 12 percent plan to grow into employer firms;
- Indies are spread across generations: Seniors (over 65) make up 10 percent of independent contractors, Baby Boomers (50-64) account for 30 percent of them, GenX (30-49) are the largest group, making up 48 percent of them; and Millennials are 12 percent of independent contractors;
- Independent contractors are most seriously challenged by uncertain income streams (56 percent), concerns about retirement (46 percent) and concerns about lack of job security (41 percent); and
- MBO predicts that the number of independent contractors will increase by 25 percent within the next two years.
Makes me eager to see what the nonemployer numbers do over the next couple of years.
‘Tis the Season for Ca-Ching
One of the nice things about research, data and numbers is that sometimes, in addition to telling you things about yourself and your peers, research tells you useful things about your customers.
If, for example, you are a retailer, then you don’t need me to tell you how critical this time of year is for your bottom line. And, as usual, there are all sorts of predictive numbers out there that you might find useful from our friends over at the National Retail Federation.
- The average shopper is expected to spend $704 this holiday season on gifts and related stuff;
- In November and December, retail sales are expected to post a reasonably healthy $465 billion;
- Overall, holiday retail sales are expected to increase this year by 2.8 percent over 2010 numbers;
- Half of all gift receivers say they would prefer to receive a gift card rather than a gift (so you might be helping yourself quite a bit by figuring out a way to approximate the handy-dandy gift card for your retail outfit);
- 152 million holiday shoppers are expected to visit stores and websites on Black Friday weekend;
- Expect more spending in so-called “discretionary” categories this holiday season, including home furnishings and decor, sporting goods and leisure items, personal care and beauty products, electronics and computer accessories, apparel, toys and food. (What’s left?)
- Americans plan to spend money this holiday season, but they don’t seem to want to go into hock to do it. Forty-four percent say they will use debit cards, 24 percent will use cash and 3 percent will use checks. Everybody else (29 percent) will use credit cards;
- Online holidays sales are expected to grow by around 15 percent this holiday season;
- In addition to all those gifts, the average holiday shopper is expected to spend $130 or so taking advantage of seasonal sales and promotions to buy things for themselves; and
- Retailers beware: The retail industry is expected to lose approximately $3.48 billion to return fraud.
Image from Dmitriy Shironosov/Shutterstock
Research Roundup: Independent Contractors and Consumer Retail Spending
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
A Guide To Start A Cell Phone Retail Business
Nov 11th
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A Guide To Start A Cell Phone Retail Business
Learn How to Gain Retail Customers for Life With “Reinventing The Wheel”
Jul 9th
Chris Zane, founder and president of Zane Cycles, offers a brilliant look at customer service and business growth through the tactics at a scrappy and innovative bicycle retailer. Reinventing the Wheel: The Science of Creating Lifetime Customers sounds a little more technically researched than it actually is. Yet Zane provides the right clues to the puzzle of building a retail organization and selecting the perfect elements to satisfy customers. The book caught my eye while browsing a Barnes & Noble shop, so I asked the publisher for a review copy.
Great Service Begins the Moment a Person Enters Your Store
To get into Reinventing The Wheel you have to understand the author. Chris Zane loved bikes and business at a young age. He has owned Zane’s bicycle shop since his teen years, and has grown it into one of the largest bicycle shops in the United States (it is also the largest Trek bike retailer in the world). He has won awards and has been featured in Harvard Business Review and Inc., among other publications.
How did he attain this visibility and success – over $15 million in annual revenue? Zane illustrates how providing unexpected service builds customer loyalty with a metaphor about a bowl of 400 quarters representing how much he’d spend on service to a customer. In his standard presentations he encourages the audience to take quarters from the bowl, watching the various amounts the audience members would take. Yet no one “takes the whole bowl”:
“The point is that when you as a customer are presented with more than what seems reasonable, like a bowl of 400 quarters, you will self-regulate …. By providing more service than what folks consider reasonable we can build trust and loyalty and remind them how hard we’re working on their behalf.”
Zane goes on to note how giveaways that cost his shop just $86 brought about 450 one-on-one interactions that “alleviated a bit of pain for customers and created a lasting memory while doing it.” He also notes what at stake for businesses that don’t live and die by the “quarter mantra:”
“As hard as it is to win a customer’s loyalty, and regardless of how big your bowl of quarters is, you can also lose that customer in a heartbeat if you and your employees ever turn on your autopilot.”
Retail Insights and Guerilla Marketing Muscle
Much as Bob Taylor gets into the fine points of guitar manufacturing in Guitar Lessons, Zane describe growth challenges he faced along the way, such as gaining corporate approval to sell Trek bicycles into the premium market. These stories provide useful insight into how a business owner transitions from a small operation to an advantageously organized provider of niche services and make moves beyond the hustle mode. Zane notes to a Trek rep how his job is easier, selling 100 bicycles in one call, where Zane must find 100 buyers for those bikes.
