The Power of Retail

I’ve been taking lots of architectural shots lately, but I didn’t even realize the trend until one of my flickr friends pointed it out to me in a comment. The thing is that I take photographs of interesting sights and objects so it all depends on what looks more appealing to you. At one time, it might just be flowers and fruits while at other times, it might be modern and abstract stuff. I really like this shot, since the light was quite magical, even though the shot is not perfect I think it has something different.

Enjoy!

Popularity: 3% [?]

With the slow economy, everyone is looking for a way to be stylish without spending too much money, and Steve & Barry’s might just be the answer. The store is the only place where you can find Sarah Jessica Parker’s Bitten line of clothing and is getting noticed after being featured on the Oprah show and in Glamour magazine. With 264 stores at present, this 23 year old retail chain does not spend any money on advertising and selects locations where rents are low, mostly under performing malls.

According to Howard Schacter, chief partnership officer for Steve & Barry’s, the company competes directly with Wal-Mart and several other discounters. It keeps its expenses low on everything besides the clothes as well, so there are no lavish offices and business trips are done using low budget fares. Says Schacter, “We look at 1,000 points along the production line and cut out the fat. We also are producing at a very, very high volume. But notice I did not talk about cutting back when it comes to the fabric or the cut. It’s about all the other aspects of the business.”

Popularity: 3% [?]

What is it about books that makes some people just melt? Some might react that way with chocolate or ice cream, but for me it’s books that are irresistible. Well, most of the time at least. I keep buying books, but can barely keep up with reading them. In fact, I have yet to read some books that I bought way back in 2003, novels not reference books. A lot of my books from 3-4 years back are hard cover and larger ones, so they’re not the easiest to carry them around. I often do a lot of reading while I am traveling and end up carrying smaller, lighter paperbacks with me, so these books usually get sidelined. In any way, with the way I keep buying books, I will at least be able to build up a nice well stocked library!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tesco’s Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has lots of reasons to celebrate. The company has been seeing a growing demand for its in-house brand of food which the company will be expanding to over 250 new products, such as ready meals, juices and teas, specialized yogurts and meats that are ready to be grilled, which sells for $9.99 and contains four sausages, four chicken thighs, four beef patties and four chicken drumsticks.

The company opened in November and has been gathering customer feedback from a variety of sources, including comment cards, surveys, online surveys etc on how to improve the shopping experience. It was thanks to this initiative that the company started accepting American Express credit cards, which has been widely appreciated by shoppers.

Customers have also commented on the ease of shopping at Fresh & Easy stores, with brighter signs making it easier to find products and read the information regarding the in-house brand.

According to Tim Mason, CEO of Fresh & Easy, “We developed Fresh & Easy by listening to what consumers wanted in a grocery market. We are delighted customers have responded so well to our own-brand foods. We know our popular ready meals — such as our mango chicken and beef lasagna — give families a great value alternative to take-out, and now there will be plenty more for customers to choose from.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Dockers has always been one of consumers favorite companies with a special connection with a wide audience range. Lately, this has been even more true, with the new Dockers contest which is reaching out to a new segment of customers. The Dockers Commercial Contest is a great way to get involved with your favorite casual wear company, by creating your own story about your pants and submitting it to the Dockers TV Commercial Contest.

Just imagine a day in the life of my favorite pants, my tan pair of capris, would be like. The weekend would be the most exciting time of the week when they would go out for a nice long al fresco brunch after which it would be a trip to the museum and a movie in the evening to finish off a nice relaxing day. A day in the life of my Dockers would be definitely chilled out and fun. It just goes with the territory, after all. There’s no doubt about it at all, that Dockers are some of the most comfortable pants available and with the newer more stylish options available, I’m sure Dockers are sure to find their way into everyone’s closets.

While they are not always the kind of stuff featured in fashion magazines, the universal opinion has always been that they are the most comfortable way to be dressed. The changing workplace also means that more and more people are able to wear them everyday instead of just casual fridays, as was the case earlier.

Popularity: 14% [?]

JCPenney is shaking things up! A couple of decades ago, you could only get old-fashioned clothes that even employees might not have bought. Walk into a store now, and you will be able to pick up the latest of styles for teenagers, along with stylish clothes for working women, lip gloss by Dior and Sephora cosmetics. Quite a change for a stogy old company!

