Excitement is in the air, the food and entertainment is ready, and fans arrive early to be the first to enter the building. Small Business Saturday, the independent retailer’s Super Bowl, is right around the corner. So what can you do now to turn Small Business Saturday this Nov. 29 into Super Saturday? Retailers can implement the following four tactics to prepare their stores for the big day, and spread the “shop small” message.
Browsing: For Buyers
The nation’s largest gathering of wholesale souvenir, gift and resort suppliers just keeps getting better. Hosted every November at the foot of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the International Gift Exposition in the Smokies and the Souvenir Super Show, IGES/SSS, will be celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. The show has expanded from its original pavilion into two modern convention centers offering a buying opportunity for souvenir outlets of all sizes, according to show co-owner, Susan Mills.
According to retailers across the spectrum of industries and outlets, consumers are increasingly responsive to the “Made in USA” message. There are many possible explanations for this trend, including fallout from the recession, generational shifts and the changing global economy, which provide opportunities for retailers everywhere.
The 40th OFFPRICE Show (August 16-19, 2014) in Las Vegas celebrated the history of the show while demonstrating a vibrant and exciting future. The show recognized the 15 companies that have been exhibiting at OFFPRICE since its first year in 1995 at a cocktail reception for attendees.
Larger department stores and pharmacies now have remote monitoring of their camera systems. Due to of the number of stores, these larger chains can have one location watching the cameras for various locations to spot shoplifting. They can then alert the local security personnel of suspicious activities, while saving thousands of dollars compared to each store having to do this individually.
For online retailers, navigating the many channels of ecommerce can be a challenging feat, especially with the consumer’s path to online purchase becoming one without borders. According to ChannelAdvisor’s new Multichannel Ecommerce Study of online retailers, 90 percent of retailers surveyed are selling on marketplaces. The survey of more than 200 retailers in the US and UK identifies the strategies retailers are using to optimize their online sales on their voyage to success.
“Drive them to retail” is a marketing mantra as old as the marketplace, and it’s back. It appeared for a while that online purchases would continue to erode brick-and-mortar traffic. Showrooming represented a detour from the traditional purchase path, as consumers began to browse for items at stores, and fulfill the purchase online for fractional discounts; an idea driven by cold logic in the pursuit of price. But that has changed.
Trade shows are the ideal venue to meet new and existing suppliers, conduct business meetings, network and investigate new products. However, in order to make your trade show experience an investment for your business, consider these five budget tips for success.
If you’re not totally clear on EMV, you’re not alone. Developed over twenty years ago, EMV is the standard overseas. However, many U.S. small business owners aren’t familiar with the technology, and even fewer know that a deadline is set for migrating to an EMV based system.
As a retailer, it is up to you to find the hottest new products, and provide those products to your customers before anyone else can. Today, there are approximately 150,000 convenience stores in operation. 63 percent of those convenience stores are independently owned, while the remaining are chain store operations.