Retail Business Blogs

Why you read and write retail business blogs
At Inc. magazine, Hillary Johnson has an article about "Why I read business blogs". This paragraph about a retailer's blog is great:

It's done the same for a lot of small-business
owners. A friend turned me on to a blog by a mother-daughter team who operate
the Cracked Cauldron, a bakery in Oklahoma City. Aside from posting snapshots of
yeast formulas as if they were baby pictures, the owners have blogged
their personal journey, freely
discussing how they used to be homeless and what led them to want to start a
bakery. They didn't have any expectations when they began their blog, but
through it they found a retail space, connected with suppliers, attracted
customers, and started correspondences with other entrepreneurs from as far away
as Ghana

.Build your retail business with a blog. Give it a try. What do you have to lose? You can create one free right here at Blogger.

FAST FASHION

Some of the below may seem obvious, but at least it will provide you with a bit of a framework to see the cohesion between individual trends we've discussed over the last two and a half years, from GENERATION C and NO FRILLS CHIC to ONLINE OXYGEN and MASSCLUSIVITY. Trends that have gone hand in hand with innovative new consumer goods, services and experiences from around the world. The one thing these innovations have had in common? They've raised consumer expectations that were already sky-high.


In earlier newsletters and in our public seminars, we've referred to these exceedingly high expectations as MASS CLASS STANDARDS. So we know YOU know this. Yet, these standards are about more than consumers simply expecting reliable quality or affordable prices. Slowly but certainly, on a global scale, consumer expectations now revolve around knowing about and wanting superior quality, often at rock-bottom prices, combined with cutting edge design and instantly availability. So who does the consumer turn to? A select group of brands, based anywhere from Spain to South Korea, are meeting if not exceeding these expectations with such vigor, that even following their lead is now a hygiene factor in itself for their competitors. And not following or out-innovating them equals a certain death.


Want names? Consumers from Taiwan to Trinidad can rattle them off as fast as they're ditching non-performers. Fast Fashion? Spanish Zara and Swedish H&M. Usability and Celebration of Consumer Passions? American Apple and Finnish Nokia. Mobile phones that outdo all of your other gadgets? South Korean Samsung and LG. Superior lifestyle branding? American Nike. Well designed yet affordable furniture? Swedish IKEA. And then there's Dell, and ING Direct and JetBlue, and RIM, and Target, and W Hotels (joined by XYZ soon), and WalMart, and TESCO, and Starbucks, who are all upping the hygiene levels for their respective categories and for entire disciplines across the board (think customer service, ecommerce prowess, distribution).So welcome to HYGIENIA*: a marketplace inhabited by mature consumers from South Korea to Brazil, from Australia to Canada, who can instantly and expertly point out the various hygiene factors for each and every good, service and experience on offer. They base their knowledge on many years of self-training in hyper-consumption, and on the now almost biblical flood of new-style, readily available information sources and filters helping them to track down the Best of the Best, the Cheapest of the Cheapest, the First of the First.