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Author: Phil Wrzesinski

One Thousand Dollars Back!

Do you know any retailers who would like $1000? (Better yet, do you know any that wouldn’t?)

The Jackson Retail Success Academy (JRSA) is looking for retailers who want to earn $1000 by taking ten three-hour classes to make their stores better, stronger and more successful

JRSA is looking for retailers willing to learn tips and practices that will help them better manage their inventory, their finances and their cash flow, making them more profitable.

JRSA is looking for retailers willing to learn marketing tips, practices and ideas that will drive the right kind of traffic into their stores and increase their fan base.

JRSA is looking for retailers willing to learn about solid hiring practices and training tips to raise their customer service to a level that creates raving fans that talk about their store to everyone they know.

Do you know a retailer who wants to improve in marketing, customer service and profitability?

Yes, it will take some work – 30 hours to be exact – ten Mondays from 6 to 9 pm. Yes, it will cost some money – $750 to be exact – payable prior to the first class.

But look at the bennies…

First, there is 30 hours of top-level classroom instruction on topics like financial statements, inventory management, cash flow, marketing & advertising, hiring & training, customer service and a whole lot more. This alone is worth $6000 (top level consultants earn $200/hour or more).

Plus, there are actual cash-back benefits.

JRSA Graduates get:

  • $250 in reimbursements for joining a trade organization or attending an industry trade show
  • $400 in reimbursements for advertising expenses
  • A one-year membership in the Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce ($300 value)
  • A one-year membership in the Midtown Association of Jackson ($50 value)

Add it up and it’s $1000 back to any retailer who signs up and attends the Jackson Retail Success Academy.

Oh yeah, and a pretty good chance you’ll learn something new to make you a whole lot more money on top of that.

The next class starts Monday, March 16th.

Tell your retail friends about this offer and have them contact Susan Franck (susan@gjcc.org) at the Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce (517) 782-8221 to sign up.

-Phil

PS JRSA is a collaboration of Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce, Jackson Local First, Midtown Association of Jackson, The Enterprise Group, The Small Business Technology Development Center, and the Jackson DDA

Big Yellow Taxi

“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot…”

There are some songs that no matter who covers them, no matter where I am at the time, no matter what’s on my mind, I stop and listen.

“Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell is one of those songs. From Joni’s lilting voice to Amy Grant’s smooth vocals, to the Counting Crow’s more gravelly sound, I just love listening to that song.

I’ve tried to play it myself but could never do it justice.

It is one of those songs that transcends generations, too. The line in the refrain is all too familiar. Sing along with me…

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone…”

Okay, a little off key, but the point is made. Many times we don’t know what we’ve got until we no longer have it. I had two moments like that recently.

While reading a trade magazine I came across a reference of a new book on branding. The book was right up my alley. I checked it out online and found multiple sites selling it. I was about to order it online but my Buy Local button kicked in. So I started to shoot an email over to Nomad Bookhouse to see if they had it before realizing they were gone, closed. I miss them.

At the same time, my wife and boys were visiting Fun 4 All Kids, a big inflatable playground where we have celebrated both boy’s birthdays. It was their last visit. As you read this, F4AK has closed.

One of our friends made the comment, “If I had known they were in trouble, maybe I would have stopped by more often.”

I heard the same things said about Nomad.

The point I want to make is this…

What are we waiting for? If there is a store, restaurant, or hangout that you particularly like, what are you doing to ensure it’s success? If there is a business you would hate to see go away, have you told your friends about it? Have you touted their virtues, sung their praises, shouted their benefits to the world?

Seth Godin, one of my favorite bloggers, said that we too often keep our favorite stores to ourselves, maybe fearful that if too many people know about it, it won’t be special anymore. (Read his blog on the subject here http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/dont-know-what.html) But how special are they if they’re gone?

In today’s economic climate, when traditional advertising is less and less effective, the one tried and true, always works, form of advertising is word-of-mouth.

