Ever since the down fall of economy and big department stores (walmart) are located every corner of US towns, small retail stores shrink and disappear due to direct competition. But despite the direct competition, there are still small firms that continue to thrive with the market and generate income. This is how they keep their business alive so could you.
1. Please your customers aka customer service. As a retail independent owner, you should already know that pleasing your customers is the top priority. Doesn’t matter what the customers’ satisfactions are you have to fulfill it. What makes you different from your competitors is the way you run your store and treat your customers. Good customer service will keep them coming back which means great profit for you. Yes, of course, it requires a lot of works, patient, and a thorough understanding of their behaviors. But at the end you’ll generate income.
2. You have to be on the scene at your store. What this mean is you have to run the store with a salesperson staff. What the point of opening a business if someone else runs it for you. This is benefiting both you and your customers. Your benefits are you have the accurate data of what they will purchase, look at, hours they’ll shop, and price them willing to pay for. Unlike the big corporate CEO, they have to depend on the reports from the field, spreadsheets, and infrequent management visits. This could lead to an inaccurate future decision. Another reason why you should be at your store is your employees will give your customers the best service they could possibly give.
3. Your Store Front Windows. The familiar phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” do not apply to your retail store. The first impression customers are going to get out of your store is from its windows. By saying this, your store front window is the cheapest and most effective way of advertising your store. If set right, they will bring customers into your store. You can dresser your window yourself or you could find a professional window dresser. They are relatively at low cost to hire. The front store windows should always feature your sales, special events, and any promotions you have. Change your front store window frequently.
4. You need to change with time. Too often, retail independent owners are too comfortable with the way they run their business and see no reason why they should change. They considered change is a bad gamble, and status quo is the safe way to go. Unfortunately, it is via versa. Time will pass by you who resist changing with time. To keep your retail store alive and compete against your competitors, you should be ready, willing, and able to make all necessary changes to keep your store competitive. You should not be afraid of failure. As our President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated in his inaugural, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Overall, you must make adjustments to keep your small retail store alive.
5. Let the WWW works for you. The internet is the great tool for small business. You should use it to your advantage. First, you start an email newsletter today between and your customers. Outline a brochure of what the email will contains (usually sales and coupon are the best), and how often will your customers will receive the email (once a month). Second, you should have an e-commerce of your store. Website is not expensive to develop if you used it properly. Don’t create a website that is all business, but instead, make it entertaining and informative for your customers. Your website mainly should be center focus of your primary customers. For example, if your customers mainly men, develop a page mainly for men activities such as local sport. Focus in your local area first.
These five strategies are only a basic general guideline. They are relatively low cost or no cost at all. It is only consuming your free time. But as a business retailer your free time is your store. Use this to your advantage.
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Question about business retail
Is my business retail or am I a wholesaler?Okay, so I'm trying to start my own business selling my own line of children's bedding and accessories.I'm trying to research my industry which is Home Furnishings. In the Home Furnishings Industry there's a Home Furnishings Retail sector and a Home Frunishings Wholesale sector.
I want to get my line of children's bedding and accessories into Walmart and after growth eventally have my own store so…
Am I in the Home Furnishings Retail sector or wholesale sector being that I'm trying to get my line into Walmart and don't have an actual store?
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Tags: basic guide for small business, cheapest strategies, Customer Service, retail business plan, retail independent owner, Retailers, small business retail, small retail business, store front windowCategory : Business
important is you need to have some money, make a business plan, go to the small business administration in your town, get some in formations.
Look where you want to open your store, where is located, is there more stores like that, this will be not so good, find a some name for your store, and make the registrations for taxes, if you are making money over the years and your business working very good and you can open another store and more and more….
Good luck for your business…
yes. place an aquarium with piranhas and a sign "Do not feed the Piranhas" and put the business cards next to the aquarium.
How about a book store, if you are looking retail?
I cant say if it would work in your town, you need to do marketing research to see what would succeed in your town.
Also in business .. Location, Location, Location is VERY important to success .. not only do you need the right business, you need the right location ..
Passion, YES .. you do have to work long hours but passion because you believe in what you are doing.
I work from home and have the utmost compassion and belief for what I do, I believe that is what brings me success ..
If you don't like books, don't like to read .. then a book store probably wont make sense. Did deep .. Only you know what you really want to do.
GL!
Besides the SBA, look around for microlending organizations in your community. Many of them receive funding from the SBA, and can help you develop a business or marketing plan. The loan amount are small, but for the kind of business you're talking about, it may be enough.
Good luck!
Pamela Johnson
http://www.SewingMachineRepairing.com
(also a community college business instructor)
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Chinese+retail+businesses&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8
I run 5 websites (none in retail though). I can say that this is a hard question to answer. Clearly, overstock.com will cost more to run than joesglass.com. I personally use bluehost.com for hosting, so my monthly expense is under $10 for all 5 sites (non-retail though…). I see anywhere from 8k to 20k visitors monthly with no speed issues. You should probably look into some e-commerece software solutions like this:
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/
It looks like their starter package is about $40/month, and its scalable in case your business grows unexpectedly.
When you sell to retailers like Walmart, that activity is wholesaling.
When you sell directly to end-users of your product, that activity is retailing.
If, in the future, you end up doing both, then you are both a wholesaler and a retailer. For tax purposes, these 2 activites have different tax rates for things like B&O tax, etc.
Go to http://sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/plan/index.html or http://www.bplans.com/ where you will find sample business plans and instructions on how to write a business plan.
Well good luck and I hope you have done research in your niche before you invest in your business.
Here goes a quick list of things you need:
Business lic, save time and register your business lic as the domain name of your business
You should have at lease one years worth of money in the bank for your personal living. Worst thing for you to do is think you will live off the business during your 1st year. Any money coming in you want to reinvest into the company for more income
A Keyword Driven Domain Name for your business. Since you are thinking of a local pool business think of something that will tell your clients where and who you are
A website created from a blog like wordpress. Give advise to people on how they can treat there pool and stuff like this. This will get people in your area to notice that you are a pro and seek out your advice
A hosting account to host your business
Merchant account or someway for you to take credit cards. You might be able to use paypal and have your clients locally pay you online.
Some marketing tools to hand your door to door clients.
A unique way you do business. Give your clients a reason why they should use your business over the other businesses in your area
Email marketing system, it's the cheapest and best way to stay in contact with your clients and continue to market to them
Hmmm that seems good for starters Good luck and below are a few sites to help you with some of the online idea