When Disaster Strikes: How Retailers Respond

The recent severe weather events in the Midwest and South come on the heels of a year in which more people were killed by tornadoes than in the previous eight years combined, according to National Weather Service statistics. Many of the 550 deaths last year were tied to a devastating storm that ripped through Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011.

The retail industry was not spared the impact of the Joplin tornado. But in the face of such unspeakable tragedy, retailers demonstrated incredible resilience and learned some valuable lessons along the way. We thought it would be a good idea to share those lessons learned with the retail industry to spare retailers from having to learn them the hard way. What better venue than at RILA’s Loss Prevention, Audit & Safety Conference?

On Tuesday, April 24, Chris Canoles, senior director of loss prevention at The Home Depot, will lead a general session “When Disaster Strikes: The Joplin, Missouri Story.” Chris will highlight what worked, what didn’t work and some of the changes The Home Depot made to its disaster preparedness and response plans based on the lessons learned from Joplin.

As the retail industry knows all too well, severe weather events can occur unexpectedly with little to no warning. This general session will provide conference attendees an unprecedented inside look into the response of one retailer and the opportunity to enhance their own preparedness. If you are attending LPAS 2012, you won’t want to miss this session!

Follow the discussion on Twitter at @RILAtweets or #RILAlp. 

Retail Industry Leaders Association

What Retailers Need to Know About Consumer Behavior

There are all sorts of reasons why consumers buy certain goods or products. Their choices may stem from personal gains to elevate status, brand loyalty, the amount of time they have to decide which items to purchase, emotional, sociological, and/or even goals and values that they’ve come to attribute to the product. And buying patterns, like the one where one study shows that the average shopper takes less than 21 minutes to purchase groceries while only covering 23 percent of the store, help marketers frame what sort of perspective they must have in order to draw consumer interest.

According to Wendy H. Mason’s article for Referenceforbusiness.com, “consumer behavior essentially refers to how and why people make the purchase decisions they do.” On some levels, consumer decisions may appear quite random, but if given the correct context and or subtext, meaning could be gauged from each outgoing purchase. Even if the choice does not always appear to be rational – consumer behavioral studies has proven again and again that purchasing decisions rely on personal emotions, social situations, goals and values.

Experts have been able to pinpoint two principles that can help them evaluate the motivation behind buyer’s choices. These principles have to do with what buyers want and how much they want a certain product. An example that Mason gives is: a customer who seeks a pain reliever may like the idea that one pain reliever is cheaper than the other, but they also must weigh in which product is the fastest pain reliever. They will most likely pay more if they believe the more expensive brand can alleviate their distress more effectively.

Marketers spend a lot of their time and effort “examining the principal motives behind each type of product to correctly target potential customers,” writes Mason. To effectively understand customer behavior, marketers also evaluate the intensity of the customer’s interest in the product that will compel them to actually go out and make that purchase.

Personal image or image branding is also something that factors into a successful marketing campaign. Consumers who associate a certain product to healthy eating and living a more conscientious lifestyle will be more likely to buy that item if the commodity suits or enhances that person’s belief system. Mason discusses the reason why some marketers are more successful than others, which is because they have been able to convince consumers that they need a product or service for some” legitimate” reason.

Experts also target product image-branding as something that is vital in marketing. Food packages often appeal to the specific sense that people will often associate with better tasting qualities. In this instance, people often taste with their eyes, whereas they do not see any difference during a blind taste test.

It’s a given that consumers are a purchasing powerhouse in this world, and understanding the dynamics behind consumer behavior is very relevant to any successful business model. Knowing your niche audience and who it is you are targeting parallels to how well you are able to sell your product. Winning over interest is not an easy thing, especially with so many competitors vying for consumer attention. Understanding the inner-workings behind what makes the customer tick is key to unlocking a successful brand.

My Nguyen of Apparel Deals is a professional writer with an interest in music, fashion, and style who analyzes and writes about fashion industry trends.

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Top Ten Ideas from a Group of Farm Retailers

I have just finished speaking at the FARMA Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. This conference was a mix of a tour, trade show and conference and was an opportunity to study retailing in this sector. Prior to the conference, I walked Princess Street, possibly the main retail street in Scotland. I was hoping to get inspired; but alas, each retailer was promoting its sale and each shop looked as uninspiring as the next. Then, I joined the farm retail tour and came across a passionate group of retailers who wanted to make a difference.

FARMA was an excellent conference and one where all retailers could have picked up new ideas. My top ten ideas from the conference are as follows.