Zane explains how he upsets the competition in segments like “drive up the price tag on competition” in which he tried to recruit a competitor’s manager. He gives several examples of strategically outwitting the competition through guerrilla marketing to acquire new customers:
“My competitors didn’t understand that I had changed the rules of the game on them and that every time they thought they were matching me, they were actually falling further behind.”
Some of the game-changing tactics will sound overly competitive if you operate in an industry where “frenemy” relationships among service providers are the norm. But there’s understandable science behind the madness, like not competing on price. Zane makes much-touted concepts like customer service as a profit driver more real than any white paper could.
The last chapters touch upon people-oriented subjects such as employee selection and embracing customer diversity as good business. The last chapter, “Think Nationally, Act Locally,” sums up the previous chapters well and serves as a reminder of how working with customers locally can make a difference.
Who Will Benefit From Reinventing the Wheel?
The book contents best aids service businesses. The most prescriptive text will benefit thoughtful, aspirational business owners who know that a hustle mode is not sustainable beyond specific moments of sales growth. There is a lot of bravado mixed in with Zane’s suggestions, but daring to offer your customers the best is Zane’s overall point. I found the book a stimulating concoction of aggressive competition and customer-oriented focus that distinguishes it from other memoir/business books.
Reinventing the Wheel will show how reinventing your business for growth can be easy.
Learn How to Gain Retail Customers for Life With “Reinventing The Wheel”
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
The Blockbuster Retail Holiday Season of 2010 – Fluke, or Trend?
Jan 19th
There was a lot of nervousness going into the holiday season. Would shoppers finally come out and spend? The answer turned out to be a big “yes.”
Cautious forecasts such as the 3.3 percent predicted by the National Retail Federation were blown out by the reality — retail sales were nearly 6 percent higher in December than in December 2009.
The question is, was that a blip on the retail radar, or is the recovery finally arriving for retailers?
I’ll give you an anecdotal report that explains why I think it’s the start of something big.
I live on a small island with only 25,000 in population, which means restaurants are always struggling to stay in business. We just don’t have quite enough residents for many eateries to stay afloat.
Yet I took my family out to the new Japanese restaurant recently on a weekday night — and we couldn’t get in, because they were completely booked. I mean, jammed to the walls!
Another recent evening, we tried the new Northwest/locally sourced/organic dining emporium. They also were booked up.
Finally, this week, we tried a long-established waterfront bar and grill. It’ll be a half-hour for a table, we were told.
Three sold-out restaurants in a row, all on weeknights? I’ve never seen the like in 15 years of living here.
My gut says: Things are turning around. There’s a rule in retail that consumers can only sit on their wallets so long before clothes look worn, appliances break, and pent-up demand for new products starts driving consumption again.
I think that point has arrived.
The case for gloom
There is a body of more measured, national evidence for the idea that the holidays were merely a bright spot in what might continue to be a gloomy retail picture.
For instance, the Conference Board’s confidence index remains low, and declined in December.
Also, consumers’ savings continue to shrink. That could trigger another round of budget-cutting at kitchen tables across America.
So shoppers may have just gone in for a burst of retail therapy to brighten their winter days, and a crash could be ahead.
Do you think retail has bounced back, or were the holidays a fluke? Leave a comment and let us know.
View full post on Entrepreneur.com – Daily Dose
Fitness Resource Partners with soOlis.com for Retail Internet Marketing Strategy
Sep 18th
| Nashville, TN, September… partnered with soOlis.com for exclusive retail fitness internet marketing in Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, and Georgia. |
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View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Internet & Mobile Marketing Conference for Retail Jewelry Stores
Jul 22nd
| The Jeweler Website Advisory Group announces that registration is now open for the Second jWAG Live Event Conference on Internet & Mobile Marketing, to… |
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View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
How to Brainstorm Brilliant Marketing Ideas For Your Retail Business
Jul 7th
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No matter how big or how small your retail store, fresh marketing ideas will help you achieve the goals you have for the business. One way to… |
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View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Get Online: E-commerce Explodes While Store Retail Slowly Rebuilds
Jun 2nd
Apparently shoppers’ mouse-clicking fingers are recovering from the down economy faster than their legs: E-commerce is up sharply, while retail as a whole is just beginning to rise again.
E-commerce picked up sooner, too–research firm eMarketer reports ecommerce was up 15 percent in the last quarter of 2009, and up 14 percent in the first quarter this year. eMarketer is estimating ecommerce sales will be up nearly 13 percent for all of 2010. After two years of negative numbers, that’s a nice bump up.
For contrast, the International Council of Shopping Centers is forecasting brick-and-mortar retail will be up, oh, a big 3 percent or so. Which sector would you rather be in right now?
Online shopping is still just 4 percent of all retailing according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which I find sort of amazing since it seems to be all we hear about. But apparently, this little slice is the place to be right now. And it’s still substantial–nearly $39 billion in sales in the first quarter, Census reports. In the first quarter last year, online sales were closer to $34 billion.
This is particularly relevant news for small businesses because almost half of them still don’t even have a website, much less one that’s ecommerce enabled. If you’ve been thinking about exploring doing some online selling, now might be a great time to put that plan into action.
View full post on Entrepreneur.com – Daily Dose
