Keeping up with fashion is an ongoing process, and retailers are well advised to set aside some time at least every season to stock up on the latest trends in apparel and accessories, including handbags. For retailers to be prepared, their wholesale suppliers such as Aliz International have to put in the leg work, investigating and testing trends for the seasons to come. Working in such a competitive market requires a continual cycle of innovative and new ideas.
New Technologies New Risks
New technologies will come and go, opening new windows of opportunity for theft, fraud and loss. Yet the precise ways in which shrink will manifest itself is often revealed only with time and experience. This presents a challenge to loss prevention (LP) professionals who are already grappling with the best way to shut off dozens of other sources of shrink.
Procedural Review Helps Reveal Hidden Losses Affecting the Bottomline
While loss prevention (LP) professionals are usually very focused on highly visible causes of loss such as shoplifting, organized retail crime and administrative error, they are advised to also consider ‘hidden losses’ that occur without being noticed or tracked. A shopper does not receive adequate customer service and leaves the store. Merchandise isn’t replenished on the shelves, driving customers to shop a competitor. Or, worst of all, lost sales from a customer for life due to a bad experience in the store. While not classified as shrink, these losses, triggered by poor customer service or lackluster operational processes, are just as detrimental to the retailer’s bottom line as theft.
Mobile App Creation Made Simple for the Independent Retailer
Independent retailers, who have their money tied up in inventory, usually find themselves with a much smaller marketing budget and more often than not, do-it-yourself (DIY) campaign projects that take up time and resources. However, as these retailers finish out the fourth quarter and prepare their 2012 business and marketing plans, m-commerce is being discussed as an indispensable necessity to successfully communicate and connect with consumers. And while not everyone is digitally savvy and well versed in mobile technology, it’s mobile content creation solutions such as Magmito that help those entrepreneurial, DIY retailers think beyond their brick and mortar storefront to consider a world of mobile possibilities.
Preventing Return Fraud During the Holiday Season
Return fraud presents an enormous challenge to retailers, with an estimated $3.48 billion in resulting losses projected for the 2011 holiday, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey. Procedural review audits (PRAs) are an effective tool for systematically combating return fraud and ensuring that fraud-prevention processes and policies are not only in place, but consistently followed.
Retailers Still Feel the Recession Is a Reality
Based on the reality of how businesses are performing, more than one-third of small business owners (38 percent) share a similar mind frame with their customers and believe the Great Recession is still a reality. According to the American Express OPEN® Small Business Monitor, a semi-annual survey now in its tenth year, “Economic sluggishness is impacting the psyche of entrepreneurs: 27 percent say they do not plan to grow in the next six months (up from 21 percent in the spring) and just 77 percent describe themselves as glass-half-full optimists (down from 85 percent a year ago).”
Preparing for a New Year with Procedural Review Audits
Procedural review audits (PRAs) help loss prevention professionals assess the areas of greatest risk and loss, enabling them to prioritize where limited resources should be directed. Audits are commonly used in retail to evaluate compliance with regulations and ensure best practices are implemented across retail stores. A procedural review audit is similar, but when applied to loss prevention, can be structured specifically to identify areas of risk and point toward root causes. Therefore, they enable management to effectively measure consistency, while pinpointing operational and loss prevention challenges.
Profitable Fixtures and Displays
As with any tool, a retail display is only a means to an end, and in the hands of a skilled user any retail display or fixture can be used creatively to produce remarkable and profitable results. When an individual feels inspired by the atmosphere of a store, they’re more likely to interact within the space, and make a purchase. Designing a display concept, which ties the feel of a store to the merchandise being sold is the key to effective marketing, and something FixturesandDisplays.com has strived to help retailers achieve since its start well over a year ago.
Kole Imports Takes Care of Its Customers
Even as Kole Imports has grown into a large company, the one thing it hates is to lose is a customer. One way they have found to make losing a customer a rare event is to give the customer the best advice on any product. “We look at our customers as our partners. That may sound corny, but we are clear on one reality; if our customers don’t do well, we don’t do well. Our slogan is, we are, ‘Your Profit Source.’ Every person from the sales department to the shipping department understands what that means to us,” says Kole.
Aliz International: Handbags with a High-end Feel at a Good-value Price
On average, women buy three handbags per year, own six (or more over the age of 55), and spend between $40 to $65 on average per handbag purchase, according to StyleCareer.com. One woman can never have too many handbags, at least not according to co-founder of Aliz International, Rosanna Tran. In fact, her collection consists of hundreds of licensed and fashion bags. And for wholesale prices of $20 or less, her collection can be part of your and your customer’s collections.
Secure POS Systems and Managing PCI Compliance with Dell KACE
Amaller businesses such as independent retailers are more vulnerable when they open up their POS system to electronic purchasing options. They are constantly under siege from malware, hackers and credit card fraud. Verizon Inc. reported recently that over 60 percent of the security breaches that occurred in 2010 were within companies of 100 or fewer employees. That is why system management appliances, such as Dell KACE, equipped to accelerate PCI standards and increase security within a POS system are becoming increasingly popular. Systems management support is a critical piece to the security puzzle, and Dell KACE’s affordable systems management appliances help companies tackle compliance issues by providing critical tools and capabilities, such as automated patching, local and remote software distribution, and state-of-the-art reporting.
Stockwell Greetings Offers a Recession-proof Product
While the recession may leave gift giving impossible, value merchandise such as greeting cards are are an affordable way to celebrate life's special moments. And at 18 cents a card, Stockwell Greetings gives retailers the opportunity to build up their gift section and give their customers the variety they are looking for.
When Disaster Strikes: Retailers Should Partake in National Preparedness Month
The intent of National Preparedness Month, held each September, is to encourage Americans to prepare for disasters or emergencies in their homes, businesses and communities. The key is to take action to be prepared, not simply write plans or hold discussions. When it comes to preparedness, retailers have a dual mission: to ready their own organizations for emergencies and also to support other businesses, families and individuals in their efforts to be prepared. September offers a great opportunity for retailers to make preparedness a primary issue in their own organization and throughout the communities they serve.
Retail and Philanthropy: A Winning Combination for Business
The purpose of this podcast interview is to demonstrate for other retailers the value of incorporating a 'giving back' strategy and approach not as an add-on to how they run their business at key parts of the year (like holiday season), but rather by incorporating 'giving back' as a way of doing business (a core component of a company's overall mission as a retail brand).
Newood's Durable Displays and Best Practices
Current retail displays have evolved into a variety of styles and forms to equip the common needs of today’s retailer, who is spending less on replacing fixtures due to the economic times. Mick Thaxton, national sales manager of Newood Display Fixture Manufacturing, confirms, “It used to be people would replace fixtures every two or three years, just because they wanted a new look.” Now, all that any brick and mortar store, whether a hospital gift shop, book shop or clothing store, needs to concern itself with is a display’s longevity, functionality, assembly and practicality. Newood’s brick and mortar customers can select from 20 plus product lines, ranging from $10 to $2,000.
Independent Retailer's podcast series provides small business owners, and specifically, independent retailers with the latest industry trends, company updates, product news and marketing strategies invaluable to your retail business.