Don’t let any more of your favorite places go away. Start talking about them now before they’re in trouble. As my friend, Bridget can attest, the outpouring of wonderful sentiments was incredible when she announced the closing of Nomad. Just think what might have happened if that outpouring of sentiment happened three or six months earlier, and not just to her but to everyone you know?

Make it your New Years Resolution to sing the praises of your favorite stores ten times more this year than last. You might be surprised how much impact and influence you can have.

Happy New Year!

-Phil

Is Price the Only Game to Play?

In earlier posts about Black Friday I made the claim that only half of all shoppers are driven purely by price. Some of you might disagree. But look at this study done this past fall.

According to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, 40 percent of shoppers say that sales or promotions is the largest factor when determining where to shop. Another 12.6 stated that everyday low prices were most important.

One story I read quoting these statistics concluded that price was the most important factor in where people shop. Of course, Winston Churchill once said that, “the only statistics you can trust are the ones you falsified yourself.”

Let’s look at the numbers more closely…

If 40% said sales and promotions were most important, then 60% did not believe sales and promotions to be most important. Three out of five people were not choosing where to shop based on sales and promotions! Selection, quality, service and location were higher up on those customers’ lists.

Remember… Transactional Customers look for sales, Relational Customers look for trust. Aren’t quality, service and selection trust factors? Of course they are. And the National Retail Federation has the statistics to prove that there are as many Relational Customers as Transactional Customers.

Just take the 40% wanting sales plus the 12.6% looking for low price and the split is 52.6% Transactional versus 47.4% Relational. In politics that’s a landslide. In business that’s a virtual split.

Yet, all the big retailers were going after the 52.6%, leaving a huge portion of shoppers not getting their needs met. It’s no wonder so many retailers are struggling. Here’s a tip. Go after the forgotten 47.4% Meet their needs and watch your business grow.

That’s what we do.

-Phil

Do You Believe in Santa?

I wrote this three years ago, but the question has come up again with my boys. Is Santa real? When Parker, now 10, was told by a classmate this fall that Santa isn’t real, he responded, “I know he’s real. My dad knows him!” So since I “know” Santa, I better tell you what I know about Santa…

My son, Parker, turned seven this fall, the age where doubt about Santa starts to creep in. Last week he told me that some kids in his class say that Santa isn’t real, that parents just “pretend to be Santa” and put out the gifts themselves.

I asked him, “What do you believe?” After some careful consideration he decided that he believed Santa was real.

After a lengthy discussion about video cameras, he decided that he wants to check the roof Christmas morning for sleigh tracks “just to be sure.” (Anyone have a tall ladder?)

I knew this conversation would come up at some time. I recall vividly the Christmas when I was six and my eight-year old sister and I started having our doubts. We decided one night, while sitting on my parents’ bed that we were just going to keep on believing in Santa because 1) if he was real, then we kept the faith and (hopefully) would be rewarded handsomely for it, 2) if he wasn’t real, there was no harm done, and 3) it was way more fun to believe in Santa than to not believe.

Funny thing is I still believe in Santa. No, it’s not because without Santa the Toy House wouldn’t be in business (although that helps).

I believe in Santa for the same reasons I believed in him at age six – to keep the faith, because there’s no harm in it, and it’s much more fun than not believing.

But there’s one more reason, one much more compelling reason that I believe in Santa. I have proof that he exists!

No, I haven’t seen him with my own eyes. Nor have I ever been to the North Pole. But I know he exists as surely as I know my own heart pumps in my chest. (I’ve never seen that, either.)
Some people say that it would be impossible for Santa to exist because he would have to be magic to accomplish all he does. Those same people say that magic doesn’t exist.

