Time Your Statements of Benefits

Knowing when to do what is essential to maximizing retailing profitability. Offering cold weather merchandise when your target consumers start thinking about cold weather preferences. Ordering the heavy sweaters and recruiting the tire chain jockeys enough in advance of when they’ll be needed.
     Tony Curtis, who died last week at age 85 after having appeared in more than 140 movies, is quoted as having said, “…(M)y longevity is due to my good timing.” I don’t know who first advised, “Timing is everything,” but Albert Einstein associated time with everything when saying, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.”
     Prof. Einstein’s insight applies to the best ways for you to present product and service benefits to your retail shoppers:

• Researchers at University of Connecticut and University of Virginia found that women shoppers vary between thinking, “It’s time for me” and “It’s time for others.” Analyze how your shoppers cycle between these two, then adjust your merchandise mix to fit. Retail store consultants at Envirosell performed an even more sophisticated analysis of timing, resulting in them advising a shopping mall bookstore to use cylindrical fixtures to rotate out different sorts of books for different times of the day. These approaches help you not only to sell more merchandise, but also to even out the flow of customers over the hours your store is open.
• In advertising, describe the range of alternatives you have available to each customer. If your in-store or warehouse range is, in reality, limited, you could expand it by offering special-order services. But once the shopper arrives at your store or ecommerce site, have the products presented in easily understood categories. Researchers at University of Texas-Austin describe how having a broad assortment of products available draws shoppers, but once the shoppers arrive, they seek ease of product evaluation.
• Before the sale, emphasize the number of functions the product can serve and have technical specifications easily available. Once the sale has been completed, state benefits in terms of making it easy to use the functions and reassuring the customer they’ve made the right choice. Researchers at University of Maryland-College Park found that consumers tend to choose the most feature-filled models, but then after purchase, tend to get frustrated with the complexity of what they chose.

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Merchandise to Fit Purchasing Cycles
Acknowledge the Power of Cycles
Use Signage to Categorize Items
Pitch the Synergy of Multifunction Products
Offer Fundamental Indulgences
Sell Ease of Use to Last-Minute Shoppers

Beware Flawed Predictions from Animations

“Keep your eye on the ball” is advice often given to baseball batters to prevent them from getting ahead of themselves. Those same words might be good advice for people watching the game at home, and for the same reason. Researchers at Northwestern University and University of Minnesota point out how when people see a baseball hit with great force, they often have a momentary feeling of certainty the ball will go out of the park. Maybe a misleading feeling of certainty.
     Advancing computer technologies combined with increasingly sophisticated consumer expectations have led retailers of all sorts to use an abundance of animation in demonstrating the benefits of products and services on websites and in personal selling. The Northwestern/Minnesota researchers urge people to show special caution with these animations. It’s too easy for your shoppers to be misled when mentally projecting what will happen next.
     People readily project ahead from animations which show trajectories, such as animated charts of weight loss or completion of construction. We’re all overloaded with information, so we welcome tools that help us get to the point. Also, many consumers place extra trust in a computer-generated animation largely because the animation is using a more sophisticated technology than still pictures. “What’s newer must be better,” they say.
     And because animations are more lifelike than text descriptions or still pictures, consumers remember with enhanced certainty any mistaken conclusions. A few days later, what was actually false is recalled as true.
     Putting this all together, you protect your business and your consumers by being aware of the dangers of flawed predictions from animated demonstrations.

• Give disclaimers within the animation. Phrasing in the spirit of “Past performance is no guarantee of future results” is good. But it’s not enough. Animate the disclaimer by showing a flashing question mark at the end of the animated trajectory. Or show a variety of possible directions the trend might go.
• For items where a misinterpretation might lead to a lawsuit, regulatory inquiry, or loss of good will from an essential customer, present still images along with the animation. When the Northwestern/Minnesota researchers replaced the animation with still images the study participants could flip through at their own pace, mistaken predictions faded away.
• Be careful to interpret correctly when shown animations by a vendor. The researchers specifically warn businesspeople to watch out when interpreting animated sales projections.

