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If you work for a non-profit organisation, do you give money to charity? is a question raised by Seth Godin. More accurately, he criticised people who worked in the non-profit sector and refused to give money to charity. In fact, he suggested that they would cross the street to avoid giving money to someone collecting for a competing charity. Which set me to thinking about how often I visit local shops and how much money I spend at them - and if they can be an alternative to the major grocers. Which set me to thinking about how often the owners of local shops use other local shops. So far this year, I have visited independent shops on my travels around the UK and close to my office. In my village I do not have the option as Tesco and the Co-op own the two local grocers. I do support my local newsagent but his operation is mostly geared to home delivery. In thinking about reasons why using local shops is a challenge - such as understanding how they are merchandised and whether loca

There is a statistic from Neilsen that says that 35% of sales by supermarkets this year, measured in pounds, was on promotion. This compares with 26% in 2008. The cost of this activity was shared by the big grocers with their suppliers. Assuming that the buyers for the big stores started out with the best prices and margins, this statistic suggests that their suppliers have had to stump up 34% more money in extra sales support. The impact is likely to a greater than 34% reduction in the suppliers' margin. This seems like good business to many suppliers because they think there is only one game in town, selling to the public through the multiple grocery channel. Selling through independents looks to hard. It looks too difficult to measure. But that does not mean that the independent channel's sales are not measured. Figures from wholesale and cash and carry sales to independent shops compiled by Sales Out show that corner shops are doing better than multiples. The positive

"Our circulation has gone from 250,000 and falling, to 600,000. The cost of getting each copy to a reader has gone from 30p to 4p. We used to pay newsagents for taking the paper, now they take it for free," Evgeny Lebedev, senior executive director of the Evening Standard, told the FT. I nearly choked on my rice pops! He says he has cut his daily distribution costs from £75,000 to £24,000. Which if he publishes 250 times a year is a £12.8m saving. But whether the sums add up, we may never know. Of more concern to a retailer planning to build a business on selling newspapers is Mr Lebedev's suggestion that this is the future for all newspapers. There may not be many of them if it is! Suppliers should not over-estimate the attractiveness of footfall to local retailers. Footfall does not help the weekly payroll, one Yorkshire retailer told me at CTN World, the trade show last weekend. He was particularly critical of a well-know payment services company, who he said h

It is a shock to read that Borders UK is on the brink of collapse. The book seller had seemed to revolutionise the UK book market and was widely praised by magazine publishers for the way it displayed their products. However impressive its 45 shops might look, they simply are not working at generating profits. On one side, lots of book sales have moved on line, on the other, the supermarkets have made inroads into the best sellers market. My last visit, only two weeks ago, was a disappointing experience. The two books I went in to find were not available. The bookstore assistant expressed surpise I would be looking for one of the books - Ulysses and Us - in a branch of Borders. I guess that speaks volumes about how a retailer can lose its way. The previous time I was there, with a senior news wholesale executive, he said to me that he did not know how Borders could compete with supermarkets. He said this looking while looking at a magazine category full of browsers. I was surp

The demise of Woolworths, almost a year ago, freed up some good retail real estate and left some shoppers with nowhere to go. Last week, property consultant CB Richard Ellis, released details of who had acquired the retail space. Discount stores took 39% of the space, supermarkets 26% and fashion operators 18%. On this basis, shoppers obviously went to Woolworths to buy cheap stuff, cheaply priced.

In a weekend newspaper article, Peter Davies, the elected mayor of Doncaster is memorably quoted as saying: "People will not use the buses: they are poor and expensive. People in cars spend more than people on buses, why wouldn't we want them?" At the same time, at the CTN World trade show in London, I was talking to a retailer who explained that her local council kept on making it harder and harder for people to park near her shop. They insisted on residents parking bays in roads that were empty during the day when the residents drove to work. They installed traffic lights which took more kerbside out of use for parking. The free parking that was available was not ample enough to support her high street. Even worse, the council ran buses from the train station to the out of town shopping centre where national retailers predominated and where there was ample free parking. Mr Davies puts his unexpected electoral success down to plain speaking on issues that matter. He

A local foodservice business has just issued its new price lists. Its solution to the tricky issue of the 1 January VAT price increase? Put up its prices today! Not necessarily a strategy suitable for all businesses but those who can will know that they can.

There was a clutch of stock market updates by major UK retailers last week, with Asda unveiling a £150m price war ahead of Christmas and Tesco following up by saying that it planned to save shoppers £250m. Some City analysts talked in terms of "cut throat" tactics; others suggested shoppers would be hard put to spot the difference. Sainsbury declared excellent first half sales and profits. In the detail they said that one in three sales were of items on promotion, which was largely funded by suppliers. The owners of Waitrose talked optimistically about Christmas and thanked Marks & Spencer for mentioning its Essentials range in its advertising, which had helped sales. Overall, the message was slightly upbeat. However, Asda warned of a "few frosty moments" ahead. So too, did Sainsbury. And the message from Wal-Mart in the US was that shoppers "continue to tell us they're concerned about their own finances and unemployment." What are the analys

The Financial Times published a quick guide to US grocery sales last week, pinpointing the products that are in and those that are out. The winners are: ice cream and cakes, performance drinks, glazed popcorn, frozen chickens and nut butter. The losers are: eyewear, cheese slices, cola, film and disposable cameras, and crisps in a tube. The reasons are: more children's parties at home; these drinks are "costlier but healthier" than cola; evenings in watching movies; prepared boneless birds cost more; "healthier" breakfasts and packed lunches. And they are: sunglasses are a luxury, impulse buy; higher prices; fizzy drinks lose out to smoothies; camera phones; and fewer "impulse" buys of pricier potato snacks. What can the local shop make of this? Healthier still seems to work and impulse seems to be under pressure. Even better, analyse your own top five growing categories and your top five fallers and see what it tells you about your shoppers.

The USA is not the UK but we keep on watching it because so many of its trends become our trends. Experts working with the Retail Wire website have tried to work out what long term changes they see in shopper behaviour as a result of the recession. Shoppers buying videos, toys and consumer electronics now choose discount stores ahead of ones with added-value services, they say. Shoppers choose coffee in McDonalds ahead of Starbucks. They choose discount department stores over luxury ones. However, when it comes to buying groceries, meals at restaurants, and clothes, then added value is still winning. The biggest area where added value wins is in beauty-care. From this simple scale you may draw some interesting comparisons about where shoppers choose to go. For example, if you want a cup of coffee, you will buy as cheaply as possible. If you want to meet a friend, you may pay more for a nice table to sit at while you drink. All the products that a local shop stocks move up and dow

The definition of what makes a convenience store often depends on the outlook of the person asking the question. For a local retailer, stocking milk, bread and a few essential grocery items is often enough. For a major grocery supplier, 3,000 square feet of gleaming store, well planogrammed and merchandised is often a starting point. I like Nigel Mills' definition. If most of your shoppers pick up a basket when they walk in, you have a convenience store, he says. So news that Waitrose is to open hundreds of c-stores around the UK may be a concern if your shoppers are picking up baskets. It could be that your shoppers are the ones it is targeting. However, this week's stock market update by Marks & Spencer chief executive Stuart Rose shows that he believes Waitrose is after his shoppers. M&S has unveiled advertisements showing that its wise buys are cheaper than Waitrose's essentials. If shoppers think M&S is more expensive, it is not true, says Sir Stuart. "

Last month I noted that Wal-mart was selling hardback best-selling books for $9, which is some $5 below cost price. Why are they doing this? To win customers of course. But which customers? Marketing expert Seth Godin suggests that the sort of people who buy hardback best sellers are the sort of people who have plenty of money to spend. "Every industry has people who are worth more", he says. "Don't treat people the same, find the ones that matter more to you, and hug them!" That is a pretty useful business rule for local shops. Use it to target the shoppers you need. Be aware of it in terms of winning supplier support from your competitors.

