1) Engage the Senses. A store full of quality merchandise certainly helps drive foot traffic, but it also helps to engage the senses, so lights, sounds and even snacks may help. The buying experience then has an added entertainment factor. Stimulating a customer’s senses not only makes them more invested in the shopping experience, but may ensure a return visit, as they look to acquire the same experience over and over again.

2) Get The Message Out There. Many of your customers may be looking for a particular type of product, but there are also customers who are just browsing. This is where merchandising comes in. A well positioned salesperson or store helper can be placed throughout the store or near a particular display, to answer specific questions, or inquire about the customer’s interests, to steer them in the right direction. Presentation of shelves and displays plays a large part in perception. Are you doing all you can to entice customers at the point of purchase? Although merchandising displays are important, in-store marketing is more than product setup. In-store promotion can have an interactive feel as well, including staff presenting product demonstrations.

3) Stay Friendly. As always, be engaging, active and personable. Many customers buy local to be connected with their community, and the best way to grow that loyalty is by being friendly and helpful, and giving customers the knowledgeable guidance they won’t get at chain stores.

Final Round of Judging on “This is Retail” Finalists

Between March 5 and March 16, retail employees and business owners began submitting two-minute videos sharing their retail story, highlighting anything from the positive impact they’ve had on shoppers to how an initiative within the business has helped to generate new jobs and boost the economy. After careful review, the NRF announced on April 2 the 20 finalists chosen for a final round of judging. While this first lot of finalists were determined by prominent retail executives at NRF member companies, the final round of voting has been issued to the public, beginning April 3. Public viewing and voting for the Top 20 can be done at retailmeansjobs.com/vote. Contest finalists range from small business owners to vice presidents at national retail chains, and from wine shops to sporting goods retailers.

The selection process will continue through April, as the 20 finalists go head-to-head in a bracket-style tournament, narrowed down each week from 20 to 10 to five, and then the top three. Those casting their vote can vote up to 10 times a day per matchup. During NRF’s Washington Leadership Conference in May, the third place winner of $10,000, second place winner of $15,000, and first place winner of $25,000 will be announced. “The incredible stories we heard from small business owners and employees through this contest serve as a reminder that retail is at the heart of every community,” explains Shay. “While each of these finalists has their own story, they collectively demonstrate the opportunities in and power of retail, which supports 42 million U.S. jobs.”

For more information visit www.retailmeansjobs.com/contest.
Check out our Industry Headlines for more NRF related news, studies and contests.

Layaway Campaign Success

One of the most highly talked about programs of the season was Walmart’s campaign which began on Oct. 17 and was available only for purchases of $50 or more on electronics and toys. “Each item had to be worth at least $15, and shoppers had to pay a $5 initiation fee, place 10 percent down, and pay off the debt by Dec. 16 or face a $10 cancellation fee,” says news site, ABC15. The payoff was a 1.8 percent increase in Walmart’s U.S. sales in the fourth quarter, according to Thomson Reuters, the best performance in the last 10 quarters, most of which saw a decline. Reuters reporter, Jessica Wohl, writes, “A key component to Walmart’s success during the recent holiday season was the well publicized return of layaways. The plan was so popular that Walmart parked more than 3,000 trailers outside many U.S. stores, in order to hold toys and electronics until shoppers finished paying and picked them up.”

In an effort to make the shopping experience fun and affordable once again, retailers are listening to customer requests, innovating for convenience, and testing out new promotional tactics. And before any indies think such a tactic wouldn’t work for them, they have to first consider the fact that layaway programs are customizable from start and end date, to products available, to required down payments. A layaway program can be made to fit your store and your customers’ needs. Creating a layaway plan can be the best service your store offers, but according to J.D. Associates, there are a few things to think about:

1) Make sure your retail POS system can track those committed items, so you have them in stock when your customers pick up their layaway.

2) Get a deposit. A percentage of the purchase price is often charged.

3) Make sure you have terms (30, 60 or 90 days), with payments every week or bi-weekly.

4) Are there restrictions on what can be placed on layaway? Put everything in writing. It’s your layaway agreement, and it must be clear to you, your staff and the consumer.

5) Will you charge a non-refundable service fee?

6) If the layaway changes in any way, a cancellation fee can be charged.

7) No cash refunds should be given. Any returns should be converted to a gift card or store credit. Whatever you do, it should be easily tracked. That happens most effectively through a retail POS solution.

8) If you sell fine jewelry, you may want to extend the terms, as the items are far more expensive than most average inventory.

9) If you offer layaway as a convenience to your customers, promote it through in-store signage. You might also want to promote it on high-ticket items.

No one says your layaway plan needs to follow these guidelines or be a year round offer, but the word “layaway” has doubled in interest among U.S. shoppers, as they face the interest charges on their credit cards. Doubled interest might mean doubled sales.

