Enduring Business Principles

As Jeff Haden says: “Some business principles come and go. Fortunately, there are some business principles you can use forever.”
Here are Haden’s eight enduring business principles:
  1. “Look past the messenger and focus on the message. When people speak from a position of position of power or authority or fame, it’s tempting to place greater emphasis on their input, advice, and ideas. That approach works to a point. Never discount the message because you discount the messenger. Good advice is good advice — regardless of the source.”
  2. “Focus on collecting knowledge. Continually striving to gain more experience, more experience, and more knowledge is the second-best way to succeed.”
  3. “Focus on collecting knowledgeable people. You can’t know everything. But you can know enough smart people that together you know almost everything.”
  4. “Give before receiving. When we network, we want something. But, especially at first, never ask for what you want. Forget about what you want and focus on what you can give. Giving is the only way to establish a real relationship and a lasting connection.”
  5. “Always work on next. No matter how successful you are today, always have a next in your pipeline.”
  6. “Eat as many of your words as you can. Own every mistake, every miscue, and every failure. Say you made a mistake. Say you messed up. Say it to other people, but more importantly, look in the mirror and say it to yourself. Then commit to making sure that next time things will turn out very differently.”
  7. “Turn ideas into actions. The word ‘idea’ should be a verb, not a noun, because no idea is real until you turn that inspiration into action.”
  8. “Occasionally we all need to lighten up.”
Click Haden’s image to read more.

Posted in Part 1: Overview/Planning, Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 8: Putting It All Together | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

RadioShack: Mobile Store Locators at Work

In 2011, RadioShack decided to launch a mobile site. The customer response to this effort has been quite strong.
Susan Kuchinskas, writing for ClickZ, notes that: “RadioShack launched its mobile site to make it easier for shoppers to quickly find products and services. It includes a mobile, touch-optimized store locator with click-to-call and GPS functionality. After its launch, the retailer found the average order value increased by 30 percent. An analysis of four months’ worth of data completed by RadioShack with Mindshare, its agency, found that 36 percent of clicks were on its store locator page. Based on internal data, they estimated that 40 to 60 percent of clicks on its store locator resulted in visits to a physical store. Of those who did shop at a store, 85 percent made a purchase. Before this study, RadioShack had only tracked conversion on its mobile site; it didn’t have great visibility into how mobile search affected in-store sales.”
Click the chart (which highlights RadioShack’s results after revamping its mobile strategy) to read about how Adidas is also using store locators.

 

Posted in Online Retailing, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 4: Store Location Planning, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer, Social Media and Retailing, Technology in Retailing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Big Retailers Opening Smaller Stores

As we reported last year, many big-box retailers have been adding smaller stores to appeal to different market segments. Wal-Mart is one of those that is actively following this approach. In 2013 alone, the firm plans to open 115 small-format Neighborhood Market stores.
Marianne Wilson, reporting for Chain Store Age, states that Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon  is pleased that “the smaller-format stores (below 60,000 sq. ft.) are making inroads against dollar stores, supermarkets, and drugstores — and will play a key role in the company’s future. ‘They compete really well against multiple channels,’ Simon said. Wal-Mart thinks of its smaller-format units, which include both the Walmart Express and Walmart Neighborhood Market banners, as hybrid stores rather than specific niche competitors. ‘They are more hybrid stores than you would think … they all have fresh food and pharmacy and the Walmart everyday low price promise. And they are all enabled with.com capabilities, and Site-To-Store capabilities. So you have that endless aisle that we can offer that others might not be able to offer.’     Wal-Mart is particularly bullish on its Neighborhood Market concept, with a direct line to 500 by fiscal 2016, according to Simon.”
Click the image for a slide show.


 

Posted in Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 4: Store Location Planning, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment