Read about different ways of creating brand advocacy

This is a follow up to my last blog entry (see http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/10/see-how-converting-loyal-customers-into.html) where I looked at converting customers into loyal customers and then into brand advocates. Today's blog is concerned with different strategies for enacting this conversion. There are many different ways of doing this, and as a retailer you will have to find your own way but I'll look at some examples. It's all about creating that relationship with your customers that transform the way they feel about you and how they shop with you.

Loyalty schemes

These have become more abundant in all forms of retail after the success of the Tesco Clubcard. Every coffee shop, large and small, will give you a free coffee after you buy 6 or 8 or 10 with them. But for me, a loyalty scheme should be about more than just trying to twist someone's arm to come back. Loyalty is one thing, but were looking at brand advocacy as the target here. The next step is to offer your loyal customers something that other customers can get. This can be one-off products that the rest of your customers can't buy, invites to exclusive events, the first chance to see new products or another exclusive that only your very best customers can get hold of. These customers will talk positively about you and some will become advocates.

Events

As I've mentioned above, having an event that gives exclusive content to your best customers creates brand advocacy. A new product launch, products that you just can't get anywhere else or additional benefits to chosen customers promotes advocacy. If you have a guest list of certain customers that gain access to these feature then you're creating the next level of customer. If your best customers get a free cup of tea, a personal shopper, somewhere to store their shopping whilst they browse or extended guarantees as a set of examples then they are more likely to return and to tell their friends,

Exclusives

As unintelligent retailers compete more on price and race to the bottom, the intelligent ones are looking onwards and upwards. Exclusives is a huge area to build your advantage over the competition. If you can sell something that no one else sells then the customers of that product will come to you. Of course this means that your sourcing of the product needs to become a focus. Either it's products you make yourself or you need to have an exclusivity conversation with your supplier. Having an exclusive could mean

• a short-term exclusive (for the first month)
• a different design or packaging of an existing product
• a different size to what is available elsewhere

If you then add a high level of customer service, an event or a loyalty scheme to add to your exclusive then you're heading down the road towards brand advocacy.

See how a diary of events can help you to plan for next year

I've been around and about shops over the last few weeks and there's a lot of shops trying to make the most of things in what's traditionally a bit of a lull between Back To School and Christmas.

There's a lot of retailers stocking rugby-related products with the World Cup being played presently. I shopped in Durham today and there's an ancillary Back To Uni trade here, as in many university towns and cities. And it's these events that I think can make the difference for independent retailers. I think that keeping a diary of events and how they affect your trade and your team can make a huge effect in how you react to these events in the future.

Planning a broad outline of the events and mini-events of the year will provide you with a framework of the year. You will need to ensure that you have prepared something to reflect these events - extra staff, stock that matches the event, dressing up the store, etc.

You'll need to take account of-

• Easter
• Christmas
• Hallowe'en
• Back to school
• Back to university
• New Year
• Mother's Day
• Father's Day
• Sports events (World Cups, Olympics, Wimbledon, etc)
• Valentines day
• Pay day weekends
• Local events

It's by having this set up and making notes of how it all affected you (including notes of what you did differently) that will give you a framework for these events next year.

You can try different things when approaching these events. There are many options, including-

• Changing opening hours
• Bringing more staff in
• Staging an in-store event
• Sending out email reminders to your mailing list
• Giving extra loyalty points or coinciding a sale with the event

It's by trying these different things and having notes to refer back to that you will start to build a picture of what works.

NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE BOUGHT ON THE HIGH STREET

Managing mavericks can be both difficult and rewarding

I found a very interesting article in the BBC website earlier this week and it reminds me of so many people I've worked with in retail-

'Sir Richard Branson freely admits that he would be a difficult employee for any boss to manage.

One of the UK's best-known and wealthiest entrepreneurs, he says that if he were a member of staff at another business, his line manager would have to "accept that I might not do things exactly as he'd like me to do them"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33609566

His argument is that the new ideas and drive that such mavericks bring to a business far outweigh the fact they may often be difficult to work with.'

The issue has always been that the maverick element in any worker has been so difficult to work with that they've ended up unappreciated and often in trouble. Not toeing the company line is always a dangerous path to tread - especially if you've got a line manager who's a stickler for the rules.