Most retailers have more customer and market insight than they realize. And because they aren’t aware of it, many have not yet put it to work in their favor. Once gathered and analyzed, this information reveals what needs to be done and how to do it; it is essentially the blue print of all external forces that affect and influence your business (i.e., selling seasons, customers, sales channels, and competition). Content is the communication that results from this knowledge. Its mode of delivery is informed by the nature of the messaging and the original insight. Following are the types of insight that will help independent retailers close the communication gap with their customers in between visits:

Business and Customer Insight: A number of external and business-/customer-specific factors drive and affect your sales, and are therefore necessary to fully understanding how to create incremental sales. Insight from factors such as website analytics, CRM and CMS information, in-store and online sales performance, research, focus groups, and personal relationships with customers are the basic foundation on which a strategy should be devised.

Know Your Selling Seasons: It’s rarely as simple as tying your promotions to and planning your sales cycles around standard holidays and occasions such as, “Back to School,” “Christmas” or “The New Year.” Depending on what you sell and who you sell to, these events either affect you or don’t; their mere existence does not influence buyers. Knowing that you do great back to school business, but not a whole lot after that until Christmas, for instance, will help you determine selling and marketing platforms that will create spikes during those slow months. The goal being to smooth the gaps between your selling seasons.

Know Your Customers: Knowing your customers intimately will not only allow you to better meet their needs, it will give you the opportunity to enter their circles of influence. The latter is your least-cost opportunity to win new customers. How are you creating not just satisfied customers, but loyal, vocal customers who will actively communicate positively about you to their own networks? And how are you equipping them with the “tools” they need to spread the word in a way that will produce sales activity? Before that, though, you need to ensure that you keep your current customers happy. How much attention are you paying to those who shopped but didn’t buy, and those who purchased, but may not have actually found everything they were looking for?  Often, it’s what people, “wanted to” or, “didn’t buy” that tells you more about how to improve than what they did purchase.

Know Your Channels: How is your online store performing in comparison to your physical one(s)? How are online sales increasing the SKUs you carry and how is that affecting your bottom line? How do all of your channels communicate with one another, and how do you manage your stock?

Know Your Competition: Staying tuned in to the world around you helps you gain a keen understanding of other companies’ rhythms.  Don’t just loosely pay attention to what they’re doing, instead track patterns and trends you notice among a number of them. Write these down, and consider whether similar tactics make sense for your business. Be proactive in developing stronger, more timely product launches/promotions by understanding and anticipating what competitors are doing or will do.

Crown Partners’ CEO, Richard Hearn, launched and built Crown Partners on the idea that technology and marketing can work together to create transformational solutions. In the 10 years since he co-founded Crown Partners, Hearn has led the company to success year after year with its commitment to creating rapid, transformative growth for clients through digital eBusiness solutions.

1) Set up a Facebook Page for your business, providing a forum for sharing information, engaging customers and establishing a community. Visit the “Create a Page” link, located on the bottom of the web browser. The layout will be simple to follow. Remember to give the page a custom name and URL, and check the box at the bottom declaring that you are authorized to create a page on behalf of the business.

2) If you are already logged into Facebook, the page you create will be associated automatically with your Facebook profile. If you’re not logged in, you will either have to login to your account or create the page under a limited business account, by supplying an email address and password (navigation and management are harder using this option).

3) Make sure to read Facebook’s “Terms of Use” when exploring all options, to help with making the correct choice and prevent any serious violations.

4) Prepare for the future. Although it isn’t yet available for business pages, Facebook’s new graphical user interface, called Timeline, will be sure to offer new creative possibilities in personal branding and promotion. Featuring a large banner image with an inset portrait and a historical content layout, Timeline could offer new options to small business brands. As branding advice author, Dan Schawbel, suggests, “When Timeline becomes available for business pages, small business owners are well advised to get creative with the larger banner, using it to showcase employees or to highlight a milestone in the business’s history. Businesses should also have more room in the information section to talk about their mission, vision, and brand.”

You can use the page as a platform to publicize contests and giveaways, new product information, special offers and trustworthy brand news. In addition, while you are making the diligent effort to interact with your customers, how are you letting your customers interact with you? Duncan Southgate, director of global innovations at Millward Brown, a research firm, says the World Federation report shows that, “marketers’ gut instinct was right; people are open to engaging with brands.” Facebook’s newest features, “Recommend This Place,” and, “ Community Edit,” allow such interaction to occur.

Recommend This Place: Allows users to submit recommendations for your business. These recommendations are then published to the news feed and displayed to friends browsing your page, and the Recommendations From Friends module. This feature will draw users to the pages their friends prefer, as well as give users a social recommendation to Like the page, once there.