1. Capital Does Not Mean More Sales
The tour looked at a selection of retailers; some had injected large amounts of capital, while others had not. Yet, the return per square metre or foot for nearly all the retailers was around the same. Yes, you have to get the basic investment right to create the sale, but in today’s tougher retail environment, over-investing in expensive and does not automatically mean that sales per given area will increase. The message is invest enough money to make the model work.

2. Get the Basics Right
All the retailers who got the basic s right were performing around the same level. Paco Underhill, the retail expert on how we buy, mentioned recently that getting the customer flow wrong could cost a retailer two dollars per sale. We saw one example of where a flow was wrong and it clearly proved that Paco was right. Get the flow wrong and it costs you dearly.

3. Tell the Story
I accept it is easier for a farmer to tell a story than most retailers, but those that put the story together can increase their sales. Story telling is a key point of difference in retailing. Identify your dory and communicate it to the customer.

4. The Team Can Grow the Sales
Make sales training fun, measure the results and grow sales. Sally Benson, one of the delegates, increased sales of selected products by 354 percent. How? The team selected a product and developed an in-house marketing campaign to grow the sales. There was a prize for the team who created the most sales. All the team excelled and enjoyed the competition and the fun of developing the extra sales. Product knowledge taring can be boring. Make it fun and grow sales.

5. Promote Your Values at the Entrance to Your Business
Are you local, are you a family business or are you a national chain selling local products? Many independent businesses fail to get this message across; they assume that all the consumers know their values. Yet when I visited a large national chain, they promoted a local message at their entrance. Consumers need to know your values when they enter your store.

6. Management Need to Make Sure the Team Stays Positive
One of the presenters was Darrell Woodman who presented on the art of being brilliant. He revealed that research indicated that 98 percent of people are in the less-than-happy mode most of the time, while only 2 percent are in the happy mode. As a leader, you influence the behavior of your team. Happy people make the sale. His point is that you choose to be positive; you need to understand the impact you have on the team, and you need to take responsibility. Growing sales is down to attitude.

7. Have a “Banning “Letter
Not everyone who comes into your store will be honest, according to Simon Winchester of Shoppers Anonymous. The stealing percentage mix is as follows:
• 25% of thieves steal by accident and return the product
• 60% steal by accident and do not return the product
• 15% are deliberate stealers

If you want to ban a customer, make sure you have a prepared a banning letter that you can hand to the customer. It makes life so much easier.

8. Sell By Date or Enjoy by Date
Is It a “Sell by Date” or an “Enjoy by Date.” I love the idea of an “Enjoy by Date” that Loch Leven Lauder uses. The use of simple words in a more positive way can put a smile on the face of your customer.

9. We Change our Wallpaper with the Seasons
One of the top retailers in the world is Zara, the fashion clothing company from Spain, and I often use them as an example as they have created 24 seasons in their stores. How do they do it? They change the wall paper; they change the sightlines so the store looks different every two weeks. This is a simple strategy that has worked well for this company. The principle applies to all retailers. It was fun to see a farmer believe his success was based on changing the wall paper to create the theatre. Something many retailers have forgotten.

10. Make a Decision or Act on a Decision
The above quote is from the UK TV personality Dick Strawbridge. It is simple; yet how often is it not implemented? In a changing world everyone needs to act on decisions made.

John Stanley of John Stanley Associates provides conference presentations, workshops and consultancy to the retail industry in 30 countries. He can be contacted at john@johnstanley.com.au.

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Retailers & General Merchandise Industry Spend Big on Google AdWords

The Retailers & General Merchandise industry was #2 among the industries that spent the most on Google AdWords in 2011, according to research by SEM software and PPC service firm Wordstream. Finance & Insurance and Travel & Tourism were the #1 and #3 top spenders, respectively.

Larry Kim of Wordstream analyzed Google AdWords spending to see which industries and companies spent the most on Google advertising last year. Kim created an infographic listing the results of his research and also published some insights into what he believes his findings mean for the U.S. economy in his report, What Industries Contributed to Google’s .9 Billion in 2011 Revenues?

In his report, Kim offered an analysis of commonly used keywords and their corresponding cost-per-click, viewable in the infographic. Below is a listing of the industries and amounts spent by the top ten big advertising spenders.

1. Finance & Insurance – .0 Billion
2. Retailers & General Merchandise – .8 Billion
3. Travel & Tourism – .4 Billion
4. Jobs & Education – .2 Billion
5. Home & Garden − .1 Billion
6. Computer & Consumer Electronics – .0 Billion
7. Vehicles – .0 Billion
8. Internet & Telecommunications – .7 Billion
9. Business & Industrial – .6 Billion
10. Occasions & Gifts – .2 Billion

Advertising revenue from the above ten industries accounted for 60 percent of Google’s .9 billion 2011 revenue, while the remaining .4 billion came from other industries.