I've always said in large retail that if you're producing the results then nobody really cares how you do it. If you're suddenly not producing the results then it's ahead because you're not following the prescribed formula. But the reality doesn't fit the narrative. There will be parts of a mavericks performance in the good times that enables the store to perform and the team to achieve. It's down to a good manager to nurture this.

I worked with a guy once who was perfectly content to sit on a till for his entire shift day-in, day-out. I inherited him when I took over a failing store and he worked in his own way. He had been identified by the previous manager as part of the problem because he didn't follow the company line. He spoke informally (this was a petrol station and on his shift the customers were predominantly lorry drivers) and his whole persona was as a mate, not a server. But whatever you put in that till and asked him to sell - he sold. Everything from short-dated biscuits to cigarette lighters for every smoker and from dented tins of chocolates to doughnuts. Doughnuts were a big thing for this company and we were the tip sellers of doughnuts in their UK operation after we got the informal guy in on the act.

And all I had to do was nurture his talent, smooth some of the rougher edges but mostly - let him be himself. There was this disastrous attempt at restructure where I took him off the early morning shift and the lorry drivers and attempted to use his selling skills with the school-run mums in mid-afternoon. His informality rubbed them up the wrong way. But that was a short-lived experiment and he was soon back in the mornings selling away. From being seen as 'part of the problem' to actually being part of the solution wasn't a very long journey. Like most mavericks, he had a genuine sense of his own self-worth and was able to immediately switch back on his positive selling traits when he was encouraged to do so.

I know that we're looking at complete different levels from Richard Branson to 'guy in a petrol station' but the right talent nurtured in the right way becomes the leaders of tomorrow. Our seller is now an area manager and is able to see other mavericks in the network and identify with them.

What if I have mavericks in my organisation?

Is say that the first thing to understand us not to trample on them. Trying to form them into regular employees that fit nearly into the role that job descriptions define won't work for you or for them. There will be short-term disruption followed by the maverick leaving and possibly starting on their own. Spotting the individual talent that the maverick has is a large part if the journey. Then finding out how you can utilise this with as little disruption as possible to the rest of the team is the next step. Like our petrol guy, there may be areas where you put the maverick that don't work. Just don't be afraid to make the change again, having learnt the lesson from the previous placement.

I think that persevering with your maverick can have great long-term effects. The maverick can change the way you operates for the better, bring in new ideas and practices or bring out the best in their colleagues. Just understand that they're not trying to be difficult - it's just who they are.

How do you stop a downward spiral?

I've worked with retailers that have been going through a downward spiral and struggling to address it. By a downward spiral, I mean a drop in sales, that ends up with a cut in staffing, that in itself prompts a drop in sales and so on. There are other symptoms that usually go with the spiral, and they include-

*Low staff morale

*High staff turnover

*Low customer satisfaction

*Uncompleted tasks

*Low personal morale (the business owner)

Obviously this combination of factors can be pretty poisonous for a retail organisation - or any organisation for that matter.

Dealing with it at any given point in the timeline is difficult, but not being there every day with your team in the shop floor may well mean that you miss a lot of the warning signs above and end up dealing with it when it's festered for a while. Having to deal with it at this's the stage is much more difficult as you will now be dealing with some of the after-effects of the problem as well as the problem itself.

So, how do you stop the problems from getting any worse?

I've worked with single independent retailers and in national High Street chains and the first step in any of these organisations is to communicate effectively with your team. Spending time with the team on the shop floor may seem like an obvious solution but it definitely is the start of the process. Talking to your team in their everyday roles and everyday setting is a great place to start. And a large part of your communication technique here needs to be listening. You need to be able to find out the feelings of your team and there's no better place to do it. At the same time you are doing this, it's also the ideal place to communicate the plans for the organisation - to let your team know about the past changes and any changes to come. These open lines of communication change the way that the organisation and you are viewed by the team.

Of course, communication on its own won't be able to turn around morale and solve all the problems. In partnership with this, the team needs the feeling that things are turning around. If the store or company is feeling like it's still spiralling downwards, then even effective, positive communication may struggle to stem the negative feelings. At this point, every small victory needs to be celebrated. A new contract, a big sale, a particularly good piece of customer service - anything that has a positive feel to it. Celebrate these small wins with the person responsible and the whole team. This feeling of small positives will start to chip away at the previous negative vibes and start to get the team feeling better about themselves.