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Skim the Data to Spot Leading Trends
Distinguish Accelerating from Slowing Trends

Correct for Corruption from Candor

Let’s say a vendor is trying to convince you to double the size of your order. They’ll be telling you why it’s in your best interest to have more of the merchandise on hand. You might trust them about that. But with you being a retailer, you’ll also be aware of the seller’s motivation that is shared by you and your vendor: In this transaction, the more money you spend with the vendor, the more money they make. Since you’re a smart retailer, you’ll aim to correct for that bias as you decide whether to double up on your order.
     However, sometimes a vendor’s bias is not so obvious. This time, the vendor says to you, “I recommend you try out a different brand. The cost to you will be the same as for what you’ve been carrying in the past, but my figures indicate you’ll sell more units more quickly.”
     What the vendor isn’t telling you is that they’ll earn a substantially higher commission from selling you the new line rather than the old line. The vendor has a conflict of interest.
     This might be okay. If you’ll sell more units more quickly, both you and your vendor profit. So you ask the vendor two questions: “Is your sales commission higher for this new product line?” and “How many units do you estimate I’ll sell in the first three months after I change over?”
     And then, according to findings from research at Yale University and Carnegie Mellon University, something might happen that is not okay: If the vendor says, “I’ll be honest with you. I’m recommending the changeover because my commission will be higher,” the vendor’s estimate of unit sales is likely to be much more inflated than if they don’t admit to their conflict of interest.
     In a transaction between a buyer and a seller, when the seller feels they’re being honest with the buyer about one aspect of the transaction, they’ll tend to give themselves permission to be dishonest with the buyer about other aspects of the transaction.
     Take care to make a correction in your thinking for the corruption that comes from a seller’s candor. The Yale/Carnegie Mellon researchers found that not only did the disclosure of conflict of interest lead to exaggerated estimates, but also that the buyers failed to sufficiently discount the exaggeration.

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Check Your Optimism When Dealing with Vendors
Consult Mirror Neurons with Vendors

Monitor Your Vendors’ Websites

When you carry products produced by someone else or supply services under a name licensed to you by someone else, that someone else often maintains a website shoppers can use to locate you. The shopper enters their ZIP code or other locale identifier, or a search engine recognizes where the shopper is. Then the name of your store along with your address and phone number appear.
     This is an excellent way to build referral business. All else being equal, do your purchasing from vendors who provide this for you. However, be aware that the characteristics of the vendor’s website influence how a consumer perceives your business. Research at Stanford University finds that consumers tend to perceive a retail business along five major dimensions:

• Sincere or witty. In what ways are you honest? Wholesome? Cheerful? Teasing?
• Exciting or predictable. To what degree are you daring? Spirited? Imaginative? Trendy? Responsible? Dependable? Persistent?
• Expert or inquisitive. In what ways are you knowledgeable? Successful? Calm? Confident? Secure? Stimulating? Curious?
• Sophisticated or approachable. To what degree are you formal? Assertive? Ambitious? Casual? Sociable?
• Rugged or luxurious. In what ways are you gruff? Challenging? Cooperative? Trusting? Considerate? Indulgent?

     The personality of the vendor’s website can muddy the image you’re aiming for if the website’s personality differs greatly from that intended image. If the vendor’s website is overly exciting at the expense of predictability, it might even turn away prospective customers.
     For example, the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 Manufacturer Web Site Evaluation Study®—Wave2 ranks the Cadillac and the Scion websites as lowest among the 33 automobile manufacturers they rated, based on responses from more than 10,600 prospective new car shoppers. The best of the sites—Honda’s and Kia’s—were distinguished by an uncluttered appearance and easy-to-understand site navigation tools. The result was speedy retrieval of the information the shopper was seeking.
     Research results from University of Alberta and University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana suggest that Cadillac would have been wise to have a simpler website design for another reason as well: Absence of clutter subtly signals elegance to shoppers.
     Monitor your vendors’ websites to be sure information is not only correct, but also presented in a way that enhances your store’s marketability. If the site falls short, work with the vendor to resolve the problems and recognize that the site may not be as valuable to your profitability as you’d thought.

