nickshanagher

There is a great moment in the film, The SocialNetwork , when Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, met Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, the founders of Facebook, in New York. Parker has made the trip to New York to meet Zuckerberg and this face-to-face meeting will make all three immensely wealthy. In Aaron Sorkin’s script this is a pivotal point in the success of Facebook. Saverin is in New York meeting potential advertisers to try and turn their start up into a business. He is thinking it could be worth a million dollars. Zuckerberg is not interested. He thinks Facebook is cool. He is keen to meet Parker because he has cool reputation as the man who brought the music industry to its knees. The other person at the dinner table is Christy, the girlfriend of Saverin. It is a fancy restaurant and Parker is 25 minutes late and Saverin does not like him or being there. After initial discussions Parker scales up Zuckerberg’s ambition. Facebook, he says, could be worth a bill...

The end of the independent bookstore (and a new golden age for books) is an unmissable Seth Godin comment piece that has resonance for any local shop. His analysis of how multiple retailers can take the profit opportunity from independent retailers who develop a market applies to more markets than just books. Think Easter eggs. Think back to school. His market positioning for the independent book shop of the future is great. How can you use what he says to apply to your business and to your customers. While the convenience business model appears to be robust enough to withstand the advance of the internet, you cannot afford to stand still. Think about how you can "own" the hearts and minds of your customers. For more, see www.betterretailing.com .

Yesterday's Evening Standard carried a prominent story about a coffee bar in Westfield Stratford City and a rude cashier, who typed F***ers all come at once on a woman's till receipt and declined to apologise. The upset customer complained about the Grind Coffee Bar to Westfield staff three times but was "fobbed off at every turn", Naomi Bloomer told the paper. Eventually, Dave Dickinson, owner of theNew Zealand run bar apologised. He said: "We strive for super-friendly antipodean customer service. So we apologise to the one person that didn't experience this." There are two things of interest here. Firstly, Dave Dickinson should know that for every one person that complains there are plenty who simply walk away and never return. Secondly, on Twitter no-one has got outraged. The Camden Coffee House wrote a tweet of support and Grind replied to say it hoped that one story doesn't undo four years of hard work. Anne Cupcake said that the com...

Bibby Line, the owner of Costcutter, is a 206 year old family-owned company and its non-executive chairman Simon Sherrard recently wrote to the FT in response to a column on unforced errors made by entrepreneurs. "We manage our business for cash and not for profit as we have nowhere to turn if the cash runs out," he wrote. "We have coined the phrase that you can often have cashless profit but you very rarely have profitless cash." My friend David Adams challenged me as to how many retailers understand this rule. His view was that it would be close to 100 per cent. I am not sure that he is correct. How do you rate your skills in this respect? The second thought comes from Bibby's website and its observations on the strengths of Costcutter, which it says delivers the best advice to its retail partners plus a national brand, marketing and store development support. "Arguably, these together generate the highest profit margins in the sector....

Local retailers need to sit down and take note. Two major retailers - Amazon and Waitrose - yesterday acquired media businesses. Close to home,Waitrose bought the 63 year old Good Food Guide from Which? to build on its presence as a "food expert across a number of communications channels." "We aim to be the go-to shop for food lovers and this guide will develop our brand as an authority on good food," said Rupert Thomas, marketing director. More dramatically, Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon bought the Washington Post for $250m. He said: "Journalism plays a critical role in a free society and the Washington Post as the hometown paper of the capital city of the United States is especially important." Media moguls used to buy papers for political influence. Can big retailers be any different? However, for local retailers this underlines the need for you to have a social media strategy. You need to communicate with your shoppers and build their tr...

Two current articles in Fortune make interesting reading for enterprising independent retailers. First is an interview with Pitt Hyde who sold his family's wholesale food distribution business in 1988 to invest in auto parts retailing. Hyde did not know the auto parts business but he knew there was an opportunity because customer service was poor and standards were low. His plan was to focus on customer service in good looking stores. He started out with four in 1988 and now has 5,000. "We worked on small margins and were very tight operators, so that discipline helped us through as we learned the business," he recalls. "Money is a small part of the equation for success. Sweat equity is what makes things work." Less visceral but just as interesting is an interview with Greg Wasson , CEO of Walgreen, the massive US drug store chain lauded by Jim Collins. The journalist is Geoff Colvin, who is consistently excellent. Here is what Wasson says: ...

The IT revolution that helped Tesco and Wal-Mart leap ahead of the independent channel may have a sting in the tail, the authors of Reshaping Retail , a new book from Wiley, suggest. Stefan Niemeier, Andrea Zocchi and Marco Catena have collaborated on a book that summarises the world view of McKinsey, the giant US consulting firm. Technology has handed power to consumers at retailers’ expense, they write. Smart phones that let shoppers product search and research, purchase and pay, and connect to social media for reviews have destroyed “the monopoly retailers once enjoyed over information about products and prices”. The book’s most provocative assertion is that many retailers simply do not have the mindset to adapt to the new situation. “Too many of those who began their careers operating stores are still trying to squeeze more from their traditional business processes rather than responding to the new world in entirely new ways,” they write. Wholesalers could ask themsel...

My thoughts about traffic lights have been amplified by some comments in Reshaping Retail , a book by Stefan Neimeier, Andrea Zocchi and Marco Catena that explains why technology is transforming the industry and how to win in the new consumer driven world. They write: "With an internet-enabled mobile phone, it is easier to make an informed choice, which need not be limited to the products in the store where the customer happens to be standing." The shopper can look for reviews and compare prices: The RedLaser app lets you scan bar codes and instantly receive information on prices and product reviews Yottamark's Harvestmark Food Traceability app calls up information on the provenance of particular items, shares reviews and gives contact details for farmers. PS The traffic light food tracker from Australia is exactly the tool the UK government could use if it wanted to. For more see www.betterretailing.com .

A short item in the Economist based on Kantar Worldpanel data shows what is happening to apple sales in the UK - they are going down. The varieties in growth are: 1. Jazz 2. Pink Lady 3. Braeburn 4. Gala And in decline are: 1. Granny Smith 2. Cox 3. Golden Delicious. Remember, these are figures only from shops that hand out till receipts, which means that Kantar does not measure the totality of the independent sector. But it is still a useful guide as to what to stock. More importantly the Economist interviews suppliers who explain the rise in Gala and Braeburn because consumers like the flavour, supermarkets like them because they are grown all around the world so they are always available and growers like them because they have longer seasons than traditional English varieties. But Pink Lady, now the fourth most popular variety in Britain, is another fruit covered by strict quality controls and no British farmer is licensed to grow it. Apples are becoming more like...