Retail TNT

Any business owner with a retail shop on the high street has probably been praying every night since December 2008 that a rush to the High Street will materialise and translate into sales.

The final weekend before Christmas saw High Street footfall down by 8.7% compared with 2007 and with figures showing a slide of between 10%-15% for year on year figures for the week commencing 15th December, you could argue that this Christmas is on course to be one of the worst ever for Retail Business owners.

These figures are bad news for struggling retailers, many of which are struggling to survive. Retailers whose main products are linked to the housing market are likely to be worst hit and the recession looks set to worsen with the ever increasing rises in unemployment figures taking their toll on job security fears.

For anyone who knows what it is like to start their own business, secure substantial borrowings to be able invest in the inevitable start up costs a retail business needs, stock, rent, rates and shop fittings to name but a few but slowing footfall, a shrinking economy, a falling pound and rising unemployment do not really form part of the ideal business plan.

Despite all these economic factors the internet is clearly bucking this trend and can easily provide a solution to independent retailers who can think outside the box. The answer does not simply lie in having a website designed to sell your shop items online, without a high margin product line it may end up costing you more to advertise than you would gain in revenue. There is also very little knowledge to be found offline about internet marketing and how to use the strategies effectively to make sure your business survives and grows online.

If you are looking to supplement your retail business profits during the recession, you may want to investigate adding a network marketing business to your existing business. We have already seen people such as Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki set the trend by endorsing the business model itself but it makes sense to make use of the skills you already have as a business owner when the market trend is so obviously pointing to a survival of the fittest scenario.

95% of business opportunities and network marketing businesses attract people who have no previous experience in business. They know very little about sales and marketing and the idea of spending money advertising and marketing their business is usually alien and is executed from the mindset of cost rather than from the return on investment that a business owner would know and understand. This provides opportunity for entrepreneurs that remain largely untapped.

If the thought of opening up those shop doors every day fills you with dread, make sure you have considered all the possibilities that are open to you. There is no shortage of footfall on the internet; Forbes Magazine has estimated that around half a million people will be looking to start a home based business every month in the USA alone in the coming years.

Retailers already have the skills set that over 95% of opportunity seekers do not possess this is how an internet business opportunity can help save your retail business whatever the economy predictions are.

For more opportunities for small business owners check out my business blog http://www.offroadmlm.com

There are different jobs that can be classified as retail jobs. People run to the retail shops to buy things that they need in a daily basis. Retail fit out determines the clients that are retail shop. There are people who own small retail shops. This doesnt mean that they cant expose the products that they offer to their clients freely. There are shop owners who own small shops but they have a large stock. It is the role of the shop owner to determine the kind of designs that they want for their shops.

There are designs that hide the products provided while others expose fully the products provided. Shop owners should ensure that they install their shops with the best retail fit out to make sure that their shops are productive. With the competition that is there in the business market, business owners should come up with ideas that help them survive. Many people have their shops closed because they end up making loses than they had expected to make profits. The profits and losses that a business makes can be determined by the kind of ideas that they generate.

To come up with the best retail fit out, shop owners should have budgets on what they want to buy. The professional manufacturers and installers will always be there to implement their budgets. This is by guiding them through the products that can fit in the budget. There are products that are cheap but also look elegant. Business owners should therefore make sure that they make use of their resources to come buy the best products. They should also make sure that they involve professional installers to deal with the designing.

The portfolio of companies can be very helpful for retail shop owners to determine the best company to conduct the retail fit out. Companies that have experience in the same field should be used to conduct the work. There are professionals in manufacturing while others are professionals in installing. The shop owners should blend all this to make sure that they come up with the best retail shop. This helps them to outdo other companies who provide the same products and services. Competition has been the main stumbling block for many business owners. They should make sure that they come up with unique ideas that help them stand in the business world. It also reduces the chances of the business owners of shutting down the shops due to competition and great losses that are incurred.

Big-box stores are huge structures with equally-sized maintenance challenges. Each Wal-Mart or Target store that operates in nearly every town in the country has a team of maintenance crew with their hands full of maintenance challenges. With floor-to-ceiling merchandise and a mecca of shoppers filling up the facility every day, the difficulties mount up. A subset of maintenance issues that the crew has to tackle pertains to the facility’s commercial painting system.

Waterproofing the Retail Store

Perhaps the single most important issue that big-box stores have to deal with is water intrusion. The commercial painting system provides a line of waterproofing defense. If water enters the facility but not addressed and managed in time, waterproofing failure is inevitable with costly consequences.

Commercial painting contractors cannot ignore the potent power of water to bring damage to the facility. They understand how it travels outside and within the building and asses its diffusion and reaction to surrounding conditions. Since vapor always moves from humid inner areas to lower- humidity exteriors, they install commercial painting solutions that provide appropriate insulation and prevent condensation. When condensation occurs and wets surfaces over improperly coated or non-coated surfaces it can cause rust, corrosion, and contamination to the facility.,.

Waterproofing solutions for the superstore are often laid out early in construction. The commercial painting system installed at this time is very carefully designed to factor in the amount of water that will be present in freshly-poured and hardened concrete blocks. Cement slabs must be totally water-free prior to waterproofing installation.

Aesthetics for the Big-Box Store

Big box retail stores need commercial painting systems to provide the much-needed aesthetics and improve the look of the building. Time-driven deterioration can erode the building’s coating systems, making it lose its clean and beautiful appearance.