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Project Your Store’s Personality
Know the Tradeoffs in Being Sincere
Manage Store Clutter Strategically
Offer Aspirational Shoppers Subtle Signals

Offer a Buffet of Loyalty Program Rewards

Shoppers want to customize. This affects the merchandise they buy. Fortune Magazine reported that fully 40% of Lands’ End shoppers are willing to pay more and tolerate longer delivery times so they can order a blend of precise sizes. It affects gift card purchases. In a National Retail Federation survey, about 20% of respondents said their main reason for not buying gift cards—even though gift cards are exceeded only by cold cash in the ability to customize their use—is because the cards are too impersonal. The appeal of the idea of customizing affects advertising. The viral popularity of the Old Spice Guy campaign shows how people get a kick out of a humorous personalized ad.
     The urge to customize also influences consumers’ preferences in loyalty programs. According to loyalty marketing consultants Colloquy, one reason for the outstanding success of these programs in Canada is that customers can choose among an especially broad range of rewards.
     A recent Marketing Daily posting describes another feature at which the Canadian programs excel—coalitions in which participants can accumulate points from grocery, gasoline, financial services, and other retailers. More than 100 firms give points in the Air Miles Reward Program, the most popular of the Canadian frequent shopper initiatives. With that many partners, the program can offer about 1,200 different rewards.
     Do you want to form a loyalty program coalition with other retailers in order to increase the breadth of rewards you offer? If so, one decision you’ll make is whether to partner with retailers that sell merchandise lines competing with yours. Some points to consider:

• Research on branding says that franchisees and members of retailer cooperatives benefit when a loyalty program carries the name of the franchisor or cooperative, even if consumers can redeem at your store points they accumulated at another outlet. Just be sure that when the person comes into your store to make the redemption, you treat them as a prospect for additional sales.
• At a time when sales revenues at many shopping malls are falling short, a rewards program based on a coalition of mall merchants can draw traffic and give valuable brand identity.
• Developing partnerships around frequent shopper programs could help you screen partners for other profitable endeavors, such as special events and pooled purchasing.

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Tailor Loyalty Programs to Customer Culture
Give Loyalty Program Members Prestige
Offer Frequent Shopper Discounts Beyond Discounts
Help Customers Personalize Gift Cards

Compare Unknown Brand Extensions

Do you introduce into your merchandise mix brand extensions which are at first unknown to your customers? If you carried Clorox bleach, you might have decided to come on board when Clorox pioneered the market for disinfectant wipes. Customers recognize the brand name. With new products, the supplier is more likely to agree to favorable purchasing terms. And the supplier is likely to devote extra amounts of advertising support to help you sell the product.
     In deciding whether to carry a particular unknown brand extension in your limited shelf space, though, evaluate not only the amount, but also the nature of the advertising support.
     Researchers at Purdue University, Indiana University, and University of Connecticut find that comparative advertising is particularly powerful. But what comparison is used makes a difference: With the disinfectant wipe product category as an example, for follow-on entrants, such as those from Lysol and Mr. Clean, the comparison should be made to the pioneer product—in this case, Clorox disinfectant wipes—rather than to the parent brand—Lysol cleanser, for instance.
     For a pioneer entrant, comparison advertising is still great, but at introduction, the comparison should be made not to other ways of accomplishing the same function—in this case, disinfecting surfaces—but rather to the existing products that carry that brand name—Clorox bleach, for instance. The objective with the pioneer entrant is to show a favorable comparison to parent brand items.
     If the comparison for the pioneer product to the parent brand items doesn’t look favorable to you, there is reason for concern. Other research suggests that if the new product seems to consumers a moderately logical extension of the parent brand, a customer’s negative experience with the unknown brand extension will corrupt the reputation of all products in your store carrying that brand name.

