The Power of Retail

Pier 1 used to be a great place to pick up interesting stuff for the house and for giving gifts too. In fact, the store was my favorite weekend browse, along with Borders when I lived in Kansas City. Currently the retailer is facing a severe decrease in sales, dropping as much as 11% for the quarter. While Pier 1 is not the only home retailer that has been hit by the downturn of the real estate market, other retailers have not been affected as bad.

One reason that Pier 1 is having a hard time is that it has also not been able to find the right mix as stores such as Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel have, and has had to compete with discount retailers such as TJ Maxx and Target who are also sourcing from China. Prices at Per 1 have been increasing as well, leading to even loyal customer to go to other stores to buy similar products at much lower prices.

“They seem to be battling concept obsolescence,” says Barbara Thau, senior editor for retail at Home Furnishings News. “They had a big niche in imported goods, but now every retailer has gotten into imported goods.”

Some shoppers say they now turn to T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s and Target for the imported home furnishings they used to rely on Pier 1 for. “Why would I go to Pier One when I could go to Home Goods or Marshall’s or Target and get almost the same thing — and shop for many more things?” asks Chicago shopper Jonelle Gilden.

MySpace is getting into the news business. The company hopes that the new feature will bring a wider audience to its site by which it hopes to becoming similar to Yahoo. While other user recommended services like Digg and Netscape rely mostly on submissions by its members, MySpace will be able to scan web journals for news and categorized them. MySpace will allow readers to vote on items, to see which items deserve to be on the front page.

As part of the service, MySpace will pull and display headlines from the outside news sites, a practice that contributed to legal challenges against Google. The search engine leader recently reached a settlement with Agence France-Presse and earlier with The Associated Press, although no lawsuit had been filed by the AP.

I’ve traveled a fair bit in California, spent two summers in San Fransisco, made lots of excursions to Napa valley, the San Fernando valley and of course the peach growing area of the state. I spent time in Los Angeles too, and even experience a pretty strong quake while I was there. The one area that remains is San Diego where I hope to visit along with Mexico in the next couple of years. I hear that San Diego nightlife is a really great mix of enthusiastic dance clubs and incredible restaurants with food inspired from the world over. One of my friends from school moved there and she never stopped raving about the city and especially the variety of attractions it had to offer.

International retailers in China are busy expanding their networks of stores, thanks to higher than expected profits. Now, retailers are focusing on opening niche stores and are using Hong Kong as a test market, before opening up in mainland China. One such designer, Ports Design is going a step further and opening 2 stores in mainland China this year itself, in Dandong in Liaoning province which will also be able to tap South Korean tourists and business travellers and a second stores in Quingdao in Shandong province, another popular spot for Korean investments.

China is undergoing a boom in consumer spending due to rising incomes and encouragement by the government to increase spending. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, retail sales increased by 14.7% in the past two months over last year’s figures. Another retailer, Dickson Concepts plans to open a Harvey Nichols stores on the mainland about four years after it opened a store in Hong Kong. The new store will come up in the next two years or so.

I’m not into body art and probably will never be. I feel my body is beautiful enough as it is, without needing any extra beautification or should I say, mutilation. However, the tattoo industry is growing extremely fast and surprisingly is attracting newer and different types of consumers. Again, it’s a question of the fashion industries bringing a niche trend of Tattoos to the mainstream and fueling its growth, to what it has become today, an entire industry and subculture.

So, did you get stuck too during the BlackBerry outage yesterday? For a lot of people, who only use their BlackBerries to access their mail, it turned out to be a real pain. Does this mean, we shouldn’t be relying so much on technology and try to do things on a personal basis again? But that would be hard to go back to again, right? We have got so accustomed to being ‘connected’ and if our phone or internet or what ever other device you use to stay ‘connected’ doesn’t work, our world can come to a complete halt. It’s high time we put things in perspective though. These are all gadgets that we didn’t have or use a few years back, but now we seem not to function without them.

As retailers are increasingly relying on the Internet for sales, most companies are also spending more on their broadband set up. According to Rob Garf, vice-president of retail strategies at AMR Research, a research and advisory firm, most multi-channel retailers have increased their budgets significantly so that they are able to improve the distribution of products, inventories and shopping history of customers. With broadband, retailers significantly reduce the amount of time they spend on accessing this information. On average, retailers increased their spending by 39% in 2006 over previous year’s spends.

The investment in broadband makes retailers better able to both collect and distribute across channels data on customer shopping behavior; in turn, that enables retailers to plan marketing and merchandising plans based on the interests customers have shown across channels, Garf says. At the same time, it enables retailers to more quickly and accurately deliver product descriptions and images as well as real-time inventory levels to employees and customers on in-store point-of-sale terminals and self-service kiosks. Another plus is that this makes it possible for merchants to show a single version of the truth in data and images shared across web, store and contact center channels, Garf adds.

The state of Wisconsin has approved grocery and liquor stores to give out free beer samples. Under the new rule beer samples of up to 6 oz can be given to a person of legal drinking age. At present only wineries can offer up to 6 oz of free samples. The beer bill is said to help brewers market their specialty brands to a wider audience and compete with wineries.

Sen. Pat Kreitlow, a Democrat from Chippewa Falls, home of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co., is the bill’s main sponsor in the Senate. He said the measure would help brewers market a wider variety of specialty brands and compete with wine makers.

The rules set by the fashion industry have tricked down to everyday life and everyday people, so that the more people see models and celebrities the more they want to look like them as well. This cult of celebrity-hood has served as a real upswing for the plastic surgery industry who have benefited a lot, as more and more people go to them wanting to look like their favorite celebrity. George Lindermann Jr writes that Angelina Jolie is the number one celebrity that common people want to look like. An inspiration for changing their looks!

The forecast for Mother’s Day this year is said to be extremely upbeat. According to a survey released by the National Retail Federation, consumers will be increasing their spending this year to buy gifts for mothers. BIGresearch who conducted the survey stated that consumers are planning to spend close to $16 billion this year on Mother’s Day gifts, an average of $139.14 per person. Last year the average spend was $122.16. More than a third of the gifts will be bought at specialty stores, such as florists, jewelry stores or at electronic stores. Online shopping is expected to see a jump of 20% this year.

Mothers will be treated to various gifts as consumers are projected to spend $3.1 billion in total on a special dinner or brunch at their mother’s favorite restaurant (61 percent), $2.3 billion on flowers (72.4 percent), $2.1 billion on jewelry (32.8 percent), and $1.6 billion on clothes and accessories (37 percent).

Other popular gifts shoppers plan to buy include greeting cards (86.8 percent), gift certificates (39.3 percent), books or CDs (29.3 percent), housewares or gardening tools (18.5 percent) and consumer electronics or computer related accessories (11.3 percent).