nickshanagher

The day before Christmas we smashed my wife's treasured Emma Bridgewater butter dish. While the lid with its memorable message 'Don't let the cat get the butter' survived, my daughter and I determined to visit the local shops and effect an instant replacement. But first we checked out the price online. Henley-on-Thames, our local market town, has a few showy independent homewares shops and while I was prepared to pay a premium I had set myself a limit. My surprise was to find the price was the same. I remarked on this to the owner, who was very aware of the clicks versus bricks challenge to the success of his store. This manufacturer, he said, worked quite hard to maintain its price points. I bought the dish and was delighted to receive a Christmas gift of a tea towel as well. If Tesco's business model is under threat from Amazon and the internet, does this mean your business model is too? Yes, is the answer of Michael Koploy of Software Advice, who has just pro...

"How we interact at a local level is really important to us, and that's why we've launched these local Facebook pages," Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer of Wal-Mart US, tells Fortune magazine. The full article http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/14/news/companies/walmart_stephen_quinn_leadership.fortune/index.htm  is well worth a read. Mr Quinn explains that retailing is fundamentally a local business. His marketing team has to work out how to build local communities around its 3,500 US stores. For local shopkeepers the challenge is clear. In 2012 you need to think about how you represent your shop on Facebook and similar social media and through the internet. As an exercise, go to Google and enter the word groceries and the name of your town or village. I did it for my village and One Stop came top. I did it for where I work and Sainsbury Local came top. "Our goal is to integrate into the things that are happening in a local commun...

The internet will change the way that you operate your local shop and there is little to be gained from fighting this. A requirement for UK retailers to make their sales tax returns on line has resulted in complaints from some that they want to stay in a paper-based world. This is a mistake for any business-owner, surely. The internet and information technology is shaping the competitive world in thousands of ways. For example, Waitrose is using IT so that it can sell its products through outlets owned by chemist chain Boots and petrol retailer Shell - the latter through self-service kiosks. Waitrose has a £40 million IT budget and it is one of the smallest UK multiples. Derbyshire independent retailer Stuart Reddish told members of the Newsagents' Federation at its national council meeting in Newcastle last week that as a business owner you have a responsibility to pay tax in the way that society demands. Separately, he said it was crazy to be in business and not using the int...