Oh, but I know it does. I’ve seen Christmas Magic happen before my very own eyes. Like my first Christmas Eve in 1980 when the travel-weary, broken-down man from Detroit showed up at the game counter looking for a Simon game just seconds after one had been returned. Or the customer in the early seventies who had his trunk frozen shut in an ice storm and needed my dad to help him out late one Christmas Eve. Or the time my father picked up the tab for all of his out-of-town nephews’ and nieces’ Christmas presents when his sister’s husband was dying from a brain tumor.

Every time I hear of a family that has been “adopted”, or I read about the community Christmas Dinners, or I watch the outpouring of the community into the red buckets of the Salvation Army, the boxes for Toys for Tots, or the Food Drives all over town, I know that Christmas Magic exists.

You see, Christmas Magic is all about the Spirit of Giving, with no greater example than the gift given to us all over 2000 years ago.

And since Christmas Magic exists, then so does the magician who keeps the Spirit of Giving alive.

Call him Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Kris Kringle, or whatever you want. He’s as real as anything. Just as you can’t see your heart beating in your chest, you can still feel the pulsating rhythm that gives you life. And deep down in that heart lies the feeling of joy called the Spirit of Giving.
That, my friends, is where you’ll find Santa.

Merry Christmas and Happy Shopping!

Phil Wrzesinski
12/20/05

Overpaid Stock Boy?

This is a fun time of year. Lots of customers, lots of smiling faces, lots of full shopping carts, lots of empty shelves that need to be filled with more product.

I used to laugh at my dad every Christmas saying he was the highest paid stock boy in town. Now it’s my turn.

Now I get to make multiple trips to the warehouse in search of more products to fill the spaces emptied by customers finding just the right toy or game. It’s both a challenge and a sense of accomplishment when I can take an aisle decimated by shoppers and turn it into a fully-stocked, well-merchandised display.

More importantly, I understand the necessity of making sure the job is done quickly and done well. Our product is our lifeblood. And the way we merchandise it goes a long way towards the success we have as a business. Since most of our toys don’t have a movie or TV license, or a heavy ad campaign, customers aren’t coming through the door asking for them. It isn’t until they see the toys on the shelf that many people even know they exist.

Without merchandising, they might never see the product. And if they don’t see it, they don’t buy it. Merchandising is one of the most important elements of any successful retailer.

Yet, the stock boy is always perceived as the low man on the totem pole, the dish dog of retail, the private in the sales force army. Tell someone you’re a stock boy and hear them apologize for your plight in life as they fill you with encouragement for bigger and grander things to come.

But with the importance that merchandising plays in our success, the shelves should not be left to the lowliest, least-trained, least experienced of the staff.

I finally see what my dad knew all those years. The shelves are our silent salesmen. The shelves are where many decisions are made on which toy, game or puzzle to buy. The shelves make or break our season.

Merchandising is not just a job, it’s an art form. My dad was one of the best. He didn’t need a planogram. He could look at the product, look at the shelf and instantly see in his mind exactly how it should go.

Me? I’m getting better at it. I’m not to the grand master merchandising level of my dad yet, but getting close. More importantly, I’m trying to put all I’ve learned into our staff training so that we all become master merchandisers. It’s not just enough to make the shelves look full. They have to be enticing and inviting.

I believe it was George Whalin who said, “advertising brings products to the customer, but merchandising brings customers to the product.” Yes, merchandising is one of the most important aspects of retailing. It’s not an afterthought or a minimum-wage job.

And for the holiday season, the shelves are my domain. I love the challenge. Not only do I get to know the products better, (hey, it’s hard to keep track of 32,000 different items) I get to be out on the floor meeting and greeting all the happy customers.

So if you see me pushing around a cart full of toys, it may look like I’m busy, but really I’m just having fun. And I’m always available to answer a question or too.

Merry Christmas!

-Phil

The Toy House IQ

If you’ve been following the recent conversation, you’re probably already guessing IQ doesn’t refer to Intelligence Quotient. And thank God for that. When people use the word smart around me it usually includes alec after it.

