Anyone can start a retail business. Two words . . . Lemonade Stand! Am I right? All retail business is pretty simple, it’s exactly like your childhood project, just scaled up. Open up for business with a popular product, in a location with some traffic and charge a fair price, badda-bing-badda-boom. Let’s analyse a bit, let’s see, rent – zero, … Read More
The Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, WA is famous for WOWing people. This is the fish market that is famous for throwing fish. It’s a little bit of theatre and a must do on most Seattle visitors’ itineraries. This is a company worth emulating and it is easy to learn from John Yokoyama’s great company. He and long time business coach … Read More
I will start with what I consider a missed opportunity. A young woman, let’s call her Stephanie, has drawn a name for a company gift exchange. The individual she draws if British so Stephanie decides to put together a gift basket and include some English tea. She goes to a shop for the tea, and after she gets it home … Read More
One of my top ten favorite business books is “Customers for Life” by Dallas car dealer Carl Sewell. He’s one of the business owners I respect because he understand Retail DNA. I will refer to this book from time to time to discuss lessons for all of us in retail. For today’s post I will just share two ideas from Sewell. The first comes … Read More
In the past I had a client that had what I think is a brilliant philosophy about her business. First let me tell you a bit about Bev. She told me she started selling teas and coffees at flea markets. In time she and her family grew the company to have two locations in her market place selling top quality kitchen accessories. … Read More
This is the first in a series of posts on what I like to refer to as Retail DNA. This is a new category and something I will write on from time to time. Some owners of retail businesses seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to running their business. They approach things differently. They don’t need to … Read More
It is important in business to know what your competition is doing and anticipate how it might affect your business. A key strategy is to Zag when everyone else is Zigging. Here is one of my favorite examples. In clothing retail, most businesses concentrate on their change rooms as a vulnerable point with respect to theft. To minimize theft they … Read More