Sadly, I missed Heston Blumenthal's televised visit to Little Chef in an effort to turnaround the restaurant's fortunes, which have ebbed steadily for more than 20 years in the face of nimble competition and cheaper alternatives for road users seeking a quick meal. Fortunately for me, the FT's management writer Stefan Stern did not. Mr Blumenthal, one of the world's top chefs, criticised Little Chef as being "hardwired into spending as little as possible on ingredients" and for poor service standards. Under his coaching, quality improved as was show in a second TV show. However, Mr Stern noted that standards slipped between Mr Blumenthal's visits and took his family on a visit after the TV show to evaluate progress. Or the lack of it. "Service was poor," he said. "The waiting staff distracted and inefficient..." The problem, Mr Stern suggests is about supervision. Management, he says, is hard work. Change can only be driven by we

Suppliers are spending more and more money on trade promotions and the more they spend the more it seems they complain about compliance, which is when they measure how good retailers are at delivering the promotion the supplier has paid for. Mostly, suppliers assume that multiple retailers are better at compliance than independent retailers, which means that local shops lose money from the start. But this is a notoriously subjective area and few suppliers share their data with their trade partners. This makes a new survey from the USA quite interesting. AMR asked suppliers to rate how good retailers were at compliance on a scale where 1 = poor performance and 10 = good performance. The grocery channel rated OK, with a best score of 6.1 on price promotions and a worst score of 2.3 on cross-category promotins (like meal deals!). According to AMR, the most money has been wasted on special events, where difficult to execute promotions (including floor displays and customised products) s

Most people I met this week said that things were going to get worse before they got better. Knowing this, some were optimistic about the prospects for their businesses. This is because they had cut costs where possible and put up prices where possible. Miles and miles away in Cincinatti, headquarters of Procter & Gamble, which makes everything from Pampers nappies to Pringles crisps and from Duracell batteries to Gillette shaving foam, the strategy of cutting costs and pushing up prices had helped it report better than expected sales. However, its chief financial officer, Jon Moeller, says that the big question is whether the market will grow or not - "And you can take both sides of the argument." His concern is that unemployment is still going up. For local shops in the UK, local employment is a key driver of how optimistic you can be. Howard Davies, writing in Management Today, complains that he cannot find a builder to refurbish his east wing. "I thought builders

The Financial Times this week contrasted the success of Costa Coffee in opening its 1,000th UK coffee shop and the failure of Starbucks, which is due to shut 30 outlets, and quotes analysts who say that the secret was in getting the marketing message correct. While Starbucks were telling shoppers that "summer's back", Costa was saying "Try our great value lunch, £4.95 for a sandwich and any drink"! However, the report goes on to say that all the chains may face a threat from "edgier" independent operators in the UK market as shoppers look for something new. This suggests that many coffee shop regulars are making a statement about themselves in choosing what they drink and where they are seen to drink it. (If fashion is so important it may also explain why 54% of shoppers think coffee is overpriced.) For the local shop, the continued strength of these chains with their "overpriced" coffee, must mean an opportunity to offer good drinks at a

Local retailers may have some sympathy with independent operators of tied pubs, where the publican has to buy beer at prices set by the company from whom they have leased their business, after government regulators decided not to change their industry. CAMRA, a consumer group with more than 100,000 beer drinking members, had complained to the Office of Fair Trading that the market was rigged against their interests, pointing at the way that tied pubs were controlled. The OFT, in finding against CAMRA's complaint, in part used the Alan Greenspan defence that it thought pub-owning companies would not operate strategies that would compromise its commercial position. If it was not true for Wall Street banks, must it be true for pubcos? At the same time, in the USA, the American Booksellers Association has written to the government asking for it to investigate predatory pricing by Walmart, Target and Amazon. New hardback best sellers listed at $25 to $35 are being sold at $8.98 to $9

Sales of sandwiches and coffee continue to rise and news this week that Greggs, the bakery chain, plans to open 600 new stores at the rate of more than one a week from next year demonstrates confidence in consumer demand. Interestingly, the stock exchange listed company says it will fund the £300m it expects to spend on expansion out of its cashflow! It is a useful reminder to c-store and newsagent operators to check that they are not neglecting local demand. Coffee sales, in particular, offer attractive margins and are easy to provide.

Warm weather in September and promotions by high street retailers slowed the growth of on line sales to a record low of 1.4% in that month, says IMRG, the body that represents on line retailers. On-line retailers are also braced for problems because of strike action by postal workers and six out of 10 say that shoppers have already called them to ask if deliveries would be affected. However, experts are confident that the pressure will only be temporary and that on-line sales will start to rise again. Local retailers should keep tabs on what is going on in the e-tail world and use this information to keep their local chamber of trade an politicians on their toes. It used to be said that retailers were poorly served by their politicians because you could not expert their jobs out of the local area. With the internet, that no longer holds true. Around 65% of UK households have access to the internet and the Royal Mail (yes, it's them) say that 62% of the population shop from home

This week's news that Tesco has opened its first store with no checkout staff might be the start of a revolution - or it might not. Budget airlines get passengers to do much of the work by moving ticketing on line and making the traveller upload his or her passport details and so on into the system. For the customer, there are benefits to knowing that you are checked in and have a seat before you travel to the airport. My experience of using staff-free tills is that the shopper has to make the effort to line up the barcodes (or find them in some cases) and the shopper has to resolve the issues when the machine beeps and does nothing. In return there does not seem to be much benefit to the shopper and lots for the shop owner. While some locations may suit this depersonalisation of the shopping experience, independent retailers would probably welcome its widespread deployment as a chance to differentiate the local shop and its high service ethic.

