Articles

Retail   |  Marketing  |  Websites & Internet  

1.  Retail Articles
 

Understanding Barter Trading

In deciding whether or not to get involved in barter, the first question a small-business person must ask is: Do I have something to barter? The answer is yes for most small businesses. If you have excess inventory, you have goods to barter. If you’re a service provider with the capacity to handle more clients, you have expertise to barter.
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The Business of Beauty Salons

Beauty salons improve your looks and people throng to such salons to maintain and enhance their physical appearance. Beauty industry had an increase of revenue by 78% in 2001, according to Service Annual Survey of the Bureau of Census. Business opportunities are many in beauty industry. You can start on low-key with low investment, as beauty business largely requires you to offer excellent customer satisfaction through superb service.
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Our Inate Need for Cosmetics

Our society is preoccupied with the "culture of beauty", which includes the notion that our skin must always look young and appear free from blemish. Our psychological well-being is often closely enmeshed with perceptions of how our skin appears to ourselves and others. We define our self-image to include the visible representation of our skin to others, so as a result, it has become the "primary canvas on which our cultural and personal identity is drawn". Cosmetic companies set aside concepts of natural beauty so that flaws such as large pores, fine lines and wrinkles are brought to the fore, influencing our spending habits in pursuit of flawless skin.
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Choosing the Right Kind of Retail Loyalty Program

Retail Loyalty 101 - The greatest growth area for customer relationship programs today is retail.  A recent survey reported that, among multi-channel retailers without an existing loyalty program, 43 percent planned to introduce some kind of program within the next year. That’s an astonishing figure; and powerful proof that interest in customer loyalty continues to strengthen.  But what kind of programs will all these eager retailers bring to market?
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Create Retail Displays That Attract Customers

Retail is a competitive business. Even if your product is completely unique, you still have competition. There is always another store down the street - or in the next cyber-mall - that is aiming for your customers' wallet. Customers have a limited amount of disposable income, but their choices of where to spend it are infinite.
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Why Your Mall Or Retail Space May Not Be So Hot

I was visiting a beautiful mall in downtown Charleston, West Virginia this summer. It had some great anchor stores, many small chain stores, boutiques and the food court. The mall was clean, well lit and people were moving around. But this mall – like many retail spaces – was not so hot. Since they were not hot – those retailers lost business. Dollars walked out of the mall that might have stayed. The worst part of it is that they could have been hot for just a few dollars a month.
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How To Set Up A Rollicking Internet Retail Business

Even with the dot com bust of the late 90s, the number of entrepreneurs who have successfully leveraged this powerful medium to sell products, services or information and become millionaires in the process is phenomenal. Setting up an Internet business is easy. Running it successfully is slightly more challenging. Which is why countless new Internet businesses emerge every day, only to fold up immediately or wind up slowly in a few months’ time.
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How to Start A Retail Clothing Store

Ever dreamed of opening your own retail clothing store? Well, I just opened one in Southern California not too long ago. It is actually a LOT harder than you might think to get your doors open and a few sales under your belt. To get started you’ll need vision, a reseller’s permit and a business license. While the unique vision might take months or years, the latter two requirements will only entail filling out a couple basic forms and waiting a couple of weeks for the paperwork to show up in the mail. That doesn't sound too difficult you say. Well, wait a second as the following to do items take just a bit more effort.
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Retail Display Bins are an Effective Tool for Moving Clearance Products

Some products sell, and some products don’t. When they don’t they wind up on retail clearance. But what if they don’t even sell on clearance? Retail store owners sometimes become frustrated when they have trouble moving their clearance stock. The assumption is that the product is so poor it won’t even move at a discount price. But there may be more to it than that.
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Wholesale Gift Packaging:  Cost-effective Way to Differentiate Your Retail Store

Let’s face it. It is hard to compete with the retail giants out there when you are running an independent retail store. In this fast paced world, they sell convenience by having it all under one roof, and you would have to sell at a loss to touch their prices. But customers still prefer the personality of smaller shops and the more that you can do to maintain your unique qualities, the better off you will be. Gift packaging, for instance, is a great way to differentiate your store in a sea of competition.
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Retail History

It is one of the biggest employers in the world. It eats up a large chunk of our money. It is the retail industry. Retailing is a massive, passive beast that pervades just about all our lives. Virtually all of us shop, sometimes as a pleasure and sometimes as a burdenous chore.
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Will Retail Chains Lose Their Dominance?

In most industrialised nations the the supply chain of goods from source to end user has changed little for many years. Firstly there are the producers. Then the wholesaler, then the retailer and then the customer and consumer.
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Retail Point of Sale

There are a number of channels of distribution available to the producer, which may be employed by him to bring his products to the market. Consumer goods may be distributed generally through channels, in each of which the manufacturers may use the sales branch or sales office as the additional alternative. One of the channels used is Producer-Consumer, where no middleman is involved. Sales are made from house to house or by direct mail.
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2. Marketing Articles

Build it and they will come ... Not quite, overcome the top 3 business mistakes

Small businesses are often built on passion with many owners investing hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars perfecting their product or service. When I ask clients about their business most spend 95% of the time telling me about their product. Nothing about marketing, financial position, business plans or the market the product is aimed at.
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Learning from legends

At a recent breakfast hosted by the Australian Institute of Management (AIM), former Wallaby captain John Eales explained the reason behind his new book, ‘Learning from Legends’, a collection of interviews with sporting greats who share their powerful stories of persistence through adversity, the ability to deal with pressure and maintain a balanced life.
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Don't Go Broke While You're Getting Rich

Anyone can buy customers given enough money or credit, by spending huge amounts of money on advertisements and promotions. Anyone can build their business if given unlimited capital, and many have, using millions of dollars in some instances, of stockholders’ equity in the process. There is however, another way to go about marketing your business. It is applicable to businesses with limited capital, and also those that have vast cash reserves and wish to continue to grow....
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Retailing ... Preparing for the Future

Understanding the current and expected changes to economic conditions is critical to business decision-making. You need to constantly review material to assist your business in making an educated assessment of economic conditions impacting on your market, and the retailing sector in general...
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Charity Work as a Marketing Tool

Did you ever ask yourself “Why should someone buy from me and not from my competitors?” If not you should consider how your offering is different from those of the many competitors who are vying for the same customers as you are. One of the ways to make your business stand out from the crowd is to link your business with charity work and non-profit public service...
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Retailer Marketing And Working With Center Management …… (friend or foe)

As a retailer we take on big risks when we enter into the domain of large national shopping center conglomerates, or even a smaller independent mall, and establish our businesses within the confines of their domain. Whether we are an independent, a franchise, or part of a chain, every shop requires an enormous injection of capital, risk, apprehension and anxiety. We enter into long leases requiring us to commit to our ability to operate a successful business for years on end, weathering recessions, booms, slowdowns, economic and customer uncertainty, which can and does happen...
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Is it risky to do business with you - Part 1

Taking the risk out of a new opportunity always makes the proposition seem much more attractive. It’s a concept called Risk Removal. This concept has been used with the incredible success by some very well known businesses. And it can be used by you to make more sales, and get more business from the customers that are enquiring about your product or service.
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3. Website and Internet Articles

Don’t Waste Your Money Getting a Website …

It seems that many first time entrepreneurs’ idea of starting a business is getting a website. And that’s it! They have no intentions of doing any marketing and if they do have a marketing plan it consists of telling their friends about it and possibly distributing a few brochures in the neighbourhood.
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Watch your Language! Please ...

When designing your website or any promotional material, make sure you use language that all your customers understand...
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