Introduce Unknown Products with Charity

Unknown brands can provide you higher profit margins. But the profit margins become profit dollars only if your customers turn those unknown brands into brands they get in the habit of buying. Among the more effective techniques for convincing customers to start using an unknown brand is to tie their trial to you contributing to a charity. Findings from University of South Florida indicate that pairing charitable contributions with the sale of brands unfamiliar to the customer will boost sales of those unfamiliar brands. The research finds that the boost is not nearly as great when it comes to brands already familiar to the shopper.
     When a vendor asks your business to purchase a selection of the unknown brand, negotiate with the vendor to share with you in sponsoring the charitable contributions. After all, building sales is in the interest of both the supplier and you. But you’ll get better results if you publicize the sponsor as being your store. Research at Michigan State University, Illinois Wesleyan University, and University of Texas-Austin suggests that when a store rather than a brand is publicized as the sponsor, consumers are more likely to see the sponsorship as a charitable act rather than only a selling technique.
     There’s nothing wrong with doing well by doing good, though. So also consider the charity sponsorship as an opportunity to prospect for new customers. Invite opinion leaders from the charity to visit your store to learn about all that you offer. Get senior citizens involved as volunteers. Researchers find that altruism is especially important to elderly consumers. Seniors like to give their business to retailers who are compassionate, and they like to view themselves as generous. Whenever you organize a charitable activity, offer a variety of ways for your older customers to pitch in to help.

Pare Down Assortments Selectively

Did you reduce your total inventory last year? That was an overarching trend for retailers. This year, are you thinking about streamlining your brand assortments? Considering that what is done by Wal-Mart affects much retailing practice, reducing brand assortments might be an overarching theme for your coming year.
     You see, the news is that Wal-Mart is eliminating Glad and Hefty food storage bags from the shelves, leaving only Ziploc and Wal-Mart’s private label brand, Great Value. Advertising Age reports this as being part of a wave of brand consolidations at Wal-Mart, Walgreens, and CVS.
     Cutting the number of SKUs can make life simpler for your retail operations. But to turn simplicity into profitability, pare down selectively.

• Start out by selecting categories where there isn’t substantial product differentiation. Food storage bags would qualify here.
• Selectively merchandise desired brands that other retailers have trimmed out. Starting in late 2009, the competing food storage bag brands poured big dollars into advertising, hoping to win the Wal-Mart beauty contest. So even though there might not be substantial product differentiation, the ad campaign probably created longings for Glad and Hefty. If you’d like to draw shoppers from Wal-Mart and not go head-to-head on Ziploc pricing, think about satisfying those Glad/Hefty longings.
• If you’re a large retailer or a member of a purchasing cooperative, become more selective in your expectations of the producers of your private label lines. Manufacturers pruned out of shelf space under their own name will become more interested in negotiating with you to stay in your store under your name. Keep in mind that with house brand names, customers are most likely to maintain purchasing habits when product specifications don’t change abruptly. But few customers would complain about improvements in quality that could come from your selectivity in expectations.

Consult Mirror Neurons with Vendors

Sometimes when you’re meeting with a vendor’s sales rep, you’ll have an intuitive uncomfortable feeling about the person or situation. These striking judgments almost always occur within the first few moments. Research indicates that if you’ve an abundance of experience dealing with sales reps, the quick judgments like this often pay off. They are good signals of whether you should continue working with the rep or the supplier. Overall, you’re best off dealing with vendors and sales reps you’re comfortable with from the start.
     But your discomfort might be for reasons which have little to do with the capabilities of this sales rep to help you achieve profitability. For instance, maybe it’s only that the clothes the sales rep is wearing seem wrong for the meeting. Or maybe the sales rep looks like an older version of a rival or bully from your high school days.
     How to tell if the discomfort is reason enough to stop dealing with the sales rep? According to some neuropsychologists, there are special cells inside your brain that might prove valuable. Those brain cells are called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons have also been called empathy neurons. Their role is to produce inside us what’s being experienced by the person we’re interacting with. Mirror neurons were first described by researchers at Italy’s University of Parma.
     Identify the negative emotions you began to experience as soon as you started talking with the sales rep. Fear? Insecurity? Impatience? Then do what you can to produce within yourself the kinds of emotions you’d like a sales rep to have: Courage, confidence, and patience, for example.
     If this empowers the sales rep’s mirror neurons to duplicate those desired emotions, you might be on your way to building a profitable partnership. Otherwise, you might want to trust that first intuition.