If you find yourself in this situation, either as the owner of a retailer or as part of the store management team of a larger retailer then I feel for you. But I think that by flowing the above steps, you can start to put positives in the eyes of your team and turn things around.

New financial year - new start

For many of you, a new financial year will have just started. Many UK retailers have a year that follows the financial and tax years, so how has it started? What have you done differently?

Every business needs a degree of regeneration and freshness at times and a new year with all it brings is a great time to do this.

If you are an individual retailer, or reading this as a store manager for a big corporate chain, there's something about this time of year that often brings out a void in communications between the top and the bottom. And this is the exact opposite of how it should happen. Now is the time to ramp up the communication levels and get your team inspired to start the new financial year with a bang. The worst thing to do here is to wait for the analysis of the last year to happen before you kick-start the plans and motivation for the new year. I've worked in many large High Street retailers where there is this void. The new year has started but things like staffing budgets, sales targets, etc have been formally set. It just doesn't work and often leaves the stores having a poor start to the year that takes time to catch back up. So how can this be avoided?

Keep last year in focus

It's important to base this year's plans and budgets based in the performance of the previous year. But waiting to analyse the results leave a gap in the year without real impetus. The way around this is to have a grip on how you are performing all year round, with a solid idea of how you'll finish the year. This allows you to plan forward and set up the incoming year.

Ensure continuity

Keep your plans for the new year ready to move straight in at the right point. Now some of this will be having an annual plan that somewhat resembles the long-term plan, as it should. The fact that your long-term business plan has been thought out and put in place should ensure that you are not lurching from one set of objectives to another just because an arbitrary line has been reached.

Communication is key

The plans must be communicated right through the organisation, from the directors to those in the shop floor in enthusiastic, complete terms. The way that this communication is delivered and received is paramount in its potential success. Having an organisation enthused by the direction the company is going in and all working towards the same agreed, understood goals will make a huge difference to your organisation.

A little change does no harm

I've never been a fan of change for the sale of change, but a little variety in how the company performs certain tasks or how a company goes about achieving certain objectives isn't always harmful. I'm still not advocating lurching from one set of objectives to another, but I think that retail can get monotonous, and changing the way you go about achieving your long-term goals can sometimes be beneficial to your team as a whole.

This all stems down to organisation - being on top of your figures and having structured long-term goals will always put you ahead of your less-organised rivals.

They say retail is detail - I often disagree

In my many years working in retail I've often heard the mantra retail is detail. Now in small local retailers, particularly when it's not a fast moving product or products, then this CAN be true - details can make a difference. In large retailers, discount retailers, supermarkets, corner shops, convenience stores, newspaper shops and the majority of clothing retailers then retail is not detail. In these case, retail is about being 90% at most-

90% of your customers served quickly

90% of your products available

90% of your customers asked if they have your loyalty card

90% staff attendance

And the list could go on.

So not very detailed then.

Don't be downhearted, though, because this 90% isn't an horrific figure. On one hand it's probably as much as your competition is managing. On the other hand it still gives room for improvement.

Now to get up towards 100% will take investment. Better wages to get better staff attendance, more staff to keep queues down, more staff and more stock holding to keep availability up, etc.

So the next step would be to ask the question -"what type of retailer do I want to be?"

One that keeps 90% of customers happy? Or do I want to spend a little more?

If you're a small, local, self-managed retailer then is suggest aiming for the 100%. It's being different that will get you noticed. It's really hard to try to compete on price, especially against national or multinational organisations that are bound to have much deeper pockets than you. Providing better service, a better experience at a higher price point is letting your customers know that you are different, you are better.

If you're a large multi-site retailer and you can't be at every site, every day, all day then 90% isn't a bad starting point. You can push your team on from there, starting with the store managers. Motivate them and watch this motivation filter down to the customer-facing team members.

How do you reward your high flyers?

It struck me again this week something that has come to me time and time again during my time in retail. It's a question of reward.

Now if you're an entrepreneur, a single shop owner (as I hope many if my readers are) then don't start to worth at the word reward. The reward I'm putting forward as the most valuable is one that costs you nothing but time.

It's the simple "well done" or "thank you" and it's worth it's weight in gold. I witnessed this week a team member being told that their work was "awesome" and their area "had never looked so good." These comments had that team member bouncing all day and their work improve de enmity than the "awesome" level that had been achieved earlier in the week.

