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Top 10 back-to-school trends for
2010
By
Ellen Davis, VP and NRF
spokesperson
NRF's back-to-school and
back-to-college surveys were released several
weeks ago. The bottom line? There's good news,
and there's really good news: back-to-college
spending will remain unchanged (remember, it
stayed strong a year ago when the bottom fell
out pretty much everywhere else) and
back-to-school spending will bounce back to '08
levels. All told, spending for BTC and BTS will
bring in about $67 billion, once you add in our
new college categories of food, personal care
and gift cards.
While the overarching numbers
are always important, they only tell part of the
story. Here are some of the most interesting
trends and nuggets I found when digging through
the full report of data, provided by our
partners at BIGresearch.
#1:
Think K-12 is the big kahuna? Think
again. I'm all about the younger ones -
who isn't? But with this huge focus on
traditional back-to-school spending, we're kind
of missing the boat. For years, we've seen
college spending outpace that of younger
students and parents, though this group is
almost an afterthought among reporters,
analysts, and even some retailers. Why should we
be paying more attention? Here's a statistic
that will blow you away: Spending on
back-to-college merchandise ($45.8 billion) is
twice as high as spending on back to school
($21.4 billion). Memo for the future: Ignore the
post-high school crowd at your own peril -
they've got money to spend!
#2:
Don't discount dads! In retail, we're
always talking about women: how much they spend,
where they shop, ways to get their attention.
But when it comes to back-to-school spending
this year, dads are where the money is.
According to our survey, dads of children in
grades K-12 will spend $671 on clothing, shoes,
electronics and school supplies. (Moms, on the
flip side, will spend $545, or 25% less.) That's
good news for department stores, specialty
stores and online retailers, where dads are more
likely to shop. What's the reason? Could be that
dads are feeling a little more confident in the
economy, aren't planning to go all over town
looking for the best deal, or just have a harder
time saying no to their kids than moms. Whatever
the reason, an emphasis on dads this year could
pay off in a big way.
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Equipment
Maintenance
Defragment
your hard drives at least once a month.
This will keep your hard drive healthy and
prevent crashes. It will also help with
speed.
Never
unplug peripherals from the computer when it is
powered up.
Unplugging with the power on can short out the
connector socket or the motherboard.
The
only exception to this rule is if you know a
peripheral is "hot pluggable". If you do not
know what "hot pluggable" means then ignore this
exception.
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Prevent Fraud in Your Business
Forewarn would-be employees about
your background checks, verify résumé facts,
check references-and provide a way to report
unethical behavior
anonymously
Small
employers suffer the most the when it comes to
business fraud. Those with fewer than 1,000
employees lose an average of $150,000 per fraud
case, while larger companies lose $71,000,
according to the Association of Certified Fraud
Examiners. Ken Springer, a former special agent
in the FBI, has investigated hundreds of fraud
cases in small companies over the past 25 years.
Springer, 56, is founder and president of
Corporate Resolutions, a New York investigations
and consulting firm that examines, among other
things, misappropriation of assets, intellectual
property theft, and employee backgrounds for
businesses here and overseas. He spoke with
Bloomberg Businessweek's Lauren Hatch about the
types of fraud that are flourishing in small
businesses and what management can do to prevent
financial loss. Edited excerpts of their
conversation follow.
Lauren
Hatch: What is the most prevalent type of fraud
affecting small businesses
today?
Ken
Springer: I think the biggest fraud we
see is check tampering, at least, that's
probably the biggest way people get
hurt.
It's because no one's watching the
cookie jar. In the 19 years I've had this
company, we've done a lot of fraud
investigations at small to midsize businesses.
We've seen they don't want to spend the money to
put controls in place that bigger companies
have. For instance, some smaller companies don't
want to pay the money to have an annual audit,
but when you have an audit, there are checks and
balances so that people can't commit fraud as
easily. Some smaller companies also don't want
to spend money to do background checks on their
staff. If people did background checks on their
employees, a lot of problem employees would go
elsewhere.
Continue
Reading: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2010/sb20100723_
52977.htm
Source:
Bloomberg
BusinessWeek
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Advanced Retail Management Systems. When
you refer a retailer to us that participates in
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Price-Point
Politics
By ANNE
KADET
If
you live in Manhattan, what's a surefire way to
get a discount on your morning coffee at
Starbucks? Get up an hour early, take the A
train to downtown Brooklyn and voila, you'll see
savings on your large (I refuse to say "venti"!)
coffee. You'll also pay less than you would in
Manhattan for treats such as caffé latte and
lemon
poundcake.
Traveling
between boroughs is a good way to find different
prices on view for the same products at various
chain stores.
Manhattanites
have long taken the other-borough discount for
granted. Whether it's dinner, a pedicure or a
new pair of shoes, the price is dictated largely
by the shopkeeper's rent. Manhattan includes
some of the costliest retail space on the
planet, and when a merchant's paying $600 a
square foot on Fifth Avenue, he can't sell
doughnuts for the same price as the guy paying
$25 in Bay Ridge.
But costs aren't the
only factor that retailers consider when they
set prices-they also know that shoppers in
certain locations are simply wiling to pay more.
Turns out, a growing number of chain stores are
using sophisticated software to predict, store
by store and item by item, how demand responds
to changes in price. A retailer can calculate in
advance whether raising fruit prices in Store
504 will boost profits or produce a heap of
rotten bananas. It's a national trend-the
strategy has been adopted by about 10% of the
major chains, says Verlin Youd, senior VP at
retail-software provider SAP.
But the finagling is
easier to spot here in New York, where shoppers
frequent multiple locations within the same
chain. And surprisingly enough, it isn't always
Manhattanites who are paying top
dollar.
Starbucks is a prime
example. During the past year, the chain started
adjusting prices on a store-by-store basis,
based on demand for different products, says
Matthew DiFrisco, restaurant analyst for
Oppenheimer. That's why you'll see higher prices
for lattes and espressos in Midtown than in
Harlem, for example, and why muffins run an
extra 10 cents up in Marble Hill. (Starbucks
calls this "a strategic approach to pricing for
the benefit of both customers and
shareholders.") Meanwhile, the chain maintains
consistent pricing on high-profile items like
the small coffee, where a price hike could drive
frugal customers straight into the arms of
arch-rival Dunkin'. You'll pay $1.70 for a tall
Pike Place Roast, it seems, no matter what
location you
hit.
Continue
Reading: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870346730457538306
220539180.html?mod=dist_smartbrief
Source: The Wall
Street
Journal
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