Earlier this week I suggested that badges with positive messages could help local retailers to build relationships with shoppers in store. Today, I came face to face with a badge that out of context might hurt a brand. At a London bus stop an employee of the Pret-A-Manger sandwich chain was waiting, carrying a bag full of sandwiches and wearing a smart jacket with a slogan saying that his firm Delivers. On his cap, he wore a huge badge with the single word trainee on the top. Two ideas crept into my mind. First, if you had paid for some top quality sandwiches to be delivered, surely you were not expecting them to be delivered by bus. Secondly, what was he training in? Catching a bus? Making a delivery? Your marketing needs to be thought through. If you are going to get your staff to wear a trainee badge, then you need to ensure that they appear to be training in a skill that will be of value to the consumer. A trainee behind the delicatessan counter makes sense. A trainee sand

I was in the House of Commons yesterday as just under 100 local retailers attempted to persuade their MPs to vote against the tobacco display ban, legislation that may impact on their shops in the future. Outside the House, they had been wearing t-shirts to promote their businesses. Inside, the dress code meant they needed to revert to using label badges. The message was simple: I love my shop! While the main business was persuasion - and there was a lot of talking - this simple visual symbol kept on popping into view. When I left, one of my strongest impressions was that these retailers cared about their businesses and they had taken the time to come to London to tell MPs they cared about their businesses. I am confident the stickers will have made an impression on MPs. Using similar labels in your business will work too! People do respond to what they see. Are you missing a trick in your shop.

Good market traders are great retailers and reading about them is always worthwhile, as an article by Olvier Bennett in the October issue of Management Today shows. Sent by his magazine to find out what life behind a market stall is like, Mr Bennett identifies lots of interesting ideas, three of which I will share while recommending that you look up the article. The market stall is run by Kent farmer Heidi Fermor and her major promotion is on apples. These are placed upfront with one bag for £1.50, two for £2.50 and three for £3. "She routinely asks the punters if they'd like two..." notes Mr Bennett, who admits by the end of the day he is copying her! She also teaches him that you have three seconds to get a potential customer's attention. "I'm always catching people's eyes," she tells him. Finally, Mr Bennett is sent off to the local Sainsbury's to check prices. It works, he says. Back at the stall a shopper baulks at the carrots, priced £

I will shortly be blogging on the betterretailing.com website instead of here. Location may be important on the web as it is in retail! Please have a look at the new site and let us know what you think. A few weeks ago I wrote a note about Donald Fisher, who founded The Gap with his wife. Mr Fisher always claimed, says an obituary, to be a property man and not a retailer. His first shop was located not in an established shopping district but between two colleges, it says. A decision that ensured his shop would have footfall, the oxygen of retailing.

Reports last week say that Walmart has cut the prices on 100 popular toys to below $10 as they expect US shoppers to put a value-for-money focus on Christmas presents. Three multiples, the other two are Target and Toys R Us, determine what happens in the toy market and the major suppliers are ensuring that most of their toys are priced at less than $30. In the UK this week, Tesco talked up the optimism of shoppers and Sainsbury talked the optimism down. We have become accustomed to taking a lead from across the Atlantic and it appears that retailers who get the "value for money" proposition right can make some money.

From January, Asda promises to open its first ever glass-walled store giving shoppers "access to areas not normally seen". It is putting cameras into its suppliers' production areas, including a dairy farm and a carrot processing plant. This clearly reflects Asda's view of what tomorrow's shopper wants to know about the provenance of things that it sells. For local retailers, the challenge is to be able to tell people about where their tinned tuna comes from, how local their eggs are, and what the traffic lights on a packet of sweets mean. When was the last time that you audited what you sell and tested your team on how much they know about the products you sell? If it was longer than six months ago, then you should plan for a review soon.

The owners of B&Q are talking up how they have cut the price of a store refit from £2.5m to £1m by using wood-effect vinyl instead of wood and painted MDF backboards for displays. Managers are learning to live with grey shelving instead of a warmer-looking cream. Shoppers notice the produce, not the fixtures, suggests one executive. Up to a point! Most local retailers will extract the maximum possible life from their fixtures, sometimes taking too long to change equipment that has become tired. As in all business, it is getting the balance right. Shops need to be refreshed and with a purpose.

Most of the time, we felt quite happy with our negotiations with shopkeepers in the souks of Marrakech but we did feel caught out by Tariq, the herbalist. His cousin Ali had accosted us while we were negotiating a back alley looking for a tourist attraction and after taking us there asked us if we wanted to see the spice market. We agreed and half way down the street we were suddenly introduced to Tariq. Tariq had excellent English and pointing at the brightly coloured displays outside his shop, he identified them to my wife and myself. It was quite educational and he explained how various compounds were used. Then we were invited into his shop and offered tea and given an explanation of the contents of lots of jars on the shelves. This is probably what life was like before goods were packaged and organised within categories. We were bedazzled. Then moving to the sell part of the transaction, Tariq presented my wife with a small gift and then asked what we would like to buy. At

I am briefly in Marrakech and the price of most things varies. There is a tourist price and there is a local price and you have to bargain hard, which takes time and adds purpose to the transaction. What is clear is that for most local people this is not a time poor society. If you can spend all day discussing the price of some oranges, because there are more sellers than buyers, then you are prepared to chance your arm with a fresh faced visitor. The quality of retailing, within these parameters, is good. Abundant service, lots of validation, lots of charm. We can learn from their energy.

Two quick stories on achievement. Don Fisher, who died this week, founded Gap in San Franciso, with his wife Doris, because he had an idea that he could make it easier to buy a pair of jeans. It was 1969 and he was 41 and his business went from one shop to 3,100 and sales of $14.5bn. In addition to having a neat idea, he also hired some great people. Will Adderley, whose parents set up what has become Dunelm, the 97 outlet and growing soft furniture chain, says his company is successful because it retains the values of a small business: cost control, tight recruitment and a focus on the core customer. Dunelm is 10 years younger than Gap but is now being talked about as a competitor to John Lewis. It may be that our businesses will never grow like these but we need to take inspiration from the success of these family businesses. When you get up every morning, be optimistic and think about how you will make your business work better for your shoppers.

How hard: it depends how big you are and how much you know about your customers. For a large multiple, a huge amount of science goes into developing deals for their shoppers. They try to deliver promotions that are timely and targeted. They have complex buying, marketing and merchandising operations to keep synchronised. For a local shop, you can see the customer you want to focus on and you can ask them what they are looking for. Next you can source the deal and then deliver it on time in your one location. However, if you want to maximise the investment of suppliers in your promotion, then you need to impose greater discipline. If you want to earn overrider payments, you have to take promotions designed for the average shopper, not your own customers. If you choose to step up a level, then you need to improve your own disciplines. The first thing you need to do is tell yourself that you will have regular promotions. Perhaps 13 times a year, perhaps more. Some could be obvious

In my business, we have started our 2010 budget process and no-one is happy about having to put words and numbers on what they think will happen next year - and still do their day jobs! As a publishing company that serves independent retailers, our success is linked to two things: the need for local shopkeepers to find out what is going on and to act on it; and the willingness of major suppliers to invest in the independent channel. At some point, both depend on the willingness of shoppers to visit their local shops and spend money. Therefore I am always keen to read what the major groups are saying about the future and two leaders of major UK quoted companies were offering their thoughts last week. Obviously, they are talking up their current performance and warning of trouble ahead because the indicators for the UK economy are still weighted to the down side rather than the up side. Justin King of Sainsbury says that today's shopper is "coming out of their shell a bit"

The Somerfield shop in my village has started to share co-branding with the Co-op, which bought the chain earlier this year. A pair of workers, one wearing Somerfield attire and one Co-op, hug each other in the bottom left hand side. Co-op point of sale now appears instore, clashing slightly with the fixtures. At the counter I ask the assistant if they are going to have the membership cards. This lady is not hugging anyone. I don't know, she says. They don't tell us anything. Next to this shop we have a One Stop, which is owned by Tesco but not branded in any way, shape or form. They share a car park, which is convenient, and shoppers can quickly walk from one to the other if either is out of stock. This weekend, I was in need of a certain brand of tonic water. The own label in the Co-op was not what I wanted. One-stop only stocked the slimline version. I asked the assistant there if this was always the case. She fixed me with a steely look and answered me by saying th

Kevin Jones, who runs a shop in Hawarden, Clywd, has identified another tricky detail when the VAT rate jumps back up 2.5% to 17.5% in January: price-marked stock. In particular he is thinking about tobacco products, where the margins are already thin. Obviously, stock management from now to December will need to be good. Cigarettes are a product with a relatively high stockturn (you need to be sure that you sell through all your price-marked stock), which means that planning your buying ensures you avoid problems. Risk management requires planning ahead and attending to the detail so that you avoid losses. It doesn't increase your wealth but it simply has to be done.