It's comments such as the "well done" or "thank you" put into your own words that make a huge difference to your team. I was a store manager a long time ago and it was part of the daily routine to thank every team member at the end of every day. The store doubled it's sales in a 12 month period. Now there were other factors at play here, but a team feeling recognised and valued were part of the motivation that enabled them to enact the other changes that made us successful. If the team were not feeling valued, they may not have been as receptive to other ideas.

It seems so basic, to talk to your team at every opportunity, but it's so often missed. I've worked in retail organisations where the store management team are hardly seen. They are office managers, who occasionally have to leave their office to pass out a task to a team member but spend the vast majority of their time cooped up in an office carrying out administration tasks or even less. In this experience, the team self-manage and tend to get the tasks done that they want to do, and some if the less favoured tasks just don't get done. It's a huge leap of faith to have in your team, to leave then to their own devices, and not one i'd take. I always want to have contact with my team and customers and I want an employer that empowers me to do that.

Have you started the year with a bang?

Calling all retailers - 2015 has started and those selling off all their unsold Christmas products have started with somewhat of a bang. Footfall has been good, the weather has been kind and opening hours have attracted a lot of bargain hunters, in store and moreso online.

Don't dismiss online. Remember back to previous blogs where I spoke about click and collect.

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2014/04/asda-gets-in-on-click-collect-boom.html

I have seen research by an unnamed High Street retailer that the average customer spends approximately a further £8 when they come into store to collect their goods. The value of this is immense.

If you haven't got your act together for 2015 then ensure that you start to think and act straight away. Get your team together and work out what you want to achieve this year, and then build stepping stones if a rinks that will allow you to get there.

Good luck!

What Traditional Estate Agents don't tell you: A guide to getting the most out of selling your home by Steven Thompson http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I5HOJAM/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_lhuQub1ZH8DHV

Look after your team as well as your customers this week

It's Christmas week and my short message today is to remember your team as well as your customers. It's all to easy to just focus in the task in hand, especially if you're busy with those last sales before Christmas. But remember that as busy as you are in your professional and personal life, your team will be just as busy. Leaving a few minutes early to catch the kids school nativity play or an extra fee minutes on a lunch hour to get groceries for Christmas dinner should be something that's given appreciation for.

Also think about the environment you work in. A non-uniform day or a themed dress day, maybe for charity will lift the spirits and do some good. Laying on snacks, particularly festive snacks, will also keep the team's spirit high going into those last few days before Christmas.

I've written before in this blog that team spirit makes a big difference to your customers, and eventually your bottom line. People do business with people, not special offers or price promotions. Ensuring that your people are fully motivated and feeling valued will ensure that your customers want to do business with them.

I was watching a version of A Christmas Carol yesterday and a line jumped out at me that I'd never noticed before. Ebenezer Scrooge said  to the ghost of Christmas yet to come "I'll try to keep Christmas all year round." I thought that this sentiment rang true for this particular blog. All of the above, keeping the team motivated, etc is something that you should try to keep all year round. It's important to have a well motivated team at all points if the year.

Are events for your customers or your team?

Minh It's that time of year when retailers start sending you emails and accosting you in store to tell you about their shopping events-

Discount card promotions

Extra points offers

Pre-Christmas sales

Black Friday

Cyber Monday

Offer of the week

These are all events running in various retailers at the moment in the UK and beyond.

My question is -

Are these events for your customers or for your team?

I know that eventually they are for your bottom line, or your shareholders, but I think on the surface it's a different proposition. Do they serve the purpose of attracting more customers to your door? Or do they serve the purpose of motivating your team?

I think that here is a bit of both but more for your team than your customers. It's nice for your team to pull together for these events, inspire each other and feel motivated to give their all for a big sales push. It gives you all focus in the build up to get the store ready and plan what you will do to make it special. It has a unifying effect, and gives something to look forward to, and something to reflect back on.

This has its own value.

For all you independent retailers (which I hope is a large proportion of my readership) then Small Business Saturday on 6th December is one such event that you can get behind. It's not too late to get your pack from -

https://smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com

Get you and your team behind it, and support other local business as well.

Think about the emails you send out to your subscribers

I received and email today from Amazon, lettings me know about several deals. I scrolled through and saw a deal I found potentially interesting. When I clicked on it, I was taken to a general deals page. I thought I'd clicked wrongly and tried again - the result was the same general deals page. So I tried a different deal - same page. This I found frustrating, and I gave up. Not only did I give up, I won't be clicking through from Amazon emails again. So, what have Amazon achieved from sending this email? I would say, into case, it's had a negative impact. I am probably a similar experience away from unsubscribing.