Retailers & General Merchandise Industry

In the retail industry, Amazon.com led the pack at .2 million spent on AdWords in 2011, with eBay (.8 million), Macy’s (.6 million), Sears (.3 million and JCPenney (.9 million) following. Commonly used keywords and cost-per-click are shown on the infographic.

Analysis of U.S. Economy Based on Google Ad Revnue

Kim made some conclusions about the economy based on Google AdWords spending. His reasoning is that we can learn a lot from Google’s 3 million advertisers and 2 billion daily queries. Among his conclusions:

1. Concerns of Occupy Wall Street are legitimate since the finance and insurance industries were the biggest spenders despite the financial meltdown. They wouldn’t be spending big if they weren’t making money by acquiring new customers with PPC ads.

2. Consumers are spending despite the weak economy and high unemployment. While Kim did not mention the disparity between the poor, middle class and rich, I suspect that is a factor, with the affluent doing the majority of the spending.

3. High unemployment has created opportunities for education and training. Unemployment continues to remain high, prompting people to get retraining or college degrees. That has created a boon for online universities and schools. However, there have been complaints on misleading ads that do not result in jobs.

4. Home & Garden ads beat Real Estate ads since the housing recovery has been slow. That means more people are spending money fixing up their homes and gardens rather than buy a new home.

5. Business and industrial spending was soft compared to other industries and based on the industry’s GDP. It appears corporations are holding back and are slow to invest. While this is typical of a recession, it does not help the slowly recovering economy.

Based on his research, Kim predicts the U.S. economy “will be OK in 2012.” Let’s hope he’s right, and that businesses starts hiring, investing and flourishing in 2012.

Wholesale News – TopTenWholesale.com | China ,Trade Shows, Manufacturing

Enviro-Log Helps More Retailers Recycle

Enviro-Log®, Inc., an eco-friendly, consumer products and recycling company, is expanding its recycling program to help more retailers reduce their environmental impact and start on a path toward zero waste by recycling their waxed cardboard and establish a closed loop with Enviro-Log Firelogs. To date, Enviro-Log has worked with over 100 partners throughout North America and diverted over 150 million pounds of waxed cardboard from landfills.

Source: Enviro-Log

Green Living

Retailers Took a Behind-the-Scenes Tour of Universal Orlando Resort’s Sustainability Program

Yesterday, Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) welcomed attendees from across the nation to Orlando, Florida for RILA’s fourth annual Retail Sustainability Conference.

The three day event started off with a unique behind-the-scenes look at Universal Orlando Resort’s sustainability program. Through this opportunity, retailers were able to observe the eco-friendly practices of one of the nation’s most popular theme park resorts. Highlights of the tour included a closer look at Universal Studios’ energy and water facilities and recycling practices.

“We are thrilled to welcome such an esteemed group of executives to take part in this unique opportunity,” said Adam Siegel, vice president of sustainability and retail operations. “They will get to go behind the scenes to see how this popular family destination is making the operational changes necessary to reduce its impact on the environment while improving the experience of those who visit the park.”

This is the bundling and recycling area where Universal manages it's solid waste.

The tours were hosted by Universal Orlando Resort and sponsored by OAKLEAF Waste Management.

“As a perfect kickoff to this year’s Retail Sustainability Conference, OAKLEAF is delighted to help host the retailers attending this year’s event with a ‘behind the scenes’ tour at Universal Orlando Resort facilities,” said Lawrence Black, National Business Development Executive for OAKLEAF. “This tour will showcase many of the innovative solutions that we look forward to discussing and learning about throughout the conference.”

RILA’s annual Retail Sustainability Conference brings together top executives involved in establishing sustainability programs and integrating green practices into their companies. The conference’s program addresses the key operational aspects of environmental sustainability and compliance for the retail industry, including sessions on: energy, waste management, water conservation, store operations, real estate development, supply chain issues, and opportunities for improving corporate social responsibility. With the industry’s top companies in attendance, the conference continues to provide education and improve sustainable practices throughout the retail industry.

Join the conversation on Twitter via #RSC11. 

Retail Industry Leaders Association

Retailers Prepare for Irene’s Arrival

Jim Tharpe, jtharpe@ajc.com

By Lisa LaBruno, VP of Loss Prevention and Legal Affairs

Retailers have wasted no time preparing for the impending arrival of hurricane Irene. With her sights set on much of the east coast from North Carolina all the way up through the North East, retailers and their disaster preparedness teams have been busy at work putting their plans into action.