The October 2009 issue of Which, the consumers' bible, provides a helpful double page diagram revealing 10 secrets of how supermarkets position goods to make shoppers buy more. There will be no surprises for a local retailer who is paying attention but the simplicity of the presentation is useful in thinking about how well you are executing your strategy in-store. "Look right" is tip number six, saying: "Most of us look right when we enter the shop - so that's where supermarkets put current deals...[which] can be brought out at a moment's notice - if it starts raining heavily, you may see umbrellas appear hear". If your layout will not accommodate a 'deals zone', you should still pay attention to what shoppers see when they look right - this will set the tone for their visit. (Also note the presumption to action, with the best stores being able to quickly change their displays and offer. That is quite a challenge!) If you take time to look out

I was looking at the bench outside the village hall on Saturday evening as the local youth gathered, thinking how the faces change but the attitudes remain the same. The mood changes from bored, to sad, to rowdy, to occasionally menacing. Occasional trips to the local stores ensue, where their older siblings are often employed. Which brought to mind an article by up-market columnist Tyler Brûlé in which he discoursed about the bench outside his shop in Marylebone high street; how it activated the street and created a sense of community. He wrote: "One of the most valuable lessons we’ve learned since moving into the shopkeeping business last November is the importance of offering people a place to sit. The addition of a simple teak bench in front of our London shop a month ago has revealed a number of interesting facts about human behaviour and modern urban planning. The first is that the sheer number of men and women – both young and old – who take up a place on the bench to rest

The Independent Achievers Academy, which my company promotes, unveils its Top 100 local shops list this week. Mailings are on their way to the shops that have made it through the mystery shopping stage of the Academy and the winners are encouraged to get their local media involved in telling their shoppers the good news. Telling the good news is important on a number of levels. Just as buskers have to leave a few coins in their hats so that people know it is OK to like the music and contribute, so telling your local community about your success is important as it encourages your shoppers to feel good about liking you, your staff and your shop. Hopefully they will also tell their friends and you will get more shoppers. Getting good publicity is also good for you in terms of building supplier confidence. Just as the government constantly hears from the lobbyists of big retail, so too your suppliers. The more that you can do to show the true picture, the better the outlook for your b

As the Liberal Democrats are meeting in Bournemouth, it is worth looking at the thoughts the party has put into its Are We Being Served? policy paper, which covers services from local shops as well as from government, supermarkets and utilities. The party's thinkers outline five visions: a fair marketplace; responsiveness; informed choices; consumer protection; and effective redress. Change, the party says, has hit hardest people who are old, who are in poverty or who live on benefits. People without education are being excluded from markets. The policy paper is about ensuring that most people are able to buy what they want easily, efficiently and on fair terms. It looks at food labelling in particular, saying the party wants it to state the country of origin and not of manufacture, that it wants on system of labelling for nuitrition advice and so on. And the paper also suggests that there should be a compulsory "local competition" test for all planning applications for n

It says in the marketing blurb that Random House printed more than six million copies of Dan Brown's latest book, which went on sale last week. It says here that Asda is selling the book at £5, making a loss of £4 on every copy that it sells. It says in my newspaper that one million copies were sold on the first day of publication. This is the kind of retailing madness that overexcites marketeers and makes people want a share of the action. For local shops this is the kind of event that often passes them by. For weeks, you may have been walking past clever promotions by multiple retailers trying to persuade shoppers to pre-order. I was passed by two the other day, passionately weighing up and discussing the prices on offer. It was cheapest the place we went to first, they agreed, shoulders sagging at the thought of trekking backwards. Most local shops are in the business of creating frequent small purchases. The blockbuster does not necessarily fit easily with this. But as some poi

With a bricks-and-mortar store, where you locate is a big decision, fixed by your capital investment. On-line, location can be changed at the click of a button. I have the opportunity to move to a new space on the betterretailing site that will be launched later this month. The benefits will be that this blog will appear alongside others that will tackle different aspects of strategy and tactics for local retailers, including a new blog by Steve Denham. It is exciting for me and should help readers find even more good stuff, near at hand. I am also looking forward to coaching from Sam on how to make these short items even more useful, such as embedding links. Just as retailers may benefit from a good mix of footfall driving shops near them, so too on the web. Fingers crossed.

Local retailers must keep on promoting seasonal events, says Watton, Norfolk retailer Chris Edwards. Don't give up because you think supermarkets have taken all the trade. Stay in there and get some of it. Great attitude. What can you learn from it?

Andy Bond runs Asda, the UK arm of Wal-Mart, and recently agreed to a lengthy interview with the Financial Times newspaper about his views on whether he was the right man for the Marks & Spencer top job. I find it hard to believe that his US employers would be happy for him just to chew the fat with a newspaper about his career options so it was interesting to read what else he was talking about. So when he says that 2010 will be a tough year, he must be talking to someone other than his shoppers. He notes that the 2.5% rise in VAT and other tax increases in the pipeline will be putting presure on the amount of money that households have to spend. Is it a message to suppliers that they will have to trim their prices so that Asda can cut the cost of its products to shoppers? Probably. For many local shops, an upward nudge in January is possibly being pencilled into their business plans now. But don't assume that the multiples will make it easy for you. Think about how it will lo

Nine out of 10 staff working in local shops feel uncomfortable asking shoppers for proof-of-age, trade magazine Retail Newsagent reports. As local shops depend on sales of price restricted products for footfall, this must represent a lot of unhappiness. The solution, expert Mike Denby suggests, is to train staff. Your people know the law, he says, but they often do not know the consequences of not following it. Context is always important. You need to coach your people in what could happen to your business and their job if they serve under age people. Good local retailers have a process: they teach new staff the rules, and the refresh all staff at regular intervals. Create an environment in which your staff can be successful. The more confident they are, the fewer problems they will face in asking for proof-of-age.

It says here in an advertisement by Nescafé that shoppers who buy a hot beverage in store are more likely to buy into other categories and spend more than other shoppers. The figures Nestlé quotes are that they will buy 4.8 items per trip (versus 2.8) and spend £10.47 versus £5.10. Surely it must be worth taking five minutes out and doing the sums for your shop. (Pity the Nescafé ad is silent on the margin potential!)

