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Retail Results Improve but Consumers
Still Wary
By Brad
Dorfman
CHICAGO (Reuters) - For retailers that
sell everything from toilet paper to
refrigerators, 2010 may be more about winning
sales from competitors than about getting
consumers to buy a lot more of their
merchandise.
Discounters like Target Corp and Sears
Holdings Corp's Kmart stores posted improved
sales performances on Tuesday, while home
improvement retailer Home Depot Inc and
department store chain Macy's also forecast
better sales in 2010.
Many of them saw demand pick up for items
that sat out the recession on store shelves, but
cautioned investors that they don't expect a
huge improvement in sales trends this year while
unemployment remains high.
"You are going to see these times where
you have consumer explosions, where business
will pick up for five or six days, but then they
are going to go down again to lower levels,"
said Britt Beemer, founder of America's Research
Group, which monitors consumer
sentiment.
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Tech Tips
Maintenance Tip: System Diagnostic
Tool
The Retail Pro™
System Diagnostics Tool is used to diagnose and
troubleshoot system and software problems. You
can quickly and easily generate a diagnostic
report containing a detailed analysis of system
hardware, RTI software, and configuration
settings. If necessary, the report can be
printed and sent to Technical Support to aid in
the identification and correction of a problem.
Reports can be saved, printed, and optionally
polled to the Main
station. |
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What is in-store slack? Consumers
often plan for unplanned
purchases
Those unplanned grocery purchases may not
be so unplanned after all. According to a new
study in the Journal of Consumer Research,
shoppers often expect to buy a certain number of
unplanned items, and most have a pretty good
idea of how much they'll spend on them.
Authors Karen M. Stilley, Jeffrey Inman
(both University of Pittsburgh), and Kirk L.
Wakefield (Baylor University) say that consumers
have spending expectations for grocery shopping
trips, called mental budgets, and those budgets
typically leave room for unplanned purchases.
The authors call this "in-store slack."
The researchers conducted a field study at
several grocery stores in Texas. They asked
shoppers what items they planned to purchase,
how much they expected to spend on the planned
items, and how much they expected to spend on
the total trip. After shopping, participants
provided their receipts and answered questions
about themselves and the experience. More than
three-fourths of the participants included room
for unplanned purchases.
"Shoppers in the study indicated that
they employ this strategy both because they
anticipate 'forgotten needs' as well as because
they realize that they will encounter 'unplanned
wants' -- with some respondents even explicitly
indicating that they expected to make impulse
purchases," the authors write. Consistent with
prior studies, the shoppers were remarkably
accurate when predicting how much they would
spend. The average budget deviation (actual
spending minus planned spending) was only
$0.47.
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Retail
Spotlight
SOL ... store of lingerie,
Denver's premiere lingerie boutique has been
providing the finest products and exceptional
customer service for the past nine years.
Providing professional bra fittings is the
backbone of this Cherry Creek North landmark,
and it is owned and operated by Cindy Johnson
and Jeanie Peterson. These sisters credit the
success of SOL to the collaboration of niche
marketing, complementary talents and a passion
for customer service.
One of the tools that the SOL
uses in their success is Retail Pro. SOL opened
its doors nine years ago with Retail Pro Version
6.51 and they recently upgraded to Version 8.51.
The upgrade has enhanced their already existing
business practice of tracking customer sales.
According to Janelle Kenny,
Marketing Director, SOL is very passionate about
tracking customer sales, preferences and every
contact or conversation with a client. With
Retail Pro Version 8.51, they have customized
the customer records to track favorites,
anniversaries, customer notes and have set up
alerts of product availability. The combination
of customer tracking and the extensive reporting
capabilities continue to make Retail Pro an
important tool for SOL's staff of professional
sales consultants.
SOL's expertise
in bra fitting and their staffs' passion and
enthusiasm for what they do make SOL a
destination shop in Cherry Creek North. Their
website can be viewed at
www.SOLlingerie.com
Advanced Retail
Management Systems has teamed up with 2B
Solutions to provide you with a complete mobile
inventory and store management solution.
Join a live web conference demonstration, led by
one of our product experts and learn about the
2B-Inventory solution for Microsoft RMS.
The 2B-Inventory solution allows for wireless or
batch processing and is designed for retailers
of all sizes who want the flexibility of using a
hand-held device with a barcode scanner to
manage their store and inventory from one easy
to use mobile application. 2B-Inventory
will improve efficiency, accuracy and customer
service by providing you with access to
inventory and customer data wherever you
are!
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13 Tactics to Make Social Media
Work Harder
By Heidi Cohen,
ClickZ
last year's exponential growth of
Facebook and Twitter, marketers accept that
social media is a requisite element of any
integrated marketing strategy. But social media
is new and in some ways different from
traditional media. The challenge is leveraging
social media effectively to build your prospect
list and customer base, drive sales, and develop
customer
advocates.
While marketers intuitively understand
this, many need to use some fresh tactics to
help build a social media marketing plan that
achieves these goals. Here are 13 actionable
tactics:
1.
Understand how and why members of your target
market use social media. As with any marketing
plan, it's critical to know your target audience
so you can develop properly tailored content and
communications to meet their needs. Here are
three factors to consider to better understand
why they participate in social
media:
- People want to connect with people who have
similar interests to socialize.
- People are looking to expand their network
of relationships, especially in situations where
they need a personal referral.
- People use social media as a search filter
to get input from trusted sources.
2. Develop
content that meets consumers' needs and
interests. This should go beyond just
broadcasting some offer. You should limit
promotions to one out of 12 messages at most.
Specifically, provide information that fulfills
customers' and social media participants' needs.
Remember, with social media, your audience is
broader than your target market. Consider the
following types of content and
information:
- Provides product support and/or how-to
information. This is particularly useful to
encourage purchase (for example, recipes) or to
provide additional instructions for
post-purchase.
- Relates to consumers' hobbies and personal
interests. Also, consider targeted communities
like Ravelry and Dogster.
- Provides humor, because everyone likes to be
entertained.
- Acts as a communication channel to aggregate
relevant news, announce meetings,
etc.
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Tell another retail store that is
looking for a Point of Sale system about
Advanced Retail Management Systems. When
you refer a retailer to us that participates in
a 1 hour web presentation for Retail Pro,
CounterPoint or Microsoft RMS, we will send you
$100 - it's that simple!
Register
your referral today. Call Susie Carmen
today at (303) 738-1800 Ext 357
or E-mail her at susie.carmen@armsys.com
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