Open the shop door and wait for the customers to come in, retailing is easy! Some retailers think this is all you have to do, alas, it is not like that. Retailers have to be proactive in their community if they are planning to be in the business for the long term.

Technological change is moving at a rapid rate, if you don’t keep up, your consumers will leave you behind. Now the bad news, you will not keep up. The rate of change is so rapid that no body is capable of keeping up. Researchers tell us the amount of new information and technology available to the world will be double this year alone.

The challenge is that you cannot ignore change. If you ignore the change, you are going to fall that far behind that you will never catch up.

Be Focussed
As a retailer you need to focus on the change that will affect how the consumer wants to communicate with your business. Take one step at a time, master one new idea and then move onto the next one. To try and learn all the new tools available to you.

The challenge is to analyze your existing marketing, to really look at what’s working at what’s not. To disinvest in the old technology that is not working, but to keep investing in the systems that are working.

You now have to become familiar with social networking. For some of you, your will already be communicating with friends on Twitter, Facebook and other sites. It is a relatively simple step to take to move into business and marketing social media. For others of you it is a giant step. You have to communicate using completely new technology. But, it is a step that you will need to take.

In the past fear existed with the telephone, typewriter, television and radio. They were the social network for past retailers. The challenge of using them in business was great to retailers when they were invented as social media is to some retailers today.

A retailer recently said to me that he did not use social media as he did not understand how it worked. I have to own up. I do not know how my car, mobile phone and A380 plane works, but I use them. Social media is the same. It is just another way of communicating.

The Aim of this E-book
The aim of this e-book is to start you on a journey. It will not tell you how social media works. It will explain how you can start using it. It will give you the confidence to start the journey. I hope after six months you’ll look back at this book and say that you have moved on and will be looking at further advanced books.

Customer service is dead. Well, if it is not dead, it is at least dying. All the research reports that have been produced in the last twelve months all indicate a perceived drop in customer service as judged by consumers.

Yet, in my consultancy and workshops around the world, retailers often tell me their strengths are in providing customer service. Is it that I only work with the few companies that provide customer service? Are consumers misguided in their judgments or are we as business providers conning ourselves into a false sense of security? I do believe as consumers we are more demanding, but at the same time as businesses, the majority of us, have invested less in customer service training than we have in the past.

$67.00
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Farmers markets are the fastest growing phenomena in retailing today. The consumer wants to buy local and they want to buy from the farmers if at all possible.

Farmers markets are a true retail experience and an opportunity to engage the customer that few other retailers have the opportunity to do.

$67.00

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2009 will be one of the toughest years for retailers in many years, how will you weather the storm? You need a strategy that will help you grow your business in this tough economic climate. Every retailer will need to analyse their business and ask themselves what they will need to keep doing, what they will need to stop doing and what they will need to start doing they are not doing now. The Challenge is where do you start?

$9.95

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