News

We are now firmly into the Christmas holiday and gift giving season. Billboards, giant Santas, Christmas decorations, websites, catalogues and heaps of Christmas stock is now starting to flow into stores. This is always a thoroughly exciting, stressful and challenging part of the year for everybody who works in and around retail.

So what . . . → Read More: Aussies will get more for less this Christmas

My son is just finishing a two year advertising degree. He is creative and passionate about the role of the internet in messaging for brands, is media and commerce savvy – and hates writing.

Sadly for him, his second year of the advertising degree is 100% journalism, looking at the role of the traditional . . . → Read More: Manufacturing home brands in Oz

When we vote for politicians or pay senior public servants large amounts of money to perform important roles, we expect a level of awareness and knowledge from them in order to be able to perform their duties. We also expect them to be able to see a bigger picture and create an environment in . . . → Read More: The rise of retail own labels

Whenever we launch new business models or “new mousetraps”, as management consultants say, we tend to have only a short period of time during which our “newness” has value to shoppers and better margins for the business.

iPhones were followed very effectively by a range of very good competitors, and so too was the . . . → Read More: Retailers swimming in the great blue ocean

I read two completely unrelated reports from either side of the Pacific this week. One was talking about the drop in the instances and value of “impulse purchase” among retail shoppers across North America. The other was talking about the continuing increase of online shoppers across Australasia.

On the American side of the Pacific . . . → Read More: The impulse shopping revival

September is over and we are moving into Christmas 2011 and New Year 2012. So I think it is time for a little prophesising, future seeing and prescience.

Well, educated guess-work at least.

Those of you who have read this blog for the past three years will know that I walk stores and . . . → Read More: Christmas 2011: More online than ever before

If you include the mainstream discount department stores such as Kmart, Sears, Target, and Big W in Australia, there really is an appetite for change and a desire to try things that never would have been attempted during the last decade.

This is happening because of the change in shopper habits, which first occurred . . . → Read More: The role of department stores

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the 2011 Melbourne Retail Strategy Year Five report card. I highlighted that I had always thought of Melbourne as a great retailing city by dint of a good gene pool, or serendipity. It just kind of happened. I also said that I couldn’t attend the presentation of . . . → Read More: We built this city on retail

One of the many graphs in the Productivity Commission’s report on retail productivity showed that when it comes to our pay cheques, we are spending less of it each year on “stuff” at retail. “Stuff” refers to everything we buy through retail, and we’ve been spending less of our pay cheque on “stuff” every . . . → Read More: Good value doesn’t mean cheap

Among all of the feedback on the SBS Insightprogram’s website, following its “Big Sell” episode was one from Steve who lives and works in Tamworth. He highlighted something that many of us, including John Alexander, our veteran tennis star and new parliamentarian had touched on during a speech at a charity function I attended . . . → Read More: Online is key to boosting growth in regional areas