Skim the Data to Spot Leading Trends

There's already too much retailing data for you to comfortably analyze, and more keeps popping up. To make good decisions, know what's going on. But also avoid getting buried by the data. Here are data skimming tips:

• Respect the value of educated intuition. In his book Blink, author Malcolm Gladwell gives a series of examples of how quick decisions, made without much thinking, can lead to results superior to decisions made after great deliberation. Researchers at Radboud University in The Netherlands and at Northwestern University found that beyond an initial assessment period, the more time consumers spent evaluating alternatives, the less satisfying they found their eventual choices to be. This was true whether the products were paintings, apartments, or jellybeans.
• Look for the trends and select where to drill down for details. You want to decide what products to purchase for your store, what services to develop, how to advertise and publicize, what to prune out of your merchandising mix. All these require attention to where the marketplace is going, not only how things are now. Skim the data to spot the trends. Get an overview. At the same time, there will be areas where you need the details. What specific types of consumers are purchasing which products? Which suppliers are providing the best package for your situation—looking at point-of-purchase materials and staff training in addition to wholesale price? But be selective in drilling down.
• Follow up and check back. The examples given by Malcolm Gladwell are of people skilled in decision making in their respective fields. The findings from the Radboud University/Northwestern University research need to be interpreted with an awareness that the type of decision satisfying a customer isn't necessarily what would satisfy your criterion to make a profit. Keep refining your skimming skills.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Less Store Clutter, More Store Branding

According to Nielsen—the global marketing and media information company headquartered in New York City—your shoppers in 2010 will expect reduced store clutter. Retailers have already been cleaning up aisles and shelves. In some cases, things are more tidy because the retailers decided to carry less inventory in economically uncertain times, so there was little need to stuff in the merchandise. In some cases, the cleanup came from a realization that consumers are wanting to keep all things more straightforward in their lives, again because of the economically uncertain times. Loblaw Companies Limited—Canada's largest grocery retailer—rolled out their "Clutter-Free Check Out Lanes," and Superquinn in Ireland has moved in that same direction.
     Nielsen predicts that the consumer's drive for simplicity will also energize interest in store brands. I agree with the prediction. The shopper will figure they'll save decision-making time and mental energy by simply purchasing from the same brand name across product categories. They've already made the decision to shop at your store. This means they associate value with the store name, and that attitude will generalize to your house brand names.
     Nielsen argues that the marketplace interest in store brands gives you—the retailer—increased negotiating leverage with suppliers as they seek to forge alliances to continue providing products, even if under a different brand name. Trader Joe's has championed this business model. About 80% of the products they carry are private label from a variety of suppliers. But notice that the remaining 20% or so of the products are not private label. Also, Trader Joe's uses a variety of private label names. You might see Trader Ming, Trader Jacques, or Trader Giotto.
     This is great planning. Shoppers do want simplicity for year 2010, but in the times ahead, their desire for variety will strengthen.

