The Power of Retail

I’ve been reading the retail weekly news and I was surprised to see that sales for pet supplements has risen despite the slowing down of all sectors in retail. Other areas that have seen an increase in sales are fast food outlets and stores selling lower priced gifts. Even though there is a recession, people still spend on the little luxuries and pets are foremost on this list as they are treated as part of the family for most people. Trend watching has been going into overdrive lately, with a host of predictions as which sector is said to best weather the storm and which is likely come out of it first, but the latest quarterly results speak for themselves.

These days everything is on a herbal and organic streak! Almost every kind of food and medicine is now available as a herbal or organic variant, including these herbal appetite suppressant, which I found when searching for interesting examples to post here! I’m not sure if it really has any additional value or if it’s just a marketing gimmick, and my mind is more towards the latter, but who knows! When it comes to fresh fruit and vegetables, I’d rather buy local over organic, as the transport factor is where the product starts to deteriorate and by buying and consuming locally grown produce, one is sure to be eating healthier!

Wanted to post this before the weekend, or rather before you made plans for the weekend. Everyone’s always on the lookout for a good weekend break, and here are some free hotel rooms from Choice Hotels. Check out the full details on their site, but it definitely does not look like something that should be passed up. A lot of people have canceled their holidays due to the economic situation across the world, so if you’re getting a chance of a free stay then it’s something to be jumped at, right? And I’m sure lots of people will be doing just that!

At lean times for business, it is a good idea to sit and reconsider one’s marketing agenda. Often what happens in many companies is that the marketing plan is made only for the up times, and is often not able to handle slower market conditions and especially not geared for recessions. One of the ways to change things is to increase visitors to your website by upping the conversion rate optimization, which is essentially making use of every visitor, and making sure every visitor doesn’t just click out of your site, but stays to look, and hopefully converts into a sale. Most businesses are affected by the economic slowdown and so it makes sense to adjust the business plan and targeting strategy as well.

Abercrombie & Fitch has been known to hire people for its stores solely based on how they look and this policy is ruffling feathers once more. The brand has always hired people with the ‘abercrombie look‘ which is likely to be an illegal method and some say that the company could fact legal action. As long as the company does not discriminate on race or gender, it is all legal. According to Todd Corley, Abercrombie’s vice president of diversity and inclusion, the “face” issue is based more on the presentation of a person and not only on his or her face.

The ideal abercrombie sales worker is said to be “all American, clean, wholesome” essentially the “girl or boy next door” look. If you don’t meet this criteria, then you are sent to the stockroom and are not allowed to talk to customers at all. Staff is evaluated based on secret shoppers who ask questions like “Was the cashier attractive?” and so on.

“There’s no real problem to discriminate against ‘ugly’ people,” said Jahan Sagafi, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, the firm that represented the plaintiffs in the original diversity suit. “The problem is when you define beauty to incorporate white, which it essentially does at Abercrombie.”

Ms. Carmichael and Mr. Payne are both white and say they don’t expect legal or financial compensation. Instead, they believe their demotion signifies a disturbingly shallow mentality in youth-focused retail.

The job is “a cattle call and you are hired based on looks, not your ability to fold clothes or work with people,” Mr. Welch said.

The latest trend in the US is small things! US drivers are not only switching to smaller cars but also to smaller TVs. The shipments of LCD TVs saw a 52% rise which was mainly due to sale of smaller TVs in the 19, 22 and 32 inch screens. According to research firm DisplaySearch, there was a 28% increase in shipments of all types of televisions over the previous year.

Since the switch over to digital broadcasting is happening next year, many consumers have begun to upgrade their old TVs and have traded them in for smaller and more affordable versions. According to Paul Gagnon, of DisplaySearch, “We had expected a shift to moderate screen sizes, but we did not expect overall volumes to increase that much.”

The number one manufacturer of TVs continues to be Samsung, which holds a flat-panel TV market, with a 18.9% market share, rising from 14% in the first quarter. Sony is the second largest manufacturer of TVs and has a market share of 10.4% in the flat panel TVs market and 11.7% in the LCD market.

It has been found that consumers who regularly buy organic food products are significantly open to trying out new things than regular shoppers. The study conducted by Mindset Media and Nielsen Online, found that marketers of brands of organic products don’t necessarily have to target these customers in organic magazines or TV shows but can reach them across networks and websites, as they appeal to the open mindset of this segment of consumers.

According to Sarah Welch, COO and co-founder of Mindset Media, “Marketers that have organic products can certainly go offline and advertise in places like a yoga or green magazine. But niche print titles tend to reach 90[,000] or 100,000 people. When you start to understand that what makes someone interested in organics is a mindset–then you can reach millions of people with that mindset with a simple online buy.”

These days every second advertisement that I see in the newspaper, magazine or TV is to do with weight loss. You just cannot have an excuse if you’re trying to lose weight and have given up. There’s everything from drinking green tea remedies to the much stronger Ephedrasil Hardcore, which is supposed to make you lose a lot of weight. Very frankly, I do not know of anyone who has used it as yet, but I would be interested to find out what the success rate was and also what the side effects are. Like with every other weight loss of diet plan, one must get a check up from a physician before starting on a new plan, since it can be dangerous if your body is not up to it.

Kids love to be able to design their own clothes, and now a retailer has come up with the very same idea in a workable manner. Springwise reports that Fashionology LA, a Beverly Hills store is allowing its teen customers to design their own clothes, by selecting from a several designs as inspiration and then selecting what they would like to make of it, using the touch screen Design pads. They will also be able to select a mood suhc as Pop, Rock, Peace, Malibu or Juku, select the embellishments they would like to be on the garment and so on.

Once the design process is complete, you head to the U-Bar where an inhouse Fashionologist will use a heat press and add the design elements to the garment. Once ready, the customer can put on the garment and be photographed in it and if she agrees, the photo will be shown on the stores 70inch screen and also be emailed to her so she can share her new look with her friends. The cost of the process costs from USD 20-90 depending on what item you pick and how elaborate the design is.

One of the most popular marketing techniques is the use of promotional products such as clocks, pens, T-shirts, USB drives and so on. A company can make good headway creating promotional products with its logo to distribute on a trade show, seminar or other event as these things do make an impact. While they are quite a common approach to marketing, the trick is to use them with the right products, so that they fit the customer profile and can be used effectively and productively. These are especially great for the immediate local market area as they will make a direct connection to the business.