But in being transparent about how we do our advertising, today is a great day to discuss one more term in Roy William’s Advertising Performance Equation – SoV x IQ x PEF x MPo = Sales.

From before we learned SoV=Share of Voice=Your ad budget and PEF=Personal Experience Factor=How well you exceed customer expectations.

IQ stands for Impact Quotient or how memorable or attention-getting your ad might be. The more memorable, the higher the IQ.

To better understand, answer this question… Where were you when you first heard about the Twin Towers?

You remember the exact moment, who told you, how you reacted. That is off-the-chart high IQ. Sorry, but your ads will never have that high of an IQ.

Now answer this question… What companies’ ads have you heard or seen today that really stood out, that made you pay attention?

Don’t worry if you’re struggling to think of one advertiser today that stood out. Most ads have a very low IQ.

Why?

Because we are conditioned to tune out all advertisements. We are bombarded with thousands and thousands of advertising pitches daily. It’s like aiming a fire hose at a teacup. We can’t possibly absorb them all so our brain learns to filter. If it isn’t relevant, we don’t see it or hear it.

You can read an entire newspaper cover to cover and not remember a single ad because nothing was relevant to you. You can listen to an hour of radio and not remember a single company because they didn’t say anything important or relevant or interesting. In fact, as soon as they came on, you automatically tuned out.

But isn’t that the goal of advertising – to get people to notice you?

Unfortunately, too many companies don’t understand this. They produce lousy ads with low IQ that no one sees or hears. They are told by their ad sales reps that all they have to do is get their name out there and people will notice. Hey ad guys, haven’t you figured it out? We need something other than your name. We’re too busy to notice.

In the equation above, SoV x IQ is a sub-equation. SoV x IQ = Share of Mind, in other words, how much the consumer thinks of you compared to your competitor.

If you have a 10% SoV and run average ads, you have 10% of Share of Mind. If you have 10% SoV and run lousy, invisible ads, you might only get a 5% Share of Mind. Remember, SoV is linked to your ad budget. If your ads are lousy, you need to spend twice as much to get the same Share of your customer’s mind.

However, if you have high impact ads, you can gain a greater Share of your customer’s mind than your budget allows. That’s the power of IQ.

In the next post, I’ll explain how we try to gain your attention in our ads. In the meantime, you can listen for yourself. All of our radio ads are now posted on our website. Go to http://www.toyhouseonline.com/ and click on the Radio icon to hear all of our 2008 ads.

Have an impactful day!

-Phil

What in the World is SoV?

In the last post I mentioned Roy Williams’ Advertising Performance Equation – SoV x IQ x PEF x MPo = Sales.

We talked about how PEF stands for Personal Experience Factor. In this equation, to grow your business, a customer’s personal experience must exceed her expectations. That’s what creates loyalty and fandom, and is our staff-training goal every month.

Today “SoV” is the relevant part of the equation for me. Why? I just agreed to terms with Jackson Radio Works for running a year-long radio campaign next year.

Wait. Still confused?

Let me explain…

SoV stands for Share of Voice – in other words, how much of the advertising being done in your category is yours. Think of it as a percentage. If in your market and category there is $1 million being spent on advertising and you are spending $100,000 of it, then you have a 10% SoV.

So, by that definition, SoV is equal to your marketing budget as a percentage of the total ad money being spent. Therefore, the more you spend, the higher your SoV.

Most of you upon reading this are saying, “Great, Phil, but I don’t have any more money. What if I want a higher SoV and don’t have more money to spend? Can I increase my SoV other ways?”

Yes you can. I just did.

There are many ways to advertise – TV, Radio, Newsprint, Internet, Email, Yellow Pages, to name a few. How many of those media do you own? By that, I mean, are there any media that when people think of the media they think of you?

If you listen to radio in Jackson, you know the Toy House owns some of the stations. No other toy or baby product seller comes close to running the frequency that we do on those stations. Ask someone who is the toy store on the radio and they’ll tell you Toy House. We own it. That was our goal last year and will be our goal again this year.

