nickshanagher

The headline caught my attention Underdog businesses are more likely to post fake Yelp reviews. The full article is a useful resource to explain how you might use social media to build your shop's reputation and business. Don't be tempted to cheat. More on www.betterretailing.com .

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...

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...

The most memorable idea in John Stanley’s keynote presentation at the Local Shop Summit was that the world of retailing will change more in the next five years than it has in the past 100.   As a result, local shopkeepers were going to have to change their thinking, embracing things like using social media to establish themselves as “day makers” for their local communities. The usual suspects heard his message and their positive feedback energised the team who put together the event. But what of the other retailers there: what were they thinking? I don’t know but I will have a stab at it. One of the first retailers I met more than 20 years ago when I started to cover this industry ran a small local shop and was passionate about his customers and what he sold. In the town where he operated, his shop had a reputation as the place to go for hobby magazines and collectables. His passion for news and for stocking the latest stuff translated into a successful business. H...

There is a lot of talk about growth and the convenience channel and it was no different at the Local Shop Summit in Torquay earlier this month. With more than 200 retailers in the audience, John Kinney, retail director of Today’s, asked a simple question: Who was in growth? The answer on the electronic pads was 42%. As industry figures show that more people are shopping more frequently in local shops - and experts say more than £10 billion in extra sales will be in the convenience channel by 2018 - where is the growth? Principally in supermarket stores and in symbol groups, says Kinney. Why? Because the biggest area of convenience is top up shopping and this plays to the supermarket operators’ strengths. What he did not say is that much of that £10 billion is not new money but simply the transfer of sales from a Tesco out of town to a Tesco in a high street. What is encouraging for independents, particularly those in symbol groups, is that they are winning sales from thes...

"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...