Community Edit: This feature is exactly what it sounds like. The community or other users are given the ability to share knowledge and edit information about Facebook Places (businesses like yours, or locations where users can “check in”). Users will now have the ability to add details about places, report duplicates, and complete empty data fields.

Retailers Invest in Real-time Research

The truth is online retailers are the ones who have better access to customer data, including how long a shopper lingers on one category or product page, what items receive the most clicks, and how each shopper came to access the online store. Analysis of this data then helps the online retailer decide which products to increase inventory on, what marketing channels have been successful, what items to start marking down, and more. However, with advanced biometric technology, brick and mortar merchants will no longer have to rely solely on their sales numbers at the end of each quarter, working on an immediate in-store marketing plan based on real-time research.

While some may perceive the approach of using hidden cameras as an intrusion of privacy, Bloomberg.com explains, “Since the 1970s, consumer behaviorists such as Paco Underhill have followed shoppers around stores and documented their behavior. By the 1980s, Underhill’s firm, Envirosell was using hidden cameras to observe shopper habits.” Retailers nowadays don’t have to hide cameras, as many customers expect to see them in stores to monitor shoplifting. If retailers use the cameras to track how people move around, how long they stand in front of displays, and which products they pick up, it is an added bonus and profitable data for the store owner.

Other technology perhaps not as familiar to consumers is facial recognition software. Bloomberg.com notes, “The software doesn’t identify a person, but it would give retailers a better handle on customer demographics at specific stores and help them gear promotions to age and gender.” For instance, the data collected from such software has begun to refute conventional wisdom, such as the notion that retailers often put high-margin merchandise near the store entrance, believing shoppers would more than likely take a look. Many do not.

Another technology providing retailers knowledge about their browsing costumer base are heat maps. Bloomberg.com explains, “The data is presented in two ways: a ‘heat map’ that assigns colors to stores depending on traffic, and an ‘affinity map’ that allows retailers to click on a store and determine the probability of a shopper who went there, visiting other stores in the mall.” While these maps are often applied to larger shopping venues such as malls and outlets, they could potentially be useful for in-store data research at smaller brick and mortars. The resulting data could help with product placement throughout the store.

Fox Business suggests a few new loyalty gestures that may excite your current customers, so much so that they bring in new business by telling all their friends:

1) Implement a customer loyalty program with a twist. Rather than providing a standard card with standard rewards to all customers, whether they’ve come to the store once, twice or one hundred times in the past year, create categories or a hierarchy system (e.g., gold, platinum, silver, copper). Each category is tied to specific benefits, and most importantly, the benefits are attained not only by the amount of money spent, but types of purchases made, referrals and years of loyalty.

2) Make your appreciation public. While everyone enjoys an attitude of appreciation and a personal thank you, they also like a little bit of the limelight. So, create an honor roll on one or all of your social sites. Your store is benefiting from the sales your customers provide, by making it all about them, your customers will feel as if they are the ones benefiting.

3) Let them know they are worth your personal time. Take time out of your schedule and write a handwritten note to thank your repeat customers for their patronage. In a world of automated responses, every personal touch you add to your thank you can go a long way. Customers are taking time out of their day to shop at your store, the least you can do is take a minute and recognize this.

Candace Canty, owner of an independent pet supply boutique in Chicago’s Southport Avenue shopping corridor, says, “You have to cater (the rewards) to your business,” as well as your customers. She continues to tell the Press of Atlantic City, “For our customers, dogs are part of their life, and we’re part of their routine. We’re their little community store.” And so, Canty felt it was only right to recognize both owners and their dogs. She hangs a portrait of each customer and their furry friend on her shop wall. While the recognition may not mean a frequent discount on supplies, customers still feel appreciated and Canty doesn’t have to worry about continual discounts negatively affecting her bottom line. Creative rewards help address a crucial challenge: how to keep customers without promising

Layaway Success in the News

In an effort to make the shopping experience fun and affordable once again, retailers are listening to customer requests, innovating for convenience, and testing out new promotional tactics. And before any indies think such a tactic wouldn’t work for them, they have to first consider the fact that layaway programs are customizable, from start and end date, to products available, to required down payments. A layaway program can be made to fit your store and your customers’ needs.

And if that isn’t enough to promote a little research on the topic of layaways, recent news of the competition’s fourth quarter may have you think twice. Analysts, on average, expect Walmart U.S. sales rose 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, the best performance in the last 10 quarters most of which saw a decline. As Reuters reporter, Jessica Wohl, writes, “A key component to Walmart’s success during the recent holiday season was the well-publicized return of layaways. The plan was so popular that Walmart parked more than 3,000 trailers outside many U.S. stores in order to hold toys and electronics until shoppers finished paying and picked them up.”

