The Five Lies Customers Tell And How To Sell Around Them
While customers often feel salespeople can't be trusted, retailers are often faced with selling to customers who tell white lies to avoid purchasing an expensiv...
BrainTrust Query: How Can Retailers Raise Associates’ Conversion Rates?
Brick and mortars have one significant advantage over e-commerce players in turning browsers into buyers: the customers are actually standing there. A variety o...
BrainTrust Query: What Will It Take to Succeed in 2013?
NRF is behind us, arguably the center of what's happening in retail. Many retailers will want to address the big trends using technology. But success must come ...
Selling to the Millennial Tribe
Even though your store has that certain look and feel and you have the right merchandise with an excellent open-to-buy program, Millennials have now made your j...
BrainTrust Query: Mystery Shops – Retail’s Service Checkup
Business owners say is, "I just need more customers," when what they really need is more returning customers. They can burn through a neighborhood with bad word...
BrainTrust Query: Multitasking On the Retail Sales Floor
It takes a lot for customers to get in a car and visit a brick & mortar store only to be given the cold shoulder because and employee could only deal with one c...
BrainTrust Query: Amazon Showrooming – Reasons Your Retail Store is Susceptible
"Customers walking into your store no longer are ... using all the beautiful displays, premium products and employees to cancel out any suspicions they have bef...
BrainTrust Query: Responding to Negative Customer Reviews
Customers gripe for a lot of reasons. The good news is you can have automated alerts sent to you whenever your business is reviewed or mentioned on the 'net. Th...
BrainTrust Query: Is Charging Customers For Browsing So Ludicrous?
A sales associate waits on a customer and at a certain point when everything fits, the dressing room goes silent as the customer scans with her smartphone to se...
BrainTrust Query: Teenagers Have Changed – What it Takes for Them to Succeed in Retail
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, "What's Wrong With the Teenage Mind?", finds that we have many smart young people, but research is showing they haven't...
BrainTruest Query: Mobile “C.L.A.M.P.” – The Great Convergence
Fueled by the unprecedented power and portability of today's smartphones, we are seeing a rapid evolution of a number of major disciplines, one that can be call...
BrainTrust Query: Consumers Trust Strangers Over Store Associates
A survey late last year by Cisco Systems asked 1,000 U.S. consumers to rank their top three influencers in the buying process and who helped them buy. Sixty-eig...
BrainTrust Query: Seven Reasons Retailers Shouldn’t Use Coupons
One of the things Bob Phibbs (The Retail Doctor) typically does as a retail consultant when he takes on a new client is to discontinue discount marketing progra...
BrainTrust Query: How to Deal With a Bad Commission Salesperson on Your Payroll
Do you have a bad salesperson on your sales team? The one who has to say to the other salesperson while the customer is at the register, "I greeted them," or "O...
BrainTrust Query: Main Street Needs Small Business Saturday
Comments on an article about the American Express Small Business Saturday, Nov. 26, outlined reasons why several downtown businesses weren't participating. Many...
BrainTrust Query: Extra Tagging – Smart Marketing or Not?
Deal-mania is everywhere, from the freakish examples of Extreme Couponers on TV to the daily deals and, the old standard, the Sunday paper inserts. But the exte...
BrainTrust Query: Why or Why Not Open a Retail Store Now
Maybe you've always wanted to be your own boss. You've always enjoyed shopping and think opening your own store will be fun. But make no mistake: succeeding in ...
BrainTrust Query: Six Sins of a Startup Retail or Franchise Business
These are by no means all the things that frequently go wrong in a startup but they have a common theme: leaping before you know how deep the water is. How can ...
BrainTrust Query: Lemonade Day Sunday – Battling the ‘Gimme Attitude’
When hundreds of thousands of kids in over thirty cities participate in Lemonade Day this Sunday, they will embark on one of the oldest methods entrepreneurs we...
BrainTrust Query: How to Deal With Survivor Guilt in Your Salesperson
During a recent training session, a barrier was revealed -- guilt -- of all things! One employee admitted sometimes feeling guilty selling high-end items when ...