Prepare for Upcoming Brand Extensions

Retailing excitement has been in shorter supply as manufacturers trimmed product introductions. The word is that this is changing in 2010, at least for retailers who sell consumer packaged goods (CPGs). Companies like Procter & Gamble, Energizer, Kimberly-Clark (Kleenex, Scott, Depends), Unilever (Lipton, Dove, Cif), and Reckitt Benckiser (Lysol, Vanish, Clearasil) are each promising new offerings will come out next year. The companies also say they'll provide ample marketing support for the rollouts.
     Take steps so your business can use the opportunities:

• Assess the performance of your house brands. Industry gurus are saying CPG marketers are acting from fear about consumers moving towards house brands at the expense of market share for the name brands. You'll almost certainly want to keep at least some house brands in your merchandise mix. Determine which ones you'll be replacing because of factors like inadequate sales performance, inadequate product quality, or signs of consumer boredom.
• Prepare your customers for the product improvements. Some of the new products will be incremental improvements to what you currently carry. For instance, Energizer is expected to roll out an innovative Schick shaving system. When you know what's coming, start talking about the distinctive features of the new products.
• Prepare for the brand extensions. The real driver of customer excitement will be the brand extensions—a well-known brand name on a product line not previously sold under that brand name by your store. As soon as you learn what sorts of products are on the horizon for you to sell, create ways to arouse shopper enthusiasm about the product categories. If you don't currently sell shavers, but would like to try selling the Schick entry, find ways to get people thinking about your store as the shaving place and as having expertise about the Schick brand.

Consider Publicizing Your Rascal Image

How would you explain the unexpected outcome of that auction held at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers in Manhattan November 14? News about the auction was in all the papers. It's the one where items seized from convicted swindler Bernie Madoff and his wife by the United States Marshals Service went on the block. A blue Mets jacket, looking very much the same as many other blue Mets jackets, sold for $14,500. A pair of earrings for which the maximum expected bid was $9,800 actually sold for $70,000.
     There are retailing lessons in the entire Madoff episode. For instance, a St. Louis businessman who successfully bid on bracelets for his granddaughters said his message to go along with the gift will be, "If it's too good to be true, it's not right." Remember that epigram when dealing with your vendors.
     Another set of lessons applies to publicity. Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet and playwright, wrote, "There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." My explanation for the unexpectedly high bids on the Madoff items is that especially in individualistic cultures like the U.S., consumers are fascinated with famous rascals.
     When the retail personality you aim for includes "exciting" and your target markets include people from individualistic cultures, publicize how your business tests the limits. Tell people about your rascal retailing image.
     Still, there are limits on our fascination with testing limits. In general, consumers prefer not to think about conducting retail transactions with convicted criminals. One of the items that did not fetch more than was expected in last Saturday's auction was a Rolex watch which got its nickname because it was sold on credit to a British POW during World War II. The nickname was "The Prisoner Watch."

Team Up in Making Your Purchases

Anheuser-Busch InBev and PepsiCo recently announced that the two companies will be doing joint purchasing. They say the objective is to save money. Well, if industry behemoths like these truly believe that teaming up to make purchases can further enhance profitability, what does it mean for your purchasing operations?
     Chances are you're already doing cooperative buying, or have at least looked into it. The Federation of Pharmacy Networks, The Doneger Group, IGA, Orgill, and countless numbers of business format franchisers all aim to negotiate volume discounts from vendors for supplies central to providing the core products and services of the participants' individual businesses.
     But the Anheuser-Busch/PepsiCo endeavor is about something else. At this point, they're not talking about joint purchases of the commodities they each use to produce their respective beverages. Instead, the purchasing staff from each company will be collaborating in obtaining items that range from maintenance supplies & services to travel & facilities to information technology hardware.
     With what goods and services would it be profitable for you to expand the extent to which you are already joining with another retailer or retailers to make your purchases? And what would need to happen for this teamwork to be successful? For one thing, in teaming up with other retailers, you'll want to attend to what the laws in your geographical area say about avoiding illegal restraints of trade. This could determine how much and what sorts of information about your business operations you're allowed to share with each other.
     But once you've accommodated that, the major adjustment is psychological: How comfortable will you be in sharing the information? Even though the government will want to see you and your purchasing partners as marketplace competitors, in what areas of cooperative buying will you be able to see them as teammates?

