How online calendars can help retailers manage and save time.
October 4, 2023
One of the main problems that businesses have is efficient use of time. A retailer (or brand or sales rep) seeks on a daily basis to manage their time and optimize results. (I was reminded of this while reading a The Wall St. Journal article about time management for the family.) Businesses use a variety of tools to manage and save time, including email, texting, and Zoom.
Shop Local helps businesses in their quest to save time. We offer businesses a variety of services to help ...
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What universal standards can teach us about simplicity regarding e-commerce platforms.
September 25, 2023
When Apple launched its new iPhones this month, one of its most noteworthy updates was replacing its Lightning charging cable with a USB-C. This was not a voluntary move or extension of Steve Jobs’s love of simplicity. Apple changed it because the European Union required them to, according to Ben Cohen in The Wall St. Journal. Now, just about every mobile phone in the world (forget just little ol’ Europe) will have one charging solution (USB-C).
What the retail industry can learn from Google and Amazon teaming up on technology standards.
September 19, 2023
Google, Amazon, and an array of home appliance companies are teaming up to make it easier for you to dim your home’s lights and lock your front doors. They are adopting a standard called Matter that allows devices to communicate and work together, shares The Wall St. Journal. This allows a giant like Amazon, creator of Alexa devices and Ring doorbells, and Tuo, a small home device tech creator, to use the same platform yet keep their internal, proprietary code base. This standard is like a...
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How premium plan tiers help businesses sell more and increase margins.
September 7, 2023
Dating apps are launching higher-priced premium tiers, according to last week’s The Wall St. Journal. Hinge offers a new $50/month plan, and Tinder is launching a $500/month plan. The League already offers a $1,000 plan. These pricey plans take the sting out of Bumble’s $60/month plan.
Why are companies offering such plans? Because even if Tinder only gets 10% of users, that's millions. Plus, the profit and margins are likely higher for customers using these plans. A normal ...
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How limited resources can motivate teams to accomplish goals and breed solutions.
September 3, 2023
India last month joined three other countries in the exclusive club that has put a craft on the moon. What’s unique about India’s accomplishment is that it did this at a fraction of what the U.S. spends on space exploration, shares Ben Cohen in The Wall St. Journal. While the U.S.’s NASA program has a $24b budget, India’s ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) budget is just $1.3b. India, which started its space program in 1963, is able to do more with less because of ...
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I was inspired to read that what we do today as a software company can be traced back 42,000 years to a bone in a South African cave. I realized this after reading The Wall St. Journal’s review of ‘Empire of the Sum,’ a book about pocket calculators.
Here’s the lineage: We’re in the software business, which is a relative of the computer business, which is a relative of the pocket calculator business (just ask Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, who ...
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How a company's sales and growth can be affected by the message it conveys to customers.
July 18, 2023
Allbirds stock is down 95% since its November 2021 initial public offering. People may say the company launched the wrong products (did you buy one of their puffer jackets?) or tried to grow too quickly. I believe there is a larger reason: you can’t scale a company by leading with an environmental message—which is Allbirds’s pitch. Consumers rank saving the planet as one of their least pressing concerns when making a purchase. The leading factors consumers look for when ...
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We’ve been tracking brands that try to bypass stores, from Nike to some tabletop brands that will go unnamed. While Nike has backtracked from cutting out stores, Levi’s continues on the path shares this weekend’s The Wall St. Journal.
The last fifteen years have been marked by brands investing in their websites, sucking up customers via Facebook and Google ads, and bypassing their stores.
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How businesses keep customers coming back after they make a purchase.
June 8, 2023
Six Flags is updating its theme parks to encourage families to spend more time there and visit more often, according to this past weekend’s The Wall St. Journal. The theme park's president, Jeffrey Siebert, says that the nightly fireworks show is what the industry calls a “kiss good night.” After park-goers have spent the day spending, they perceive the show as a free, post-purchase gift with no strings attached. The fireworks thereby help the customer leave fulfilled and...
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How allocating our resources efficiently can help us save time, save money, and deliver value to our customers.
May 9, 2023
You've heard of Salsa-fy? It’s national, was started in Dallas, is used by 60,000 employees, and is used at more than 1,600 corporate locations. Salsa-fy helps businesses steer clear of trouble, offer the best value, and ensures profitability. You may interrupt me here and ask, “Jason, don’t you mean the software company Salesify?” No, I’m talking about the restaurant chain Chili’s and its approach to managing salsa, french fries, and its business. ...
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The Wall St. Journal reports that Barnes & Noble has updated its subscription discount program. Previously, it had one tier that was $25/year. Now, Barnes & Noble has a two-tier system. There is a free program that offers rebates based on what you spend, and a $40/year program that gives you rebates plus more discounts and some perks at its cafes.
The new memberships are meant to help the bookseller better compete with Amazon's Prime and Walmart+.
Thieves have increased their activities since the pandemic started. In 2021, retail theft was up 40% shared The Wall St. Journal. Many stolen goods wind up on for sale on Amazon and Ebay. To combat this, two Congress people have proposed requiring sellers of more than $5,000 in goods or 200 transactions to reveal more information about themselves.
Before the mid-19th century, only the wealthy were allowed into upscale stores, and women often didn’t stroll around downtown. Women were escorted to and around most public environments.
Shopping:
- Helped bring women out of the home and into the workforce.
- Enabled the common person to drink and eat the same thing that presidents and kings did.
- Helped minorities leverage their civil rights.
Some interesting facts:
- About 60% of Americans (197m) shop....
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