I don’t have the budget that my competitors have. I don’t have the power of national advertising, printing on a mass scale, or the clout to demand huge rate savings from the media. But I do have an understanding about perception. While all the big chains compete with each other with their multiple inserts, none of them gaining a perceptual advantage, I’ve got the airwaves to myself, allowing Toy House to get a perceptively larger Share of Voice than what we are spending.

Think of it this way. Most people, when thinking of advertising think (in order), Newspaper, TV, Radio, Yellow Pages, and maybe Internet. If I perceptually own Radio, I perceptually have a 20% SoV. No, it’s not perfect math. Neither is the equation (I’ll get to that in another post). But it is an improvement over my actual percentage of the SoV (about 5-7%).

Are you daring enough to get more out of your advertising budget? Are you willing to go for it by owning a media no one in your market is using?

Wouldn’t it be better to have a nice quiet conversation alone with a client than to be part of the shouting and screaming that all your competitors are doing?

Of course it would.

-Phil

Setting the Bar Too High?

One of my favorite lessons learned from the Wizard of Ads is the Advertising Performance Equation. This equation gives a quick lesson into the factors that influence how well your advertising works. The equation looks like this: SoV x IQ x PEF x MPo = Sales

I won’t go into details about the equation right now, but one of those factors has been weighing on my mind.

PEF stands for Personal Experience Factor. Roy Williams (the Wizard) teaches that your advertising creates an expectation of your store. And when a customer experiences your store it will have an effect on the power of your ads. If you do not meet the customer’s expectations, all future ads will be seen/heard with disdain and not work as well. If you exceed the expectations created by your advertising, your business will grow.

The goal, then, is to ALWAYS exceed the customers’ expectations.

This can be done two ways. Set a really low bar that is always easy to beat or set the bar higher and higher with each passing day.

As Stewart B. Johnson said, “Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves – to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.”

I’ve always believed that success for Toy House falls more into line with Mr. Johnson. We need to constantly be striving to be better. Not better than our competition, but better than we were yesterday.

But with that said, there is some validity to setting a really low expectation. We see this every year in political debates. Who “won” the debate is primarily based on who met or exceeded the expectations.

In advertising, some say that you should never brag about your customer service because you raise a really high bar of expectations that will be increasingly difficult to exceed.

I’m not sure I’m fully in that camp. Raising the bar of expectations attracts a lot of customers. Plus, it gives you incentive to train harder, to prepare more, to be more creative in ways that you can please customers.

So, I’m just gonna lay it all on the line. I believe my staff are some of the finest retail workers in the toy industry. They are informed, helpful and friendly, and will give you the best shopping experience you can find in Jackson.

There. I’ve said it. The bar has been raised. I double dog dare you to give us the chance to exceed those expectations.

-Phil

Building Customers by Making Friends

Your friends are those with whom you have a relationship. Everyone else is just an acquaintance. No matter how many times you see someone, if you don’t interact, you aren’t friends.

So have you made friends with your customers? (Or if you are a customer, have you made friends with the stores where you shop?)

We have. In fact, at Toy House it is expected. We want to know you and we want you to know us.

Yes, it sounds a little nosy, even a little scary when I put it like that. I believe, however, that building friendships is the best way to build loyal customers.

So how do you build friendships?

Be Honest: You are honest with your true friends. You tell them how you feel. You share your secrets. You admit your faults.

How many stores are willing to say, “Yes, we screwed up. It’s our fault,”? Yet, during a recent staff training we discussed how even if the customer actually is at fault we need to apologize because that means that somewhere along the way we didn’t communicate clearly enough to prevent the customer from the misunderstanding.

Listen: Your best friend listens to all your stories, positive and negative. And you listen to theirs, as well.

