Extending the BOGTF into product innovation…?

Pic: Andrew Sullivan
With Buy-One-Get-Two-Free rapidly gaining traction on the sales side, it was only a matter of time before marketing found a way of catering for niche-appetites and reducing packaging via the "cherpumple", a three-layer cake (yellow, spice and white) with a pie baked inside each layer (cherry, apple, pumpkin)... Full details including slideshow & Recipe on Wall Street Journal site
Have a multilevel weekend-fest, from the Namnews Team!

Poundland plans to go online?

With a 29% increase in turnover to £509m via 320 stores, Poundland have moved into mainstream retailing.

Appealing to two groups of savvy consumers who seldom forget lessons learned in austerity, their regular shoppers are those who need to save money, and those who choose to do so…

Going online will simply remove some costs and broaden Poundland’s appeal.

No longer an outlet for ad hoc ‘special packs’, or ends-of-lines, the pound shops now sell regular lines and brands, albeit forecasting ‘overages’ on a transaction basis that has somehow become essential…

Their ability to grab headlines will increase the competitive threat they represent to the multiples and discounts, probably resulting in retaliatory pricing moves?

Perhaps it is time to scope out the options, run the numbers, reassess their competitive appeal and factor poundshops into your trading strategies, before the multiples do it for you?

Running the ‘happy’ numbers…?

Millionaire Prime Minister David Cameron has made no secret of his wish for a greater focus on well-being rather than wealth and has asked the statistics agency for help.
Over the coming months - just as a savage government austerity programme kicks in - the country's statisticians will devise a set of questions to measure Briton's subjective quality of life.
These responses will form the basis of a new guage that will be published at regular intervals, perhaps alongside figures like GDP.

Essentially, the Office for National Statistics will quantify happiness, thus allowing us to complete the negotiation-calculation jigsaw in Namcalc.

Rest assured that as soon as they produce a robust formula, we shall quickly adapt it to measure KAM post-negotiation spirits-level (cause & effect?), the ultimate KPI?

Have a truely high-spirited weekend, from the Namnews Team!

WH Smith getting organised for Christmas?

Pic at 1300, 13th November 2010, WH Smith Brighton....

Office filing system, portable/vulnerable?

Checked your laptop lately?
How many of us carry the equivalent of the entire office filing system in our travels, 24/7?

                                                                Pic: Xerox

Time to split the files (archive & working files) and reduce the risk?

Buy One Get Two Free, serious?

Running the numbers on a BOGTF suggests that if the initiative becomes as 'popular' as a BOGOF, the supplier will end up providing the two free units per deal...
...suppliers should possibly be grateful that they are not also invited to maintain retailer margins, given that the retailer will still lose approx 50% on each deal...!

Choccywoccydoodah: Making specialist retail really special…

Visitors to this Brighton cake shop and chocolatier need no reminding of the team’s design creativity in producing the cake of someone’s dreams.
However, the really creative leap has been to encourage The Good Food Channel to produce a TV series that will feature the personal stories behind some of their unique creations. Time for NAMs & KAMs to think really deeply about what makes their specialist channel special, and fuse it with a medium ravenous for interesting content?
Have an indulgent weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Incremental sales to cover VAT increase?

If you absorb January’s 2.5% VAT increase, you could require 24% in incremental sales to cover the cost..

Do you really think the consumer or the retailer will share the pain?
See our inhouse bespoke Namcalc workshop for 34 similar 'day-job' calculations, with incremental sales implications, applied to your categories, customers and competition.  

Live crab vending machine

We have covered obscure vending machines in the past, but this one’s a first: a vending machine that sells live crabs. This model is located in a subway station in Nanjing, China, and keeps the crabs at 5°C at all times. In other words, the crabs inside are alive, “hibernating” in a frozen state.

A sign in front of the machine promises 100% customer satisfaction: if buyers get a dead crab, the maker, based in Nanjing, promises they will get three crabs for free.

Each crab costs between $1.50 and $7.50, depending on the size. The machine’s producer says they currently sell around 100 crabs daily, resulting in about $500 sales.
A whole new meaning for shopper engagement?
Have a careful weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Source: http://www.crunchgear.com

Oktoberfest Revellers Celebrate a 200 year anniversary Lost Weekend, bigtime…

A promo that resulted in 7million litres of beer being consumed, with the inevitable impact on memory:      lost items included a set of dentures, a live rabbit, a hearing aid, a leather whip, a tuba, a ship in a bottle, 1,450 items of clothing, 770 identity cards, 420 wallets, 366 keys, 330 bags and 320 pairs of glasses, 90 cameras and 90 items of jewellery and watches.

Seriously, with 6.4 million visitors to the 200 year Anniversary Munich Festival drinking 7m litres, there seems to be a lot of upside potential for future years (just 1 litre each?)

Have a forgetful weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Source: Andrew Sullivan

Fair-share negotiation Asda-style?

According to yesterday's Independent on Sunday an allegedly leaked memo to Asda Buyers apparently gives details of a variety of tactics recommended as ways of getting better terms from suppliers.

These include all the usual tricks and if they are a surprise, perhaps we need to talk….

However, the article lists details of how suppliers can be split into four groups, depending on their reaction to negotiations claims the document – they are "high performing, complacent, conflict and apathy." and these may provide ways of encouraging Asda to move closer to fair-share negotiation. (See free Youtube session)

Essentially, if you want to negotiate more equitably with Asda, you need to be able to calculate and demonstrate that your contribution to Asda profitability deserves classification as one of their 'high performing' suppliers. Otherwise settle for 'transaction' status…

Or let me know a number and convenient time to call

Poundland, the ultimate in fair-share negotiation….

Poundland is the High Street phenomenon which has defied the recession as it continues to expand its retail empire, selling everything from bleach to shoelaces and daffodil bulbs — all for just £1.

But where does all its stock come from and how can it be sold so cheaply?

Chief executive Jim McCarthy explains his business model:
"A supplier could come to us on a Monday with a cancelled order of a few million units of something. They would get an answer on the same day, probably at the same meeting. By Friday, the stock would be sold and their invoice paid in full. If you want something shifted, Poundland is the place to do it."

Poundland is the bargain discount store that has appeared, seemingly overnight sometimes, on High Streets and shopping malls everywhere — filling the hole left by the collapse of Woolworths in 2008.

The chain is actually in its 20th year, and boasts 299 stores throughout the UK with many more planned — much to the annoyance of some snobby town councils…..

Real issue for suppliers is making making marginally-costed bespoke £1 SKUs on a promotional basis that suddenly become a permanent part of the product portfolio, a possible drain on profitability…

Have a no-nonsense weekend, from the Namnews Team!