From the US we now have the concept of the smart shopper who will not spend, spend, spend on credit cards but will save up for major items. This shopper looks at price and value and quality, says Mike Duke, chief executive of Wal-Mart. One outcome is that US shoppers are using cash more and credit cards less, which is a big reversal of shopping trends if it continues. Thinking about price and value and quality, most shoppers build an approximate idea of what they are looking for and are quite imprecise at the point of sale. Mr Duke is obviously building up a picture of a shopper hot-wired to Wal-Mart values and paying less attention to his list of attributes. Value, we know, is what is left over when you take away the product (or service) experience from the price paid. If the product over-delivers, that creates value. If it under-delivers that destroys value. Price, we know, is also hard to pin down. Most local shoppers will buy bread and milk but they would struggle to tell you

Mike Southern in his weekly column for entrepreneurs says the best way to improve your guanxi is to always treat people like you would want to be treated, to help people wherever possible and to always tell the truth. Guanxi is a Chinese word that equates to well-being and true status. Money is what you have in your bank account, Mr Southern says. Wealth is what you have if your money suddenly vanishes: your knowledge, your reputation and network. For local retailers, as with all business people, these are useful ideas to benchmark what you are doing. Don't just think of it in terms of shoppers that visit your stores. Think of it also in terms of your suppliers and competitors.

Arthur Ryan, the secretive Dubliner behind the success of the Primark chain, is standing down this week and a tribute in the FT at the weekend lauded a "veteran trader who redrew the face of the high street". An analyst even provided a quote that suggested he had managed to keep all the people happy all of the time. I first came across Penneys - the Primark brand in Ireland - in the 1970s and used to buy cowboy boots and jeans there. They were cheap and cheerful and worked. In Primark, the sorts of things that I like to buy are t-shirts and underwear, summer casual clothes and so on. However, one of the secrets to shopping in Penneys/Primark was always to work out when the shop was not full and how to do returns. The canny shopper with time on his or her hands could make the cheap prices work for them. Today, I simply cannot bear to wait in the queues for the tills. While most retailers seek to reduce queues, in the case of Primark the queue may be part of the package.

Shopkeeping is a passion of mine, Theo Paphitis, owner of Rymans, the office supplies company and UK TV star, told an audience of leading retailers last week. The simple act of owning a store provides you with 70% of the skills of running a business, he estimates. The reason why is that running a local shop requires a huge mix of skills: people skills, stock control, merchandising, and so on. Shopkeeping is also an area where you can join with no qualifications and get to the top. Cheerleading for the retail sector is important. Retailing done well adds value to the economy. Mr Paphitas is right to say that anyone can open a shop. But to do it well you need to master a broad set of skills. The good news is that there is lots of help easily available to the local retailer prepared to make the effort to seek it out.

Margate retailer Hina Olive told Retail Express a year ago about her training plans and the trade newspaper returned this week to ask her how things are going. Well, she reported. She is nearing completion of a level 3 NVQ and one of her staff has passed at level 2. Retailers in the UK are taking training seriously and with the support of Tesco, Sainsbury, the John Lewis Partnership, Kingfisher (which owns B&Q) and others, the quality and focus of training has improved greatly in the past five years. Part of the secret is that retailers have worked hard to benchmark their training so that their staff get recognition that is transferable. Independent shops can benefit from this, as the energy that the major retailers put into getting the direction and quality of training correct means that staff learn useful, actionable skills. The major retailers say that the benefit of training is better customer service and this shows up in the bottom line. For a local shop, the benefit of su

Kraft's bid to take over Cadbury sees the newspapers producing short biographies of the key players. Kraft's chief executive Irene Rosenfeld is famous for Bagel-fuls, frozen bagels filled with cream cheese, and Oreo Cakesters, soft versions of the biscuits. Local shops are full of products like these, some of which take off for a short time and some of which develop new categories. Mostly, as independent retailers you have to trust the big manufacturers to get their product development right. What you need is for them to generate some shopper excitement, to get your shopper's changing their habits in a way that works for you store. Serving coffee is one category that every local shop should try. The owners of the Costa brand report that their sales continue to rise. It is recession-resilliant, they say. Just as Kraft makes progress by helping people eat their bagel quicker, you make progress by putting a beverage next to the newspapers and cigarettes.

In a bid to encourage banks to lend, Sweden has set a negative interest rate for cash deposits from banks. The banks will have to pay the equivalent of 25p per £100 to keep their money with the central bank. Local retailers in the UK will know what this feels like as the cost of depositing cash has risen sharply. One retailer I spoke to this week said his charges have risen from 15p per £100 to 45p in the past two years; and now he sees other banks advertising rates at £2. All this makes it attractive to have a self-fill cash dispenser in your shop or even to offer cash back at the tills. To most shoppers, cash back at supermarkets feels like a benefit. Few understand that it is saving the supermarket money. Few consumers understand that handling cash and moving cash costs money. If you are geared up to accept debit card payments, you should think about offering cash back at the same time.

Local news retailers in the UK accept a huge numbers of vouchers for newspapers and magazines yet the industry still fails to observe clear standards on how to produce them. As a result, for many local retailers vouchers look like risk rather than cash. Four out of 10 refuse to handle them. For publishers, the purpose of vouchers is to win greater sales. However, independent retailers argue that supermarkets don't care what they redeem vouchers against and have the market muscle to force publishers to pay. If publishers are paying for shoppers to buy other products in multiple outlets, that further damages their investment in the independent channel. Surely it makes sense for publishers to set standards for vouchers that encourage independent retailers to accept them? says Hinkley retailer Mike Hopkins.

Accepting debit and credit cards requires some good internal disciplines and while many local retailers are put off by the costs that they will incur, perhaps they should do the maths. A Wiltshire retailer I talked to today told me he charged 25p on every debit and credit card transaction. He put a clear sign up by his till, explaining this, and created a barcode that is scanned for each transaction. No shopper has ever complained, he said. Another retailer, from Derbyshire, said he charged 75p on any transaction below £10. No-one had ever complained, he said. If clearly stated, the proposition is clear and your shoppers have a choice. The shopper benefits from the convenience and you benefit on the bottom line.

On 1 January the rate of VAT in the UK is set to go up by 2.5% after the temporary cut to see us through the Crunch. Many local retailers may not have cut their prices and this is the end of a very handy extra 2.5% margin. But they need to think now what they are going to be doing in January. It is clear that the multiple retailers are all planning now. City analysts say they are well placed with lower stock levels and clarity about what shoppers are thinking. Lower mortgage costs mean that many families have had more money to spend each week - around £12 a week in June and £9 in July. If shoppers feel that the Crunch is not so bad, then they may be tempted to spend a lot before Christmas. Analysts say that retailers will be promoting hard. However, they also say that the multiples will be pushing prices up in the background. "With list price increases to more than offset the cost of higher promotions, customers may not be getting quite the bargain that they think," says Andr

Standing in a bric-a-brac shop yesterday, talking to the owner, my eye caught sight of an old Coca-Cola sign with a £48 price tag. His shop is filled to the brim and beyond with stuff. People drop in off the street to browse. Sometimes they buy something. Mostly they leave without buying. It is the opposite of the modern convenience store. What are shoppers looking for? Something valuable that my friend has not noticed? Something to complete their mantlepieces? Props for stage set? A gift for someone who has too much new stuff? He knows his proposition. He buys stuff that looks like someone might value it and then hides it away on shelves filled with often unrelated stuff. Shoppers with time to kill are happy to hunt it out. What do you have in a convenience store that provides the same joy to your shoppers? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps your magazine range? Perhaps you greetings cards?