No one says your layaway plan needs to follow these structures or be a year round offer, but the word “layaway” has doubled in interest among U.S. shoppers, as they face the interest charges on their credit cards. Doubled interest might mean doubled sales.

Click here to find out about the other factors leading to Walmart’s turnaround.

Check out our News section for other big box retail news that may help you stay ahead of the competition.

The appeal of live blogging is easy to understand. Retailers hosting events (i.e., sales, charity events, holiday specials) want to make the most of them, which can now include sharing the experience online. This marketing strategy offers an opportunity to position your company as an engaging thought leader, a valued resource, and a fun, lively place to shop. Giving people a peek behind the scenes can also result in some highly coveted earned media coverage.

Live blogging may also be easier than you think. There are great tools out there that make things easy to set up. Software platforms like CoverItLive and ScribbleLive allow for an online experience that replicates the interactive experience of a panel Q&A or roundtable discussion, and most options are inexpensive or free. Blogging content management systems like WordPress often include plug-ins that allow for speedy blogging during an event as well. And of course, there’s also the option of simply using Twitter.

Live blogging can take place over the course of a short, one time only event, or it can be an essential part of a larger happening. One great example on the grander scale was Chicago Ideas Week, held in October 2011. The seven day event was designed to bring together the best and brightest minds from around the world. On Twitter, search for the #CIW11 hashtag resulted in scores of tweets about the discussions occurring simultaneously all over town. All it took was the creation of a hashtag and a little encouragement on Twitter to get users talking about it.

While live blogging can be an effective, cost efficient way to extend influence in social spaces, efforts should be managed with care. Recognizing the considerable marketing potential of live blogging and tweeting events, brand managers are often tempted to jump in without considering a few essentials: tactics, strategy and logistics. Consider the following factors to successfully harness the brand building power of live blogging, become a thought leader and generate lots of media attention:

1) Staff appropriately. Active engagement depends on having the right kind of person behind a brand’s social media presence. Your brand’s “Wizard of Oz” should be enthusiastic, knowledgeable and have a penchant for detail. People want to engage with and listen to brands with personality, and whose interests are perceived to be in line with their own. Small business owners, sometimes you are the best for the job! After all, who knows your business better than you do?

2) Promote. Publicize that your brand will be attending and live tweeting an event via your social channels and website(s) leading up to the event, including regular reminders as the event approaches. Don’t forget to follow up with an in-depth blog post for those who missed it live.

3) Plan ahead. Ensure you’ll have reliable technology in place no matter where you’ll be live blogging from, including access to steady WiFi or 3G service if needed.

4) Mix it up. Include photos, direct quotes from customers, and even a short video in your coverage. It will make the audience feel more connected than merely following a stream of text.

5) Feel the flow. All things in moderation, social media included. Keep your posts concise, share only the most important parts of the event, and leave readers wanting more (perhaps persuading them to drop by the store). Make an outline of important happenings at the event beforehand, to keep you on track. Most importantly, listen to feedback from your followers for future live blogging events.

Jacqueline Zenn is Social Media Strategist for SociaLogic, a social media marketing agency in Chicago.

1) Wall Decals and Graphics. Wall decals can transform a space from boring to impressive. Consider the merchandising possibilities for placing goods on a giant image; sell more sleeping bags with a beautiful outdoor scene, more guitars with a picture of a raging arena crowd, or more basketball shoes with intense dunking imagery.

2) Floor Decals and Graphics. Floor graphics can serve two important purposes: promoting a message or providing helpful directions. Place messaging for a sale or special event underfoot, and it will be hard to ignore once it catches a customer’s peripheral vision. Color-coded lines or section numbers on the ground provide direction and free up wall space for other messages. Floor graphics are safe, durable and removable.

3) Window Decals and Graphics. Window decals allow you to use more of the customer-facing real estate available in many places. Consider vinyl decals for seasonal messaging instead of messy paint jobs.

4) Digital Signage. Digital signage is the ultimate long-term signage investment. There is an up-front cost for the display unit and software to manage the content, but over time it saves money and time in printing and re-printing materials. Digital signage is dynamic and easy to change, making it ideal for places that frequently change messages. There are many options available, from single units that run on flash drives to thousands of screens with content managed through a central location.

5) Go Green with Solar Powered Signs. Solar powered signs help save money and the earth. Installing solar power cells and a battery on an exterior sign allows it to use natural resources rather than electricity. Advances in technology have made these units smaller and less noticeable. A solar power unit can keep your sign illuminated 24 hours a day, or it can be programmed to turn on and off with business hours.

Drue Townsend is the Senior VP of Marketing for FASTSIGNS® International, Inc, a visual communications services provider with more than 530 locations around the world.