Latest updates on retail business

Mantras of staying in Retail Business
November 12, 2009
Companies are investing heavily in marketing to showcase their products and build up customer loyalty. There are many options available for increasing your market share. For instance companies are using :Email Marketing, with this you can keep your customer updated on the new arrivals and the upcoming sales. Organizations are using all kinds of tools from customer surveys to taking feedback online to build up their brands

You need to keep promoting yourself so that the customer knows you are there. The basic idea is to increase your market share. For this you need to do thoughtful planning. Keeping a dedicated staff, where service is the priority will go a long way in keeping your customers happy and regenerating business. Customer referrals are a big part of your success story. A satisfied customer would bring in more business by referring to their friends and associates to shop at your place.

You need to have your store placed strategically to attract potential customers seek convenience and innovations. A clean and attractive décor with visibility of products would ease your customer in your store. As rightly said by Kaushika Madhavan, Manager retail practice– AT Kearney “We need different models of retailing to tap the entire gamut of opportunity that exists.” The main challenge for Indian retailers lies in offering value for money to the price conscious Indian consumers.

Marketing message needs to be sent to target audience several times to influence a buying decision. Ads can be given in many newspapers to make your presence felt. These can be combined with ad on the local radio station and television. With the soap operas being so popular and being watched by families as a whole, it is a fast way of reaching a whole lot of people. Trapping the huge network of mobile users, SMS is fast becoming a good and cost effective way of promoting your brand.

In today's very competitive marketplace a strategy that insures a consistent approach to offering your product or service in a way that will outsell the competition is critical.The essence of retail marketing is developing merchandise and services that satisfy specific needs of customers, and supplying them at prices that will yield profits.

Many online retailers are targeting shoppers to social sites like Facebook , MySpace and YouTube. The new generation is a more frequent user of internet and this influences their online spending habits. Online retailers create profiles on existing social networking sites to promote their products. To strengthen the company’s online presence they tie up with various online marketplaces such as Amazon, Buy.com and others. A retailer needs to thrive and not just survive in business.

Nafed plans retail expansion through franchisees
April 30, 2009
Cooperative major National Agricultural and Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed) has drawn up plans to set up retail grocery outlets through franchise model. At present, the company operates ten company-owned outlets under the name of Nafed Bazaar -- eight in Delhi and two in Shimla. Outlets under the franchise model will also be named Nafed Bazaar.

Nafed is a central government agency engaged in procurement, processing, distribution, export and import of various agricultural commodities. The federation is also the central nodal agency for undertaking price support operations in pulses and oilseeds and market intervention operations for other agricultural commodities such as jute, cotton and copra.

Wal-Mart sales down - blamed Easter
April 11, 2009
U.S. comparable-store sales for Wal-Mart rose 0.6%, missing estimates of a 3.3% increase. Sam's Club sales jumped 6.2%, exceeding estimates of a 3.8% increase. Total U.S. same-store sales rose 1.4%, missing estimates of a 3.2% gain. The No. 1 retailer Wal-Mart blamed Easter coming in April this year instead of March last year in hurting its namesake U.S. stores. It expects Easter to drive April numbers based on their initial strength of its sales this week. Despite the shortfall, the retail giant was one of the few companies posting positive numbers while the aggregate apparel, department-store and even discount segments posted declines.

Interior / Brand Design
April 06, 2009
Most interior design projects look good when business opens up. Some will become thriving business whereas others will fail and close their doors soon. Interior & brand design is the only area that allows the measurement of each designing cost. When sales increases after the installation of new concept of design, you know the worth of the design. Good design concept would give a feel & reason to your business visitors to come back again.

US Govt. to boost its stake to 40 per cent in Citi
February 23, 2009
According to media reports, Citigroup Inc is in talks with US government, that could see the US government boost its stake to 40 per cent. The Wall Street Journal said Citigroup and US officials are discussing a plan under which the government could convert a big chunk of the $45 billion of preferred shares it bought last year.

The US plan could see the government end up owning as much as 40 per cent of its common equity, though Citi executives hope to limit the stake to closer to 25 per cent, the newspaper reported. The preferred shares now amount to a stake of less than 8 percent.

The US Treasury declined to comment on Citigroup but said it would consider converting preferred shares it owns in banks into common equity to strengthen their capital structure.