Local shops with PayPoint terminals could have a new group of customers shortly. This is because the payment service provider has signed a deal with the UK Ministry of Justice so that people can pay fines for some driving offences, for being drunk and disorderly, for vandalism and similar at PayPoint outlets. Initial reaction from retailers has not been warm. Heather Dunn of Keswick told Retail Newsagent : "I really don't see how offering another low-margin collection service is going to help." Ever since the lottery launched in the UK with its 5% retail margin, retailers have suffered from service providers treating this a benchmark. What other service providers may not appreciate is the lottery comes with great emotional baggage. People are buying a dream! Retailers want shoppers to buy dreams in their shops. Major suppliers recognise this and are spending more on point-of-sale solutions as researchers find that the scribbled shopping list is used less and less and

Always fresh is the motto of Canadian food-to-go outlet Tim Hortons. This means it changes its coffee every 20 minutes, even if the pot is full. But it also means, says chief executive Dan Schroder, that: "You're changing all the time...always fresh washrooms, parking lots and products." I visited one of his outlets outside Toronto, where we discovered Timbits, its mini donut balls, and where the counter was pristine clean glass and steel and the staff were crisply attired. The Timbits stand out in my mind as the remarkable part. Mr Schroder is building his business on freshness. To be better than other outlets at delivering freshness he needs to get his staff to buy in to keeping things 100% and to get his business processes right. But perhaps the magic of his business is elsewhere. As the chain seeks to expand it sponsors local childrens sports events, using the Timbits brand. The freshness may get you noticed but the fun may be what is needed to get you coming ba

In all businesses it is fairly easy to calculate the hypothetical profit margin that you could make but the important thing is to work out the actual profit margin that you do make. In a shop, work out the average daily running costs and then take this away from takings and you have a basic measure of profit. Where it gets interesting is when you try to work out which parts of your business are delivering the profits. For many businesses, putting in place the processes to break down and measure profitability is a big task. Starting from scratch, you have to think hard about where costs should be allocated. You then have to work out what the actual sales figures really are. In retailing, many retailers make the mistake of focusing on mark-up and forgetting rate of sale. If you have a product with a 100% mark up that sells once a week, you may find that a product with a 20% mark up that sells 100 times a day is the real profit generator. The process of finding out is also good for

Fresh and chilled foods are the categories where there is a huge divide between independent and multiple shops in the convenience market. Fresh and chilled is a big profit opportunity but doing it well requires a different skill set to selling soft drinks, snacks and confectionery. Speaking to trade magazine Retail Newsagent this week, Booker chief executive Charles Wilson advises: "Get the milk, bread and cheese right because most of the volume and value is in that area." There are two parts to his advice which are helpful. Firstly, the need to focus and to set standards and achieve those standards. Second, that to transform your local shop can involve incremental steps. Break down your move into new areas into small, bite-sized chunks and work your way up to a full fresh and chilled offer by increments. Getting shoppers used to buying bread and milk in your shop will get them thinking about picking up a basket, which is when you break through to the next level in conven

The UK's magazine market has been under investigation by the Office of Fair Trading, the UK's competition watchdog, for many years. A recent ruling on the acquisition of the UK's largest magazine wholesaler Smiths News of assets formerly owned by the former number three wholesaler Dawson News makes interesting reading. To make a judgement, the OFT assesses the supply of services to the publishers, which is paid for by a proportion of the cover price and includes delivery of titles and handling returns. And it assesses the supply of services to retailers, which is paid for by carriage service charges, for the right to receive deliveries. As many retailers challenge the back-door way that CSCs were introduced and expanded in the 1990s, it will be interesting to see if this distinction is allowed to go through unchallenged. More interesting is the OFT's concern that if Smiths did not complete the acquisition then some retailers could potentially have been left without su

Another great question to ask yourself, borrowed from Bronek Masojada, chief executive of insurer Hiscox: "What do we need to do to make this business work really well?" Use this as you walk towards your shop in the morning. Use it as you walk the floor. Use it as you buy from suppliers. Use it after work when you think about the next day.

Bill Gammell, who runs Cairns, a small oil company sitting on large oil fields in Rajasthan, told the FT this week: "Independents recognise that because they are not one of the big boys, they start with the humility to understand that they cannot do everything, and they need people to help them with what they are doing." Two ideas. Focus on what you are good at. Ask for help. Works for local shops too! Cairns was nimble enough to do the deals that made its development a success. Where can you be nimbler than the multiples? Who do you need to ask for help?

Major drinks maker Diageo says it is sticking by its premium brands - such as Johnny Walker whisky - despite City pressure to focus on value alcohol brands. A chart in the FT shows the brands at the top and the bottom are doing OK. Cue the death of the middle articles. It was only six months ago that the City was pressing supermarkets to drop their premium own label brands and suggesting that Waitrose, the up-market grocer, was in trouble. A week ago, both premium own label and Waitrose were back in fashion. For local retailers, the premium brands that matter are those that they can move in sufficient volume to generate a good cash margin. If you hear this noise from the City, ignore it. Visiting your local cash and carry and looking at the shelves to see what is moving and what is not is a better bellwether.

My 17 year-old son returned from a rock festival this week wearing a wristband proudly declaring him 0ver 18. He explained how easy it had been to use someone else's ID to get the identification and said it was ironic that he had not needed to show the over 18 band when buying alcohol. Today, Scottish retailer Abdul Qadar is complaining that public authorities are asking people to lie about their age when making test purchases. What trading standards officers may be forgetting is that the fact that retailers invest in a business premises and trade consistently from it make their job much, much easier. The alternative, a world of markets and itinerant traders, will be far harder to police. Mr Qadar's sense of injustice is fair. Those retailers, like Mr Qadar, who value their investment will seek to trade legally and will not sell alcohol to people under the age of 18. Asking children to lie about their age to local traders is a slander on all retailers.

The clever thing about Tesco advertising is that it does not say we are number one or we are the biggest. Instead it tells the shopper that everything we do is for you. Its latest TV ad tells viewers that it is giving double clubcard points if you buy bananas, cheese and so on. The music is homely, perhaps traditional, perhaps something your granny would know. There is no video, just a set of stills like the local ads that run at your cinema. The promise is cleverly weighted so that the viewer is not being asked to come in-store to get something specific, just to expect value. Other executions may promise low prices but not this latest campaign. Local retailers will not be able to afford television campaigns. Even if they could, experts would say that they will get a smaller return. The advertising is about keeping Tesco shoppers loyal, keeping its market share. Your job is to think about the promises and how you can make them to your shoppers. Your tools are your in-store signa

I read a good post (http://www.newsagencyblog.com.au/2009/08/28/what-do-newsagents-charge-for-faxing.html) asking what price local shops charge for providing a fax service. The blogger had attached a photograph of his sign with his prices on it. What struck me was the message on the sign. "You drop, we fax," it said. "Pressed for time, drop your documents with us and we'll do it for you at no extra charge." That is a message that will persuade most shoppers that you want to give them good value, even if they stay to do the copying or faxing themselves.