Which brings me to my point. Please think about the content, links and impact of your communications with your customers, especially emails.

Content

This needs to be as relevant as possible for the people receiving it. If you are a retailer that sells in different categories then you could consider a filter on your email subscribe page. This will mean that, for instance, your baby customers won't get emails about your photographic offering. You want your emails to entice customers to click through to your website and browse. That will only happen if there is something in the content that they want to follow up. You can get tech that will report back to you in what was clicked, and where that led. This will give you the data to ensure that you know what content works and what content doesn't.

Impact

This leads to impact, where the effectiveness of your content triggers the sales of the product or products you are trying to push. The header of the email is the very first thing seen, so ensure that it leads the recipient to read on. A photo or image makes great headway, especially if the product is visually appealing.

Links

Like the Amazon example above, you need to ensure that the links take your customers to the right places. It means that they have the faith in you and your company to click again and to keep subscribed - this is the lifeblood of your direct email marketing campaigns.

The other consideration is the frequency of your emails - not so often that your customers get sick if you, not so rare that they forget you.

Hope this helps.

Help your customers through your process and they will be your advocates

If there's a quirky or different part of your company up others then In my eyes, you've got a choice. Either-

Ensure there are always staff to hand to explain

Or

Ensure there is sufficient clear signage to explain.

In talking about parts of your business where customers don't intuitively know what to do. The ticket machine that required you to put your card in and remove straight away to work, the self-service till or well, pretty much the self-service anything. It shod be enough that you can have one team member looking after 6 or 8 tills, don't take this team member away!

Ikea does this beautifully with a mi. of the above approaches, more signs than staff though. It uses explanation and a little humour to let customers know that they will be picking and assembling the furniture themselves and the fact that this helps to keep the cost down. In fact they've now taken this quirk into a virtue - it's part of their business, their ethos.

If you have a part of your business that needs a little explaining or guidance then don't be afraid to explain or guide - your customers will appreciate your help and give you honest feedback about the process at the point that it's happening - one of the buzzwords in retail at the moment is "in the moment feedback" and it doesn't get more in the moment than that.

Set up conversations determine the quality of delegated tasks

What action do you take when a team member doesn't complete a task in the time set?

You set a task, and give one of your team a certain amount of the in which to complete it. They don't get it done in the time you've set them. What do you do next?

In sure this happens in retail all the time, and I'm sure that people deal with it in many different ways, with differing degrees of success.

I set out below the way in which I would deal with it, and hopefully this will give you a framework to deal with any similar situations-

Understand the delay

You need to ask questions as to why the task wasn't completed on time. Were there more customers than first though? as dealing with customers is a priority. Did another team member not pull their weight? Did the team member fully understand the task? Did you actually give aside enough time for it in the first place?

All of these factors can hugely influence the task and the following discussion.

Setting it up for next time

Once you have an understanding of the situation that has just happened, you will have an idea of how to set up the team member for the next task. This is going back as step or two but the set up conversation is key to the task. You can avoid a lot of these incomplete tasks by getting the set up conversations right in the first place.

This is a confidence-builder for both you (you understand that the task is more likely to be done) and the team member (they fully understand what they are doing.)

Giving feedback

It's not just the task being finished in time, but it being done correctly. The feedback (positive and negative) will allow you and your team to move forward with confidence.

Small Business Saturday 6th December

Saturday 6th December is Small Business Saturday so make sure you plan ahead to promote the fact. Mentions on your website, social media presence, in your shop and in conversation with your customers will help to make it as successful as possible. It's great timing that close to Christmas so plan ahead - I've seen some local shops advertising competitions, prize draws, free gift wrapping and others. This is a great way to lock in the trade at this time of year, and even steal a march on some of the chains and multiples by getting your customers to buy early from you, rather than later from them.

Understanding gross margin will drive your business forward

Marks & Spencer unsurprisingly followed other retailers in announcing disappointing results this week and, at least partly, blaming it on the weather-

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29911371

I have stated before in my blog that retailers have more than one trick up their sleeves and that cold weather doesn't decimate sales.

Marks & Spencer have now seen 13 consecutive drops in clothing sales, so there's much more to this than just a bit of unseasonal weather. The positive news from this is the increase in gross margin on their products.

