Make Room for the Masses

By Ron D. Maier

Holiday shoppers are piling in, anxious to find what they're looking for in time for the holidays. You may notice the urgency in their questions and demands. Your employees are probably also getting frustrated, being pulled in so many directions at once. It's important to focus on making room for your shoppers to comfortably take care of their business while keeping your employees happy and helpful. Take these retail design tips from our experts and adjust them to meet the needs of your boutique or retail store. We're confident that we can help you make the most of your store's holiday season.

1) First and foremost, let people know that they will have room to comfortably shop in your store by opening up the entryway. If your store has doors opening into a hallway, prop the doors open. Move a couple of garment racks outside of the door like a sidewalk sale. This will help you to make space, but it will also draw people in and show them that you have room for them to shop.

2) Keep the dressing rooms and checkout lines moving. Make sure that you are properly staffed every day of the week. If people see a long line they are very likely to put down whatever they were considering and walk out. People are very pressed for time when holiday shopping. Schedules are busy and there is a lot of shopping to do. Help people make a commitment to buy, even if you're busy. Hold items for them at the register. Have employees put their name on their items and put them behind the counter. Position tags so that they can be easily rung up. Make sure that everything is marked and ready to go.

3) Set up displays around the store that help people to quickly identify sale products, special promotions, or highly sought after merchandise. Use slatwall display panels and slatwall accessories to set up interesting and informative displays on the walls of your store. This will help you to not only communicate with your customers where things are, what items go together, and what all you carry, but also will help to save space on the sales floor. Slatwall for stores is the best way to make the most of small spaces. Take advantage of the vertical wall space in your retail store or boutique so that there is plenty of room for your staff and your customers to maneuver.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, slatwall display panels, and slatwall accessories. S & L Store Fixutres has the highest quality slatwall for retail stores. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

Internet Versus Brick and Mortar Retail Store Sales: How to Survive Both

By Lolo LaRue

The internet has changed our buying habits and there is no way to stop it. In fact, as the techno savvy raised children of today increase buying power ability with age there will be no escaping internet buying at any level. Currently, many of the older generations are still using their childhood habits and shop in stores and do not 'trust' the internet. But they are not loyal and they are also searching the web and realizing is not that hard to learn something new.

If we are going to purchase everything online, what will become of our retail sales stores? They are not going to last and we are already seeing the affect. Certain industries that carry "Need it Now" products will survive. Other industries where people take time and shop for products and need sales help and/or to touch and feel the quality are struggling. You may think they shouldn't be but they are for the following reasons.

1. Consumers are pretty wise. They shop locally and get the expertise, touch/feel it and then buy it cheaper online once they know what they want.

2. Internet shipping is very inexpensive and many times it's free.

3. Find a site not in your state and avoid paying any sales tax.

These three things lead to lost sales for the retail stores. Loyalty is losing over bottom line savings. The result is that businesses are closing, people are losing jobs which means they have to make sure to buy at the cheapest prices and the cycle continues. Retail stores employ the majority of population believe it or not. In our efforts to save 5-10% we are robbing ourselves out of our future as the economy continues to crash.

These industries can be saved and business can thrive again. However we need the help of the manufacturers. All they need to do is to hold the internet companies to a higher pricing standard. Manufacturers do tend to have Minimum Advertised Pricing Policies. The problem is that the policy applies to the internet and the retail store equally. In this case, the internet store continues to keep the competitive edge because they don't have to charge the customer sales tax. To change this, there should be two separate Pricing Policies. For example, an internet store can offer 10% off the list price, but the retail store can offer 20% off list prices. Now it makes sense for a consumer to go back to the store and get the expertise they need. I think CompUsa is a good example of this. You can usually get better prices if you go into the store. Therefore, I go into the store. The electronics industry really requires the local expertise and they have pretty much protected prices so they can thrive long term.

There are a few other things that manufacturers should do to protect their future. First, they really need to make all internet sites put their corporate name and address on the site. No different than a retail store. If they are a legitimate company, then what's the problem. Too often you just don't know who you are doing business with when you purchase online and you should. Second, they need to avoid opening accounts with people who run their business out of their bedrooms and don't offer very good phone support. Mandate that they have normal phone hours posted so customers can get help when they need it. This is no different than a retail store. Third, do not let wholesalers sell directly to the customers. If you cut out the retail stores, then their time in business is limited especially if the product is not a commodity. This type of devaluation of products is a short term solution to increase sales. It will come back to bite them in the end, whether 5 years or 10 years down the road.

The internet store is not the bad guy here. It's the few internet stores who are happy with a 10% margin and cuts prices and ruins the industry for everyone else. It adversely affects this country. Retail stores have more overhead and can never operate with a 10% margin. It takes more than that to stay in business.

It scares me to see the direction all this is going. The manufacturers have to be strong and lead the way for the rest us. Support your local businesses and be loyal to the people who help you whether an internet or retail store. Please don't always make it about price.

Lolo LaRue is a consultant in the Kitchen and Bath Industry. She is passionate about supporting products Made in the USA. Please visit http://www.sinksfaucetsandmore.com to see an example of a website with high standards. Please visit Renovation Resources when in Richmond, VA to see a Retail store with the same standards