The coatings maintenance team often evaluates coatings products as to their performance when exposed to store-specific damage agents. They rely on the MSDS which is a product of laboratory testing done for the formulation. The tests expose the product to weather, UV, condensation, fog, corrosion and other elements, and assess the changes in paint texture, color, and glossiness.

Contractors are better informed in their coatings selection, accurately zeroing in on the best replacement for damaged coating systems. The new commercial painting system removes the peeled, chalked or blistered look of facility substrates, restoring appearance.

Retail Store Corrosion Problems

Retail stores are not spared corrosion-wrought damages and require corrosion protection like any regular building. Corrosion-resistant commercial painting systems should be installed and inspected regularly. The steel foundations are particularly vulnerable to corrosion. They can oxidize and deteriorate when unchecked. The progressing corrosion can undermine the structural integrity of the building and also make the building look unsightly.

With retail business phone systems, there are certain phone system features you will find invaluable. There are a plethora of choices available today, but the key is to figure out what you want and then have those features included at no extra charge. What you should look for in systems for retail businesses are those that offer the most value based upon your particular needs.

Your own needs will determine what features are best for you, but these phone system features will:

Save you time

Increase revenue, and

Facilitate and help maintain customer relationships

Regardless of your situation, business phones exist to help you run your business most effectively no matter how big or small you may be. Here are just a few features you may want to consider:

Voicemail

Voicemail lets you capture messages from customers even if it’s after business hours. You can call customers back once you are open again, and you won’t lose business simply because you weren’t there to take the call. The best voicemail systems, by the way, have at least six or more channels included in them. This gives you the flexibility to add more phone lines and extensions as you need to, without compromising efficiency.

A subset of voicemail capability is the ability to have voicemail message handling be streamlined, too. The most advanced systems will give users the ability to access voicemail with just a single key touch or simple phone code, for easy retrieval. Caller ID (see below) and message length are also sometimes included with certain systems as part of voicemail capability.

Caller ID

Caller ID does more than identify the caller who is on the line. It also gives you the capability to instantly call people back when they call you, even if they don’t leave a message, an important feature of retail business phone systems. Caller ID works, by the way, even if you forward the message to another extension or to your cell phone.

Call forwarding

It may be important to have the ability to take calls even when you’re out of the office, and that’s where call forwarding comes in. With a call forwarding feature, you can forward calls that would normally go to the office to any phone — even your cell phone — so that you can receive those important calls even when you have to be out of the office. At the end of the day or if you have to be home for whatever reason during the day, if you wish, you can have calls from the office forwarded to your home so that it’s “business as usual” even if you can’t be in the office. This is another important (and often essential) feature for retail business phone systems.

Voice over IP capability

Increasingly, voice over IP, or VoIP, capability is an important alternative to traditional phone systems. Cost effective and flexible, voice over IP capability gives you access to phone system features you may not otherwise have with traditional phone systems; you can use the Internet instead of traditional phone lines for both office to office connections and to support flexible communication options in a variety of mediums, such as via cell phone.

Now you know what features to look for to keep your small business connected!

The days when wives and mothers used to do most of Mens shopping are gone. You are lazy yet you can shop. Driven by the modern retail format of online retail business, Indian men have started liking the taste of shopping. Though they may not be more of the impulse buyer, their contribution to retail sales is pretty significant. Shopping demands patience and women clearly are the better fit for the job. Mens shopping threshold is one tenth as compared to that of a womans, but this is not the end of the story.

One with the heavy pocket: Men are the big spenders not women. Average ticket size of a purchase done by men is considerably higher than that of women. Big ticket items either in online retail business or from the shop are mostly done by men. Either directly or indirectly, the final say on the purchase is theirs. Online, sales above Rs 1 lakh are only made by men and if we move a little lower on the cash spends, 75 per cent of men spend between Rs 10,000-Rs 30,000. Mens per capita annual spend on designer clothing is about Rs 48,000.

While women have patience to roam around in the stores, men do that while researching about a product online. As a result men gain knowledge and women become fussy. Statistics suggest men give 58 per cent business to the online retail market in India while rest 42 per cent is womens share. The average annual expenditure by a man is between 10,000 and 30,000 while in case of females it is less than 10,000. High ticket purchases are clearly ruled by men with 75 per cent of them to their name.”We find that the average male customer is getting younger. Tier II and tier III towns are equal contributor to sales as tier I and metros, tells Kavindra Mishra, Founder Member and VP Sales, Zovi.com, eBays 70 per cent sales recorded are under the name of male consumers. According to Kashyap Vadapalli, Chief Marketing Office, eBay India, their core target audience is primarily male, ages 18-34.

Dedicated men portals: The online retail market in India and its market players have found a way to woo the key consumer that is online most part of the day. Keeping this in mind, a new website has been launched. GetDandy.com, a complete men centric website, offers products including clothing, bath & body, underwears, watches, fragrances, gym & sports gear, mobiles, gaming consoles etc, it has all the major brands under their belt to cater to almost all needs of men. Shopping is a painful experience for men and they always try to escape; through this site we have given an easy solution for men to shop. Here we cater to all their needs from essentials to clothing, fragrances, watches, body & bath, gym & sports, gizmos etc with the most preferred brands by men. With a large number of users on internet and various social networking sites, the concept of online shopping is growing very rapidly. Through this idea of online shopping we are trying to reduce the time spent in shopping as all the requirements are fulfilled on our website. says Vaibhav Lall Co-founder & CMO, Get Dandy. Other websites meant for men are Mr. Porter.com and Stiffcollar.com.