If this is at too simple a level them forgive me, but gross margin is selling price minus buying cost. When you improve this, it can enable all sorts of changes to your business that you want to happen. Even if total profits are falling, an increase in gross thin means that you are working less hard for you money. If every transaction through the till brings you more profit every time, then it frees up cost for other expenditure or allows you to put money aside a rainy day.

It all boils down to the fact that you make your money from less transactions, less customers and potentially less staff. All of the time-consuming effort that makesyou  money also costs you money.

Looking at this as an entrepreneurs, you need to look at what profit ypu expect to make on every item you sell. I have seen independent clothing retailers have two sets of numbers in their price labels. The first is the price, the second (in a disguised format) is the lowest price they would consider if a customer wanted to haggle over prices or want a discount for multiple purchases. If you know what you want from each product then you know what products are worth the effort if youskr them yourself, or which products are worth the price at the wholesalers.

It is the start of every other calculation you make for your business and a clear understanding of this will drive your business forward.

Unseasonable weather needent mean a huge drip in sales

A short share today - I'm just reading about Next warning that the good weather has hot their sales and cost them a potential £25m in lost profits.

I'd like to point out that Next and other retailers still can make money in good weather as well as bad. They may gave sold off a lot of Summer stock in their last sale but it's unlikely that their customers will have been shopping for swimwear instead of winter coats - the weather hasn't been that good!

Retailers have analysts galore to loom at all sorts of trends from weather to the harvests of the produce they sell, so it's unlikely that the recent good weather will have been totally unpredicted.

The stock that all retailers, especially the local entrepreneurial type I envisage reading this blog, have sat in stockrooms or storage will get its turn when the weather does eventually turns cold (it will, it's the UK.) It's just ensuring that you are ready to trade 100% when this happens.

Stsrt to make sure that you can access this stock at short notice, that it's listed on your main and mobile websites and that it's available now via Click &Collect if not already in store. It's by having these conrngemcies in pomace, and by having great conversations with your customers that you will be in the optim position to reap the rewards when the template is right.

If your retail unit is affected by the weather via what stock you carry, then stay tuned to the medium and long range forecasts, as they can and will give you an indicator of the general trading conditions you are likely to face, and give you pointers on how to react.

New recruits? Are you prepared?

How to organise yourself ready for new recruits

The lead-in time needs to be balanced-

Not so short that you're not ready for your new recruits when they start.

Not so long that the good ones find something else in the meantime.

I've seen so many new recruits work for weeks on end without uniform and name badges after starting. You will know what you want then to wear and how you want your people to present themselves to your customers. In advance if the start date, have all of this ready.

Send details through to your new recruit - dress standards, punctuality expectations - all the things that you want them to be ready for. Don't get the initially important bits (the customer-facing parts) lost in the weight of an employee handbook or contract or terms and conditions. Send this separately, via email, to your recruit a little while before they start and invite any questions in advance of the start date.

The first day should include all of the compliance bits that you need to get out of the way, so you can then concentrate on getting your new starter out there and learning the ropes. A great way to do this is to have them buddied up with an experiences member of the team, or members of the team. Get them working with the experts in each area, so they can learn from the best and have a great point of contact for any questions or learning needs.

All in all, a rounded approach with some guidance from many people, and you being ready to receive the new starters and inspire them will be the best wag forward.

What type of retailer do you want to be?

In terms of retail, there are many shapes and sizes, many categories, many markets and target customers.

Some attempt to specialise, others want to be all things to all people. Some want the multi-site outlets, whilst other are happy to have one store, or even no stores and just to operate online.

However, I believe that it is possible to split retailers into 2 categories- those that compete on price, and those that don't. This may seem absurd at first sight - of course all retailers have to establish a competitive price, don't they?

Well, what I'm saying is-

 Some retailers provide goods at the lowest possible price and use price as their marketing edge - Aldi, Poundland, Home Bargains, Tesco.

Some retailers provide a service or something else that goes above and beyond just a product for the lowest price, and subsequently can offer things at a higher price and still have a flow of customers - Boots, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer.

So back to the original question - what type of retailer do you want to be?

Price

I think that this is the tougher way to distinguish yourself. I think that there is always someone who can undercut you, or attempt to undercut you. There are some massive competitors out there that can run lost-leaders or price promotions to drive you put of business, should they want to.