The best stores have a staff that listens, that repeats back what a customer says and asks questions to clarify everything so that there is no misunderstanding. We may not be the best listeners all the time, but we’re working on it. Would you be surprised to know that the last ten staff trainings were on communication?

Share: Your best friend lets you try on her clothes, shares her french fries, mascara, or book collection. You and your friends share ideas, experiences and information.

The stores that make friends also share. They share ideas and experiences, they share products through samples and hands-on displays. They offer loaners when applicable. Have you played with the wooden and electric trains, Rokenbok, Calico Critters, Wedgits, puppets, playhouses, teaser games, knights, animals, or any of the other toys on display? Have you told your child’s classroom teacher about our Teacher Loaner Program – products that teachers can use in the classroom for free? Yes, we like to share. Plus, we are all parents or grandparents ourselves. We know what our kids and grandkids have enjoyed. And believe me, we aren’t shy about sharing what works and what doesn’t work.

Laugh & Have Fun: Isn’t that what friendship is all about?

Do you have fun where you shop? What makes it fun? If you’re like most of the customers I see, it is the interactions you have with the staff that have a major impact on your fun. We have fun here. But we should. We work in a toy store. The cool thing is that our fun is not exclusive. We are always looking for ways to include you in the fun.

Some people wrongly accuse me of being in the “toy business”. The reality is that we’re in the friend business.

Wanna be our friend?

-Phil

PS We’re not exclusive in our friendships, either. We have lots of bff’s and plenty of room for more.

Why You Love (Or Hate) Black Friday

Are you Relational or Transactional? Chances are, you’re probably both. You just don’t know it. And whether you’re more Relational or more Transactional tells you everything you need to know why you either love Black Friday or were part of the Buy Nothing Day crowd.

Let me explain.

A Transactional Customer (TC) is someone who has done all of the research, knows exactly what she wants, and now is on the hunt to find the best price on that item. And once the best price is found, the TC makes the purchases.

The driving force behind a TC is the fear of paying too much. The TC sees all the research and price-shopping as part of the transaction, and each transaction is a single event, a conquest to beat the system. Transactional Customers love to brag about the deals they found and are great at word-of-mouth. But TC’s are loyal only to the price, not to any particular store or brand.

Black Friday was made for Transactional Customers. The newspaper flyers are the research. The early bird deals are the attraction. Finding the right item at the right price and getting it before anyone else is the conquest. And making it to five or more stores by 9am is the Mount Everest of Transactional Customer shopping.

The Relational Customer (RC) is a different breed. Unlike the TC, who believes she is the expert on the product, and only needs to find the best deal, the RC knows she is not the expert. In fact, the driving force behind the RC is finding that expert that she can trust, the one that will help her make the smart purchase, because an RC’s biggest fear is buying the wrong item.

Relational Customers don’t tend to brag as much (they don’t want to show their lack of knowledge), but their loyalty to a store or particular brand is especially strong. Once an RC finds that expert, all other stores disappear. If you’re second on an RC’s list, you’re just first loser – there is no second. The Relational Customer sees each transaction as one in a long line of transactions – a relationship between herself and the store.

A great example of the difference between the TC and the RC happens in the arena of auto repair. If you always take your car to the same mechanic, even if it means waiting an extra day or two, you are probably a Relational Customer. You’ve found the expert you can trust. But if you call around just to find the best price on an oil change and take your car to a service station you’ve never visited before just to save $5, you’re probably a Transactional Customer.

Wait, you cry! Do i have to be one or the other? Can’t someone be both? Aren’t there people who get all major repairs done by the same mechanic who also drive around looking for the best price on an oil change? Yes! You can be both.

In fact, we are all both TC and RC depending on the item in question.

Studies also show that not only are people both Transactional and Relational, every category of product is also split quite evenly between TC’s and RC’s.