Another thing to measure is the percentage of sales each department generates in your shop. A typical breakdown could be grocery food, grocery non food, fresh and chilled, alcohol, tobacco, news and services (lottery etc). Grocery food could be broken down into snacks, confectionery and so on. At the same time measure the percentage of profit each department generates. From this you will see which parts of the business are providing you with cash profit and these are the areas that you need to focus on. Work on your strengths first, then your weaknesses. If you are not already doing this start by analysing each month. If it helps you change things, then think about doing it weekly. You should also remember to communicate the outcome of your findings. Tell your staff which departments are doing well and where to focus their attention.

In a retail business one of the key measures is staff costs and how you organise your rotas to optimise profitability. Optimise here means to make the most money you can without compromising on the quality of the work that you provide your staff or the quality of the products and services that you provide to shoppers. The calculation is simple. Put down your sales total (excluding from services) and then divide it by the hours that you are open. To add up the staff cost calculate the number of hours worked by each staff member multiplied by their hourly rate plus taxes; add these together and divide by the hours that you are open. Then divide the hourly revenues by the hourly staff cost and measure this percentage. If you set a target to reduce the percentage staff costs, look at the jobs that you need people to do and when the quiet times are in the shop. Moving restocking to times when the shop is not busy is an obvious area for savings. Your staff payroll is an investment and y

In spring and autumn UK magazine publishers issue their ABC figures, which show how many copies they sell through the retail channel. This provides retailers with a great opportunity to benchmark their sales by comparing their sales figures with those achieved nationally. While one reason for doing this is to change your order, another is to find out more about the people visiting your shop. Steve Denham in his blog ( http://cherilynstores.blogspot.com/2009/08/reflecting-on-retail-newsagents-best.html ) says he uses the industry figures to "confirm the point of difference" his shoppers need. He simply divides the total sale by the number of UK magazine outlets, say 55,000, and then checks how much more or less of every copy he sells than the average shop. He believes he has an older, more affluent and conservative base of shoppers. The magazine sales figures confirm this. Try it for your shop.

Earlier this year I attended a seminar that explained the success secrets behind Primi, a South African restaurant that is famous for generating the highest profit per square foot in shopping malls. The outcome for me is that I now look at restaurants to spot all the things that people do right and wrong. Last night, my mother took a big family party out to a mid-market chain pizza restaurant and in our 45 minute wait after sitting down before our drinks were served we could see how a lack of basic organisation meant that the five waiters and three kitchen staff kept on hitting log jams. One of Primi rules is that all the waiting staff walk the whole restaurant all the time and look to serve people straight away - especially those on tables that other waiters have served. Last night, we could see three waiters pretending to be busy while two waiters were hopelessly overworked. This was presumably a result of a random allocation of tables as diners arrived. The manager at the end, apolo

Some time ago my brother visited a shop which used a marketing product that my company then published called Magazine Guide, which helped independent retailers to promote their shops as destinations for magazine buyers. When he called me to tell me about it, he remarked that he almost missed it because the last thing he expected a local shop to do was to market to him. A little later that year I was in a chemist shop and it had a big stack of shampoo on a gondola end and what looked like a side of a cardboard box sitting behind it. Looking closer at the brown cardboard, the retailer had written details of his special offer on it in faint blue ballpoint pen. It was not easy to read and the overall impact it made was poor. As it was a Saturday morning, I took the time to walk to a multiple retailer four units down the high street to check its price for the shampoo. The local retailer was cheaper and ever since I have wondered why the sign was so poor when the deal was so good. There

Reading about how Jack Welch says he ran General Electric, the giant US conglomerate, offers a useful test for local retailers thinking about how to invest in their shops. "Our job is capital allocation - intellectual and financial," he said. "Smell, feel, touch, listen, then allocate. And make mistakes - but we're big enough to make mistakes." As a local retailer you need to manage your financial and personal assets. You need to think hard about new ideas. You need to take risks. But not life threatening ones. Swansea retailer Salaman Rasul says he made several attempts to move into fresh food over his 22 years operating a convenience store. Then a year ago he made a big investment in a chiller, spending £12,500, and it has worked. The chiller keeps the food fresher longer and encourages shoppers to buy his products.

Availability is a term used in the convenience industry to measure whether you have a product (or service) available for a shopper when they seek to purchase it in your shop. Good availability requires an investment of your money (to have the stock), your energy (to monitor stock levels and to match stock to the most common requirements of your shoppers) and your know-how (to stock the products that will make you the most money). In discussing availability with retailers recently I notice that many measured availability differently. They chose to remember the occasions when someone asked for something unusual and they got the product in-store for the customer. In other words, they believed that their advantage in availability was the ability to get stuff that big grocers would not. However, there is a danger that these retailers are missing out on an essential discipline. They pride themselves on fulfilling occasional requests but do not check that they are always stocking the top sell

There is a problem with local retailers selling cigarettes to children in the UK and the law is framed so that the retailer has to verify the age of the person asking to purchase tobacco products. A rise in the age to 18 has helped reduce the problem but determined children still seem to be able to buy tobacco from some local shops. Sussex retailer Steve Denham is convinced that the reason why so many retailers are still caught making sales by trading standards officers is because they have not implemented simple management processes to ensure their staff challenge potential purchasers who do not look 18. Multiple retailers have introduced schemes like challenge 25, which perhaps tells us the low expectations they have of their staff. However, local retailers should be able to do better. Keeping within the law, both its spirit and letter, should be part of your value system. And values are not tradable. Good local businessess need to have robust processes. Even those retailers who do h

Research by Ogilvy & Mather suggests that one in five shoppers buys on impulse and the way products are displayed triggers impulse purchases more than any other in-store activity. As manufacturers spend heavily on providing "theatre" to local shops, is there a danger that the shopper can no longer see the product because they have seen the dump bin creative execution in too many other places. Local retailers need to understand what works in their shops and harness this to grow their sales. Use the ideas of the major suppliers to inform and develop your product displays. The opportunity is there but remember that O&M also found that promotional pricing is the least effective way to trigger the impulse buy.

Wrigley's new expensive chewing gum has hit the UK and as it is summer holiday time I was in the company of a big group of teenagers yesterday who were all raving about the gum and its 97p price point. "The flavour really lasts longer," one teenager assured me as his pals looked on in agreement. Who am I to argue? In store last week, my five-year-old was looking for batteries for his torch and picked up a packet of gum suggesting these could be batteries. I mentioned this and the teenagers said the packaging was really cool. If you had asked me last week, the UK chewing gum market seemed pretty crowded before this launch. If you asked me today, I would say the manufacturer has found a niche. My advice to local shopkeepers is to support everything launched by a major manufacturer (provided it fits your store profile) as you have nothing to lose.