Pay the Bills Essential to Profitability

A reminder from Making Money Is Not Illegal, Immoral or Fattening:
"What do retailers tend to do when a bill comes in for a dollar and there isn't a dollar in the bank? In many cases, the retailer takes money that should have been used to replenish inventory and pays expenses with it. Next in line is likely to be cutting payroll, and then slashing away at training and advertising. The four things that we absolutely need to do to compete when we have cash flow problems, we don't do.
"If you don't have it, you can't sell it. You must be in stock. That's a top priority. There's very little in the business that's more important than staying in stock once the store is up and running out of the ground. Very close behind that, and this is where I would get you to start to think, is the interaction between your customers and your employees. I mean right there where they interact, where they're talking on the floor. So how much of your time do you spend every day coaching the people who work for you in your store to do a better job taking care of the customers?
"Is your answer, 'Well, I trained each of them when I hired them'? If you said that to me, I'd fall down on the floor laughing. How in the world can you train an hourly employee once and think they are going to go out on the floor and do it right all the time? It isn't going to happen. So I want to convince you to spend enough time out on the floor coaching the people who work for you to do a better job dealing with the customers."
For more details, see page 18 of the book.

Profit by Showing Social Responsibility

An article in this week's online edition of Time Magazine is titled "For American Consumers, a Responsibility Revolution." The article gives evidence of a trend towards consumers aiming to practice social responsibility in their retail purchases. Retailing profits come from anticipating trends, so make contributing to society an integral part of the personality of your business.
     Determine the amount of attention you'll pay to social responsibility by analyzing the values of the culture in which your business operates. Research indicates people with backgrounds in collectivist cultures, like those in many Asian and Pacific Island areas, Greece and Portugal, are more likely to embrace social responsibility than those who identify with individualist cultures such as Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. The Time Magazine article about social responsibility among consumers was one of many in the U.S. edition, but it was the cover story in the Asia and South Pacific editions.
     Where to begin? Well, decide how much controversy you want to tolerate. At least at the start, you might choose to take on social responsibility issues that will bring you largely supportive attention. For instance, almost everybody supports reducing the amount of trash we all generate. About half the people responding to the Time Magazine poll said businesses should place more importance on protecting the environment than on economic growth. Your first social responsibility initiatives might involve exploring ways to sell products that use refillable containers, to favor vendors that minimize unnecessary packing, and to accept old products as trade-ins or recyclables.
     Somewhat more controversial is the issue of working conditions. There are employers in the world who think that government oversight of employee rights is excessive. But we've little tolerance for exploitation, so you might choose to tell shoppers the ethical ways in which your fair-trade products are produced.

Dissolve Cautions About Private Label Goods

Private label goods—house brands—have advantages over nationally advertised brands. Retail profit margins are usually higher, even while you're offering a better price to the customer. And when the products are produced to your private label specifications, you can maintain customer brand loyalty and advocacy even when needing to change to a new manufacturer or supplier.
     But realize that some cultural groups carefully avoid private labels in certain product categories. Research based at University of Memphis suggests that African-American consumers tend to steer away from private label brands in clothing, particularly boys' clothing, because the private label lacks the cachet of widely advertised brands. Other research finds that Asian-Americans expect much more information about product features and consumer ratings when considering house brands than when considering national brands.
     You can establish high-quality images by showing in advertising, signage, and shelf placement all the ways the private label alternative compares favorably to the nationally advertised prototype. Supermarket chain Harris Teeter did that with their Premier Selection lines.
     Here are some tips for dissolving cultural cautions about private labels:

• Aim for advertising in media likely to be seen by people who are both in your target market and are members of the cultural group who tend to have hesitations about private label brands in that product category.
• Make favorable comparisons between the private label and the name-branded items only if you've good evidence the comparisons are true.
• Even if your comparisons are justified, don't overreach. An Advertising Age survey found that saying a Nissan Altima is as good as a Mercedes-Benz was more likely to earn an "Oh, sure!" than an "Oh, wow!" So if your private label brand is the Nissan Altima in its product category, better stay with comparisons to the name-branded equivalents to the Altima.

