A recent study conducted by Jungle Scout reports that many consumers prefer to support small and local businesses for their holiday shopping. 20% reported they will buy holiday gifts from indie stores, up from 10% last year. The report ranks independent retailers in 4th place for in-store shopping, surpassing Costco, Walgreen's Best Buy, Sam's Club, Macy's and Home Depot.
The article shares 53% of consumers bought online from independent stores on Small Business Saturday as reported by ...
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How having the right defaults makes decisions easier for clients and helps them be more successful.
January 27, 2023
When you look at your driver’s license, it lists if you’re an organ donor. Twenty years ago, only 20% of people were donors, but today 80% are—thereby saving millions of lives. Did people become more kind? No, the question on the application was changed from opt-in to opt-out. People signing up for or renewing a license are now by default enlisted in organ donation. Lesson: the right default answer in medical care can save millions of lives. Similarly, the right defaults ...
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I don’t own a car, yet I have a strange desire to read Dan Neil's car column each weekend in The Wall St. Journal. Why would someone who doesn’t own a car, won’t be buying one soon, and hasn’t owned one in 25 years read a car column? It's a mix of enjoying the design and technology of automobiles, wanting to know what Dwayne Johnson may be buying next, loving Dan’s witty writing style, and, confession, simply being 13-years old at heart. Cars are ...
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These days, ugly Amazon warehouses are beating up pretty retail stores. Many stores in 2020 had record online sales that made up 40% or more of revenue, but they are struggling because they had to bear the burden of retail stores. Retail stores cost more per square foot to rent, furnish, and maintain. They also cost more to staff. A warehouse person need not be a people person and a snazzy dresser; they can exhibit anger management issues and ...
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While waiting for breakfast, I noticed this ‘Boycott Amazon’ sticker. I think that getting customers to stop something—or start something—is a tough practice. There are fields of science (psychology) and marketing (branding) dedicated to this. Is it easier to get someone to start or stop (boycott) something?
I think that offering a solution (start something) is easier.
I recommend that stores encourage customers to choose them over Amazon because the ...
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Today’s WSJ shares how IKEA underfunded its website and this led to frustrated and furious customers who can’t track orders or do many expected actions on its site.
Meanwhile, Best Buy’s massive web investments paid off: it retained 90% of its revenue through the pandemic.
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Pay customers to shop with you: that's what it will take to stay afloat.
We can learn a lot from this Best Buy email:
1. Promote free shipping with a very low threshold. Best Buy requires just a $35 order. What do your competitors offer?
2. Give away money to shop with you. Best Buy is offering me $5 knowing that I'll likely spend $50.
3. Show smiling faces in your advertising and emails. Show real workers--do not use stock photos.
4. Set a deadline by when customers can ...
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December 10, 2019
December 10, 2019
What is the next cutting-edge 'platform'? It may be the U.S. highway system. :)
Best Buy is partnering with CVS, and this is indicative of a growing list of businesses that used to be siloed but are now teaming up. The analog world is becoming a platform of businesses sharing resources.
Bridge is an e-commerce platform used by retail businesses to share products, news, and resources. Every day our members benefit from collaborating.
Retailers can be separated in to two groups: those whose are making smart choices like Walmart and Best Buy, and those who are not like Macy’s and Nordstrom. Macy’s stock is down 44% this year.
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October 25, 2019
October 25, 2019
From which store would you shop, the one offering free 2-day shipping or the one charging $105 for standard delivery?
The first one, of course. Which leads us to the rules your store needs to follow:
Rule #1: Do NOT seek to break even on shipping Rule #2: Seek to LOSE money on shipping!
Most retailers share with me their fear about losing money on shipping. What ends up happening? They end up losing: the entire sale. What about that $1,000 Herend order? The store is less likely to get it because it'...
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June 12, 2019
June 12, 2019
Nacho Analytics shows us that search engineers are helping Amazon get 600% more in sales than competitors.
Take away: investing in good search results costs money, but it's well worth it. If you have better search, you sell more.
What is a search relevance engineer? It's a technical person that helps ensure that what you search for you get. E.g.: if you're on a website and you search for "bat," do you get the sports instrument or the animal? Constantly honing and improving the search code creates...
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May 6, 2019
May 6, 2019
Does your state give your small business back almost 50% of the taxes you paid? I doubt it, but that’s what California gives Best Buy and some other businesses. Today’s Times shares that local municipalities are giving kick backs to businesses in order to compete for business. While competition is healthy, it’s unfair and potentially detrimental to give tax breaks to some companies and not others, and give breaks that may be excessive.
California’s odd tax rules make gaming the system easier ...
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April 16, 2019
April 16, 2019
We thank Mr. Hubert and wish good luck to Ms. Barry. Mr. Hubert helped right the ship at Best Buy and fend off Amazon, and Ms. Barry, who has worked with the company for 20 years, is taking over as CEO. Best Buy, whose stock is up 3x since 2013, has outlasted fallen household-names like Circuit City, Sport Authority, and Toys “R” Us.
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November 25, 2018
November 25, 2018
How fast times change: in 2011, customers clamored to shop at Sears. In 2018, the store was closed.
Seven years ago, shoppers camped out for weeks in front of Best Buy. Not today.
How is your store gonna prepare for 2025?
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June 22, 2018
June 22, 2018
Amazon gets you to buy more iPhones, lawn mowers, power washers, and movies by: first selling you bananas. Whole Foods, owned by Amazon, ropes you in with the promise of savings. These banana sales will translate down the road to a tighter grip on all of a consumers’ purchases and result in lost sales for all or most retailers including Best Buy, Home Depot, AutoZone, Nordstrom, and more.
This will likely result in job loss and lower tax revenue. That may put downward pressure on our ability ...
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January 14, 2018
January 14, 2018
A friend of mine asked me about the buy local movement and young people. She wonders if young people (people under 40--gosh, I guess that excludes me?!) cared about the buy local 'movement.'
My response to her was that asking someone to buy local is sort of like asking someone to ignore the major principles of why people shop (aka ignore capitalism). The primary reasons we shop where we do is:
1. Selection. People want a wide variety of selection…aka: all the items you can find on Amazon.
1/2 of Best Buy’s TVs are bought online and picked up in-store, reports today’s WSJ.
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October 22, 2017
October 22, 2017
Want an in-store gift registry computer? Take a lesson from Best Buy: they can be expensive, finicky, and simply not work. Here’s a pic of its Union Square location’s registry computer being stuck on startup.
The convenient part about relying on your website for instore activity is you essentially get your customers to use their own hardware (aka their iPhone or mobile device).
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September 19, 2017
September 19, 2017
Today's Times shares Best Buy's tips for beating Amazon: 1. Match Amazon's prices. 2. Add human interaction wherever possible. Best Buy even added an in-home installation team. 3. Use your physical store to allow pick ups. Keep inventory of your store on your site. 4. Suffer quietly. Don't announce pains and cost cutting. Look for ways to cut costs and do so without fanfare.
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