With the safety of their customers, employees and communities on the line, in addition to making their own necessary preparations retailers are encouraging individuals to take the lead from local and regional authorities and response teams and make every effort to prepare and stay safe during and after the storm.

Retailers are working tirelessly on many fronts as they continue to prepare for the arrival of severe weather. Most will try to stay open until a few hours before the storm is set to hit to ensure the safety of their customers, employees and stores, but also, to provide ample time for customers to gather supplies. Retailers have been busy stocking their shelves with necessary items such as water, batteries, plywood and power generators.

They have been prepping their stores for the potential storm damage over the last week and closing some stores while also shipping high value merchandise to their distribution centers. They have put their command centers on full alert and deployed teams to various areas for support. Many have crisis lines open and have begun to make arrangements to receive any volunteers for clean up after the storm, should it be necessary. In addition they are shipping in supplies and special orders based on store needs.

FEMA has reached out to let retailers know they are available as a resource and are offering national and regional support. Retailers are staying in close communication with FEMA and other government agencies to prepare for the before, during and after effects of the storm.

Retailers will be continually providing information to FEMA regarding their operation status and capabilities so the federal government can monitor who is open for business, where supplies are available, who is in a position to help with recovery efforts and what conditions may be preventing retailers from reopening after the storm. Open lines of communication between and collaboration among retailers and local, state and federal government agencies is a key component to ensuring a rapid recovery in the aftermath of Irene.

RILA and our members will continue to be there to lend our support and assistance as preparation and relief efforts move ahead. We encourage those in the affected areas to make ready and stay safe and we will continue to provide information as it becomes available.

Retail Industry Leaders Association

Via Trading Offers Retailers New Floor Standing Displays

by Claudia Bruemmer

As a recognized leader in the liquidation industry, Via Trading has always been focused on the notion of continuous improvement. It strives to serve its retail customers and lead the industry by example. For that reason, we were not surprised to learn Via is offering its retail customers a standing floor display solution that can be used for influencing customers in the aisles.

We asked Via’s Marketing Manager Nathania Stambouli what brought this about. “We don’t see our role as merely being one whereby we provide merchandise to our customers but also one that provides solutions to enable our customers to grow their sales and profits,” said Nathania. “In an effort to provide such solutions, we researched across other industries, learning what they did to grow their customer sales/profit. We also conducted a number of visits to customer stores to understand their particular needs and what we could do to help,” she added.

During that research, Nathania found a number of common issues. The retailers all had a variety of merchandise without any significant stand-out in store, cluttered shelves, poor merchandising and out of stock situations. As a result, consumers were not being engaged in store.

“We also thought about the end consumer and how they interact with merchandise in a store,” continued Nathania. It’s a well-known fact that today’s consumers have more opportunities by which to acquire and interact with information. In fact, they often have too many messages thrown at them through various media on a daily basis. Organizations typically use a variety of means to influence consumer purchase decisions, such as advertising, but as a result of the constant influx of advertising messages in their daily lives, today’s consumers have developed short attention spans and are now able to switch ads off. This makes it increasingly difficult for retailers to influence their customers.

However, a key area through which retailers are still able to stimulate consumer purchase decisions is at the point of sale (POS) where up to 70 percent of purchase decisions are made. “We determined that our customers’ current ability to influence consumer decisions at the POS level is limited given the lack of resources we saw during our store visits and conversations with retailers,” said Nathania.

For these reasons, Via Trading introduced its new FSD Solutions (Floor Standing Display Solutions). These displays offer retailers an effective solution to create greater visibility in store and attract customers through the use of color and chosen key phrases such as ‘Look’ and ‘Wow.’ By engaging the consumer, the display solutions can motivate disinterested consumers into becoming engaged with the product(s), which will lead them to purchase, increasing sales and profits.

The displays offer additional benefits including:

• Ability to tailor messages to consumers (making the message more pertinent to a particular group of consumers or to a particular product)
• Facility to cross and up sell (by displaying similar or complementary products next to each other)
• Capacity to easily merchandise the display (with flexible hooks and display trays) and to quickly note when stocks are low
• Displays take up a minimum amount of space whilst providing maximum visual impact

The FSD Solution is appropriate for an array of different sales channels at a Point of Sale level. Its applications include but are not limited to flea markets, yard sales, discount stores, thrift store, wholesalers (to show an assortment or variety of product) and more. It can even be useful for online sellers who do not have a physical store front. They can merchandise their wholesale lots on the display, photograph and show their products attractively to their online consumers.