Show Your Value to Your Suppliers

There are times you'll be asking your suppliers for extra help, whether it be adjustments in payment terms, expedited replenishment of items, customized training of your staff, or something else altogether. Your suppliers may be hungry for your business and therefore anxious to please you. But even then, you're more likely to get the long-term cooperation you want if you clearly demonstrate to your suppliers the value you bring them.

      Here are six approaches to showing your value to your suppliers:

      Reciprocity. Give so that you shall receive. Ask your suppliers how you can help them reach their objectives, and then implement those tactics which will be profitable for both of you.

      Scarcity. What do you offer your supplier that other customers do not? If you are a multi-store retailer, what you have is the ability to place especially large orders. If you're an independent one-store business, you can offer a distinctive flexibility in choosing to showcase items the supplier wants to try out at retail.

      Authority. You're closer to the customer than is the supplier. What valuable advice can you provide about product complaints and market trends?

     Consistency. If you've been a reliable account, placing orders predictably and paying on schedule, be sure your supplier recognizes this. If you've agreed to use point-of-purchase displays, use them as intended and report the results.

      Liking. We like people who are interested in us. You put that truth into action in cultivating the good will of your shoppers. Keep that same truth in mind as the motivation to share mutual interests with your supplier.

      Consensus. Team up with others in your business and with other retailers. Whatever you're doing with and for your supplier, your influence multiplies when others join in.

Monitor the Sales Floor to Avoid Out-of-Stocks

With shoppers feeling so uncertain, retailers' caution in ordering is perfectly understandable. Still, are you ready to be in stock on the items customers will want? One risk in being out-of-stock is that you'll miss the opportunity to make the sale. But the longer-term risk is that customers will stop thinking of your store as the place to go for an entire product category, and perhaps other product categories as well.
     A survey by the IHL Group, based in Franklin, Tennessee, found customers often say the store is OOS even when the retailer thinks the store is in-stock. This is because the customer has a broader definition of OOS than the retailer does.

• The shelf is empty. Even when you attend to your point-of-sale and inventory level data—as you should be doing frequently—you might miss the fact that items to fill in the empty shelves have not made it from your receiving or storage area onto those shelves.
• The merchandise is on a shelf, but not easily available to the customer. It could be on a high perch, which puts it out of sight, or in a locked cabinet, which puts it out of reach, when there aren't store staff right there to help.
• The customer is looking for an item with characteristics you're not tracking. They want a specific pattern on the skirt or a smaller quantity in each package. Your recordkeeping systems indicate you have the item, but unless your staff are talking with the shoppers, you won't realize that in the customer's view, you're OOS.

     Maybe it's too late to ensure in-stock for all of Quarter 4. So be out there on the sales floor to check that shelves are replenished and staff are available to help customers find what they're seeking.

Advertise What Products Look Like

For the shopper browsing through an ad deciding whether to make a purchase, a picture could easily be worth a thousand words. For the shopper intent on spotting a particular item once they arrive at your store, having a product or package image in mind is valuable. For these people and others, feature in your advertising enough pictures of what the customer will see. If you're selling a sofa, have a photo or drawing of the sofa. If you're having a sale on soap, show us what the soap package looks like.
     There are lots of considerations in deciding how to format your ads. Images take up more space than just a listing of product names and prices, so you'll need to judge how many images to include. Similarly, when deciding which brands to carry in your store, you'll consider many factors. Include among them the content and format of the advertising that the manufacturer and supplier do for the brand. Do newspaper, magazine, and television ads feature pictures of the products?
     And how about in radio advertising? Do you and do the manufacturer show images of the product on the radio? Pulling that off is not as easy as flashing a photo on TV. On the radio, it takes descriptive words. "Headache relief in the easy-to-spot yellow and red box." "A pillow-top mattress with a distinctive quilted design."
     A classic finding in consumer psychology is that shoppers entering your store usually remember little specific content from advertising. Because of how much information is hitting our brains every day, we store only what's necessary. This is especially true with the senior citizen shopper. As a retailer, you'd like your customers to include in what they do store enough cues to easily select the product.
     Tell them what to look for.