The big theory (and myth) of the Internet is that it is all about price. Students from MIT once did a study to prove this theory. They studied the buying patterns of people who shopped for videos and DVD’s through DirectLink – a website that helps you locate items available for purchase online. You type in the item, and DirectLink pulls up all the places that item can be purchased online and lists them from cheapest to most expensive. The students theorized that if you were not the cheapest price, you wouldn’t get the sale, that 99% of customers would probably click on the first link.

To their surprise 51% of the customers they tracked did NOT buy from the cheapest website. Instead they spent about $3 more per item buying it from someone other than the first site listed. Why did they spend more? Because they didn’t trust the websites offering the lowest prices. The vast majority of those higher price purchases were done at websites like Amazon.com, WalMart.com and other recognizable names. Final Score? Price 49%, Trust 51%.

Here’s another example as told by Roy H. Williams, aka Wizard of Ads. Roy was speaking to a roomful of marketing directors for grocery stores. When Roy asked how many believed that price was the major driving force behind their sales, 290 of the 300 people raised their hands. Roy then asked how many offered loyalty cards, discounts for people who swiped or scanned a special card at the checkout. About half the room raised their hands. When asked how well it worked one person stood up and explained that 43% of his customers used such a card, higher than the national average for such programs. Did each customer get asked if they had or wanted such a card? Yes, the cashiers were well-trained to ask everyone. Yet, 57% of the people in that store basically said “No thanks, I’ll pay more.” When Roy asked again how many thought price was the driving force behind their sales, a lot fewer hands were raised. Final Score? Price 43%, Trust (or convenience) 57%.

Yes, everyone of you is both Transactional and Relational. Yes, every category has both Transactional and Relational customers. You’re probably trying to figure out right now in what categories you are RC and TC. Me? I’m mostly RC. The mere thought of getting up early to fight crowds, wait in lines, and have no chance of finding a clerk to answer my questions is downright frightening. Then again, I would never want to get in the media’s way of hyping up Black Friday into the shopping day it has become. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

If you’re still puzzled, here’s a quick quiz to help you figure it out.

Do you drive all over town to save 3 cents on a gallon of gas or always stop at the same convenient station on the way home? Do you top off the tank every time you see the price drop, or do you fill up only when you’re empty? Do you grocery shop at five different stores based on what’s on sale, or shop at only one store because you know the layout? Do you decide to do without something because the only store in town that has it is one you wouldn’t be caught dead entering? Do you continue to shop for a better deal even after you’ve made your purchase? Do you believe you know more than the sales staff or do they know more than you?

The fun thing is that there is no right or wrong way to be. You just are what you are. And it’s interesting when we understand why we do what we do.

And now you have a better understanding why you were out early Friday morning (or why you thought all those people were crazy).

And now you also know that while some stores only play the Price game, we’re going after that 50% plus who want an Expert to Trust. Yes, we’ll win some and lose some in the Transactional Customer game (our prices are more competitive than some people think), but you can guarantee that we’ll always be here to answer your questions, help you make great choices, and share the joy you have watching your children grow. That’s the RC in us, and part of the reason why we had such a big Black Friday that continued all weekend long.

The other stores went after TC customers. Once their sales ended, so did their traffic. The TC’s were off to look for more great deals. The RC’s, on the other hand, avoided the Friday early morning crowds and filled the stores Friday afternoon, Saturday & Sunday. Unfortunately, their presence wasn’t recorded in any of the major media stories because they typically don’t shop the big box chain stores and discounters where those numbers are gathered. But ask your neighborhood retailers, your local independents, how they fared. According to Michigan Retailers Association, more than half reported better than expected sales.

The other factor driving this is that there isn’t that one “must have” toy driving Christmas sales this year. No Tickle Me Elmo or Cabbage Patch Doll causing a retail frenzy. So without a “hot” product, the advantage goes to the stores that know their products best, the stores that cater to the RC’s.

As Paul Harvey would say, “Now you know the rest of the story.”

Good day!

-Phil