Service

In my view, this is the way forward. If you can offer something to your customers that they can't get elsewhere, if they can't get it locally. I was once told that the definition of competitive advantage is -

"Doing something that your competition can't or won't do."

Now, to me, this isn't price - it's service. Build A Bear and the teddies that your kids have made themselves, Marks & Spencer and their superior quality food and service, or your local craft store that  offers lessons for children.

As a successful retailer, or a potential succesful retailer, you need to find whatever this is for you and your business. We used to call it a USP, it's the reason your customers come back to  you.

If you don't already know what this is, then work with your team, your customers and establish exactly what it is. Then accentuate it, run with it, use it on your marketing, talk about it ceaselessly. It's your future.

Christmas planning should be well under way by now

Christmas is on the way! Didn't anyone tell you? Your planning for Christmas will depend in what type of retailer you are, but the planning stage should be through or almost through by now.

Some retailers see the trade uplift from towards the end of October, whilst others don't see that until December.

Planning takes many forms and needs to cover many areas-

Staffing

Generally retailers will hire temporary staff to assist with the uplift in trade. For me, it's all about looking at your needs from the outset. Not just what hours you want to be covered but the exact nature of the duties you want these temporary staff to carry out. Think about the areas where you will see an uplift in sales, where your existing team will be best used and then you can identify any gaps in your weekly planner.

From this point you can plan extra hours x number of weeks x hourly rate to work out the costings of your extra Christmas staff.

When you are happy with the costings, it's about advertising the vacancy/vacancies whilst you design the recruitment process and timescales.

Advertising

The fact that it's Christmas will be a part of the natural advertising for any retailer - people will arrive at your door looking to buy.  You need to enhance this by your own marketing or advertising. This doesn't have to be expensive - changes to your shop window, your website and your social media presence can have a big impact.

Range

Now I'm probably too late for Christmas 2014 but changes to your range in time for Christmas can and will make a difference to your sales. Gifting and capturing the imagination of someone buying for someone else has become a massive industry. If your range is too static to change this close to Christmas this year then ease consider what you may be able to do in time for next year.

Hope this helps.

Technology can help, but not for technology's sake

I'm just reading an article in the i newspaper about John Lewis plan for the use of technology in their stores. It involves the use of GPS to locate your position in the store and push notifications in their app to inform you of any offers in that part of the store. You will complete your shop on the app, and it will be picked and packed at the checkout waiting for you to pay. Do they know something that we don't? Do John Lewis and Waitrose customers shop in a different way to the rest of us?

I can't see that walking around the store looking at your phone is in any way a different or better experience than pushing round a trolley and selecting the items physically rather than digitally.

It's a gimmick.

I know a lot if peoe will probably use it when it's first launched and it will gain some publicity, but in the long term it will probably be consigned to the dustbin.

But technology can help retailers, but in the places that make a difference. Apps and mobile versions of retailers websites are a great way to engage your customers in your brand, your stores and your offers (without the reported cost of the John Lewis system above of £100,000.) Poundland sends incentives to customers to Pinterest, Tweet and Facebook their experiences and their purchase and this makes headway into social media networking markets. Friends may not immediately run out to Poundland upon reading about it, but will bear them in mind on their next trip to the High Street. It's this kind of social media networking that is making unseen inroads  into customers spending habits. The retailers with the best apps, best online offering and best social media links will probably win out over those that have great stores, but no more than that.

Click and Collect plays a massive part in this, and retailers of all shapes and sizes have become aware that they can still make the sale, even if the product us not in stock. Pay today and collect tomorrow, whether the buyer is in store, sat at home on a computer or browsing on their mobile phone is a great way to ensure that the business stays within your company - and that people don't shop around and look elsewhere. All retailers need is for the collection process to be smooth and streamlined to ensure that customers feel confident to follow the process again.

I witnessed a customer this morning in an unnamed High Street national chain go to the till to collect her parcel. The cashier asked her to wait while she found the delivery, and came back 2 minutes later to state that it wasn't there. Irate customer asked cashier to have another look and said that they wouldn't be doing this again. Cashier found item, but by this time there was a queue at the till, so the customer had to wait her turn to be served. All of this could and should have been much slicker and customer-friendly. A dedicated collection point, cashiers that are really clued up about their systems and an attitude of ownership of the situation make a great in-store collection experience.

Hope this helps.