While the company might still not be at the cutting edge of fashion, it has found its target market with great accuracy. For the average middle class women, between the ages of 35-54 having an annual income ranging between $35,000 and $100,000, this is ‘the’ store to shop at. For younger customers as well, there is lots in store at JCPenney, who will be introducing new labels for dorm room furnishings and a back-to-school wear line called Fabulosity designed by Kimora Lee Simmons.

The company has seen a setback with consumers cutting back on spending, but that has occurred across the board with all retailers. According to Steven Hoch, marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says that JCPenney’s current turnaround is a great success story of recent times. Adding that, “J.C. Penney had to retrench and reposition. It was long and painful. The stores are significantly smaller than they used to be. But it has succeeded in becoming a moderately priced department store that offers good value.”

J.C. Penney had planned to open 50 new stores nationally this year but has scaled back to 36. The company’s 2007 annual profit was $1.11 billion, down 3.5 percent from the $1.15 billion the stores earned in 2006. Yearly same-store sales were flat when compared with those of 2006. And company officials say they do not expect sales to pick up during the rest of this year.

“I don’t think I’ve seen an environment as unpredictable as the current environment,” said company Chief Executive Officer Myron “Mike” Ullman III at a meeting with investment analysts last month.Two things J.C. Penney won’t cut back on, officials said, are the development of new labels and customer service.

By year’s end, the stores are expected to roll out several new brands. J.C. Penney also has started a new “customer first” service program that, among other things, allows employees to drop whatever they are doing to assist customers who need help in finding what they came to buy.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Photographs are a great way to express creativity, as I have only recently learned. I am simply hooked on finding interesting subjects to photographs and figuring out how to create the perfect shot. Since I don’t know any of the technical stuff about photography, I rely simply on what looks good and what looks interesting. I also like photographs that tell as story and these days, a lot of my photographs are a pictorial telling of my life.

Here’s one I took in March, when I was on vacation, but only recently uploaded on to Flickr.

Popularity: 15% [?]

I like sleek automobile interiors, thing that look as if they were created to become an automobile part, nothing weird looking and stuff. One of the hottest and longest running car interior trends has been for wood paneling and some of the popular ones include these Chevy grills, if you have a Chevrolet, of course! Everyone dreams of what kind of car is their ultimate, and for many having wood work inside is really what matters. I’m more into a sleeker and simpler look, no leather for me either. Can you imagine just how hot it would get in this heat? To each his own, I suppose. If its your dream, you’re going to work towards it and get it ultimately, works and all!

Popularity: 15% [?]

All marketers want to be able to connect with the decision maker of the house and in most cases it is women and especially moms. When it comes to Gen Y moms, reaching out to them is not the same as what worked in earlier generations. According to research by Moxie Interactive, the way to target Gen Y moms is different. Based on their findings, moms born after 1978 are committed to using products that other generations have used, but have a smaller circle of friends and therefore put a lot of stock in what their peers have to say about a product or service. According to Joanna Sammartino, managing director of Moxie Interactive’s New York office, “They’ll respond to a recommendation from another parent much more favorably than a straightforward ad.”

Gen Y moms are more likely to use community features such as posting comments and asking questions about a product at parenting sites, instead of heading straight to the commerce section as older moms will do. How that translates for marketers is that they need to use a softer approach with this segment of customers, such as using blogs, and social networking sites to become more familiar to consumers and build brand awareness. Word of mouth publicity is a very vital tool for this generation of moms too.

Moxie, an interactive ad agency that works for such clients as Nestle, Coca-Cola and Maybelline, says that while Boomer moms tend to be less tech-proficient, they are willing to spend a surprising amount of time comparing prices, products and services–perhaps because they are more likely to have older kids who require less hands-on care.

“Marketers think mothers are just too busy to play casual games,” she says, but Moxie has found that plenty of moms are de-stressing with electronic games. “And they regard something like a marketer putting a brand name on checkers, for example, as a non-intrusive, non-marketing way to reach them.”

Popularity: 16% [?]

As fashion accessories go, eyeglasses are suddenly seeing quite an upswing in the way they are perceived. Maybe it is to do with several movies and sitcoms that feature stars wearing eyeglasses, or something else. Fashion is a cyclical machine and every few years they come back in a new form. The difference now is that you have the Internet to find stuff at great prices now, so you can be fashionable and stick with all the trends without breaking the bank. If you want to change your look then this is the easiest way to do it, and if you wear prescription glasses then this is a great time to get a fashionable new pair.

Popularity: 16% [?]