A US food researcher wrote recently that when it comes to snacks like crisps people are looking for the product to taste great and when they see that the product has a "better-for-you" positioning, they make the assumption that the taste will have been compromised. Good taste is mostly going to have priority over better-for-you when it comes to impulse purchases. However, this will not stop manufacturers from constantly trying to produce the better-for-you product that tastes great! If taste makes the shoppers happy, then you need to focus your efforts on providing the right products. This does not mean that you ignore the shopper looking for a better-for-you treat but it does mean that in providing for them you must not forget that the essential purpose of a snack is pleasure.

Michael Skapinker has done the hard work of looking at the thinking behind the Food Standards Agency report that finds "no good evidence" that eating organic food would benefit most people. The report is a summary of lots of scientific papers that weeds out the ones with poor science to find a consensus. The consensus is, at present, that there is no evidence to support the health claims of organic food. An issue for local shops is that advocates of organic food are not likely to be swayed by this study and they will still want to buy food they believe to be better for them. So you may still be stocking organic food and having to present it in a way that implies its potential health benefits. As a placebo can often help people feel better, who is to say that buying a nice looking carrot will not make your shopper feel better too! The FSA says that it is niether for nor against organic food and that it is a matter for consumer choice. The people who carried out the rese

After a short visit to Wales, it is clear that the multiples are colonising where it matters - the sides of car parks in tourist towns. We have three examples of local shops that could do more to win business from tourists. At Montgomery, a town that has 35 of 50 retail units empty, we parked in the attractive high street and walked towards a cafe for a cup of tea. As we reached the door a bell on the town hall clock rang out. "We're closed, it's 4.30," the waitress said, with a smile. She really did look pleased to turn us away. At Trecastle, we stopped at a cafe which was recommended but claimed to be closed Mondays and Tuesdays. "You are open," we said, with delight. "In your ad it said you would be closed." We had a nice late lunch. The owner did not ask where we had seen the ad. Outside Welshpool, we stopped at a farm shop. It was expensive. There was some attractive looking honey. Underneath it said made in New Zealand. So did

"Far too many people are held back by their fear that they are not a born salesperson," says Deborah Meaden, the businessperson currently promoting her book on how to run a business. The fear of selling is the fear of being told No. It is the fear of having to push something unwonted on people. It is the fear that a No is a rejection of you. Meaden's solution is to say that if people are as passionate about what they do as they should be "it follows that they can't help but sell their dream to other people". What she recognises is that it is good to look at the "sale" from a different perspective so that what is important is not whether the person liked you or the product but whether they enjoyed the experience of the sale. People like to be asked for their custom because it gives them power, the power to say yes or no. Selling face-to-face requires you to have good knowledge of what you are selling, a belief in your product (or services) and the a

Supermarket shoppers pay to look at 20 different lines but they only buy one, says Paul Foley, who heads Aldi in the UK. Unlike the big four grocers, his approach is to stock only one type of baked bean. By doing so he can deliver better quality at a lower price. Aldi delivers two benefits to its shoppers, says Foley. First, they save time as they do not have to select products from displays cluttered with brands they don't want. Second, they understand the value proposition and are not taken in by the "cheapest-on-display" measures used by his competitors. Thrifty shoppers from all income levels are visiting Aldi, he says. When the recession is over, they may stay. However, thrifty shoppers from all income levels have always been looking for a bargain. In the 1970s my mother ganged up with her friends and took it in turns to shop at the wholesale markets for fruit and vegetables, meat and fish. The bigger obstacle to the Aldi approach may be that it is impossible to get

Domino's takes 5.5% of sales from each franchised site and bills 5% of revenues for a national advertising fund (it also makes a margin on the foodstuffs it sells franchisees). In the pizza business, this works for Dominos and the franchisee. Domino's head office is constantly innovating because its target audience is constantly changing the way it buys food-to-go. For example, moving from phoning up to ordering on-line, which today accounts for 16% of sales and is growing fast. In the US, Dominos was initially successful because it worked out it was in the logistics business and what mattered was delivering pizzas precisely when you said you would. Today, it has to do more to stay ahead in food-to-go.

Some ideas borrowed from Dido Harding, who heads up Sainsbury's Local, the c-store chain. Before talking to an FT journalist she ordered the windows of the store she was visiting to be polished because she wanted them to look perfect. Looking perfect should be the starting point for all shops. With 280 outlets, she needs to support two propositions: one for the neighbourhood shopper and one for the city centre food-to-go shopper. Local shopkeepers will be in the catchment area for one or the other. Check out her stores to see what the differences are. Within the neighbourhood proposition, Dido has three options for upmarket, mid-market and "more challenged" shopper needs. How does this work? Fresh and chilled food at the top? Chicken wings at the bottom? I don't know but it is simply a case of knowing your customers and getting your offer right. And always polish your windows...

In thinking about how shoppers see your shop there are five areas where you control the dialogue: the prices that you charge; the quality of the products that you sell; the quality of the service you will provide; the depth of range and availability that you will provide; and the atmosphere of the shop. All are levers that an independent retailer can use to engage the loyalty of shoppers. In thinking about which are the most important for your shop, you need to think about who your key customers are; the 20% who generate 80% of the profits (note I say profits and not sales). What are they looking for and how do you match your offer to meet their interests? For example, if you have children buying trading cards, how do you make this a great buying experience for them? What other products with high margins will appeal to them? Would you put up a poster in store with a countdown to the launch of a new collection? Would you set up an in-store event so that children could swap cards w

I was struck recently by two retailers who took part in the Academy in Action project, where executives from leading suppliers visit their stores to discuss what they have got right from the perspective of a shopper and what could be better. Inside both shops looked great, with good displays and ranges. The "shoppers" noted the commitment to customer service and warm welcome. However, the exteriors of both shops were poor: One had a torn canopy; the other a long-damaged fascia. Do shoppers notice? The answer is yes. Think about when you get a present. Think of the care that someone puts into wrapping the gift, personalising it for you. That takes time and effort and magnifies the value of the gift. Think about what it feels like if the gift is unwrapped! There is a simple remedy: walk across the street from your store, close your eyes, imagine you are a visitor, open your eyes and ask yourself would you cross the street to visit that shop.

The pound shop is back in fashion, with widespread media coverage of the success of Poundland, which may be an indicator of a return to thrift by the UK's shoppers. The ability of Poundland, run by c-store pioneer Jim McCarthy, to stock big brands at £1 - its top selling line is Nescafé coffee 100g - "provides a halo effect for the rest of the store". On the face of it, this seems to justify McCarthy's boast that his shop is about amazing value every day. But the shopper always decides what is value and what is not and the heart of pound shops is the ability to provide "useful stuff" like backscratchers, foot long shoe horns and feather dusters that no-one knows the price of. As the Guardian sums up, the shopper may not "actually, you know, need the stuff". The pound price point is having its hour but good retailers know value is a constantly shifting target. You have to keep your offer relevant and fresh and get the price right.