“We launched the displays at the ASD Trade Show this August and rolled out the launch to our regular warehouse and website sales the following week,” said Nathania. “Customers are just beginning to use the displays and have thus far shown great interest and satisfaction with the preliminary results,” she added. Via is looking forward to hearing how the displays do as time progresses.

Miguel Susano, a Via Trading customer since December 2010, purchased a display last week. He states that “It’s very nice, easy and quick to set up and [he is] using it as we speak!”

Ty and Melissa, Via Trading new customers, purchased theirs at the ASD Trade Show this August and have just begun merchandising their displays. “Our customers are immediately drawn to the displays and spend more time looking at our cosmetic items than they did before. We’re looking forward to seeing how that translates to sales numbers – stay tuned!”

Other Via Trading customers like the new displays as well. Claudia Hernandez opined, “They’re great – the products have a presentation!” And Abram Perez said, “They’re working well – they’re bringing more customers in already.”

To find out more about these new Floor Standing Display Solutions, contact Nathania Stambouli at Via Trading.

Wholesale News : Wholesalers, Manufacturers , Retailers and Dropshippers

RILA’s Liz Benson in Joplin, MO – Retailers Gather to Volunteer

Retail Industry Leaders Association

Retailers Return from Joplin

In our lifetime not many of us will experience the humbling forces of Mother Nature or the extreme shock and devastation of surviving a natural disaster.

But, last week my coworkers and I, along with 250 volunteers from America’s leading retailers caught a glimpse of what it means to live through such a tragedy.  We traveled to the Midwestern city of Joplin, Missouri, where two months ago a deadly tornado brought devastation and left the city in ruins.

RILA and its members, in partnership with Operation Blessing traveled to Joplin on July 13th to take part in the large-scale clean-up and rebuilding effort already underway there. In the weeks after the tornado, we heard first-hand from our members who operate in the Joplin area about the enormity of this disaster and its devastating effect on their employees and the thousands of customers they serve, and one thing was clear, we wanted to help.

We arrived in Joplin that Wednesday for our first full day of work not knowing quite what to expect, and when I tell you that words cannot express the level of destruction in Joplin or the emotions churning from victims, it is no exaggeration. As far as the eye could see was only the rubble of a once bustling city.

What struck me most  was that Joplin Missouri could be any of our home towns, and in fact for my RILA colleague Kylee Coffman it was. It is a community, like countless others across America, with families, schools, businesses, friends and loved ones, and in the blink of an eye it was literally wiped off the map. I couldn’t imagine seeing my home town in ruins, the parks and schools I grew up in, the homes of neighbors and friends, gone, all of it, as it if had never existed.

But even more amazing was the sheer courage and humanity found at every corner of Joplin. For three days we worked alongside folks who had lost everything they owned, sifting through the ruins of their personal belongings, family pictures, and former lives. But there they were, putting the pieces back together one day at a time, finding hope in the outcry of support from volunteers, determined to find their way back home.

In 100 degree weather, teams worked from sun up to sun down to remove debris, repairing roofs and gutting homes, and helping erect new ones as we made every effort to provide what assistance we could to help get these survivors back on their feet.

One particular project we worked on was the home of the Powell family. A single dad with four young children who lived through the storm huddled under the stairwell of their apartment complex. The father described the limbs of his young children being pulled into the wind as he grasped frantically to save them.  When the storm was over and they emerged from their sanctuary what they saw before them was the wreckage of their entire apartment complex. With no renters insurance and only five thousand dollars in savings, Mr. Powell, who also suffers from a rare lung condition, spent his last dime on a house that had been damaged by the storm, hoping to rebuild the home for him and his children.

Selected by Operation Blessing, the Powell family was slated to receive an extreme home makeover and I am proud to say that we were a part of helping to do just that. On the last day of the trip we saw the tears of joy streaming from the cheeks of the Powell children as they walked through the door of their newly remodeled home for the very first time.

I am so proud to have been a part of this effort and want to thank all of the volunteers for donating their time and thank Operation Blessing for everything they have done and continue to do. There are moments in life where we witness the power and compassion of mankind and realize what is truly important in life.

Our heart goes out to the citizens of Joplin and RILA and our members will continue to be there to offer our assistance to Joplin and others in the country struck by disaster. Through RILA’s Workplace Safety Committee and Disaster Recovery and Preparedness Committee we will continue to provide a forum where retail members can carry on their good work and exchange information around incident preparedness, response and business continuity to help protect customers, employees, facilities and assets and minimize business interruption.

View some of the photos from our trip to Joplin by following these links:
http://bit.ly/RILAFB
Powell Family Reveal Day

Retail Industry Leaders Association