The Gobstopper, sweet niche retailing

Full-time mum-of-two, Lisa Oakes, 37, opened a traditional sweet shop in Hale, Manchester on July 5^th and is already inundated with eager young customers

Sweets in the shop are displayed in traditional glass jars and weighed out on vintage scales on top of a refurbished antique haberdashery counter.

Retro sweets are on offer including rhubarb and custards, sherbet lemons, cola cubes, liquorice, locally sourced chocolate and fudge

Slight personal disappointment at the apparent absence of bulls eyes, but still worth a visit..

Shopper engagement is revealed by the fingerprints and nose prints on the window where children have been taking an eager look inside!

All the ingredients for successful niche retailing, especially given plans to supply online .

All it needs is the application of some basic guidelines to make the idea scalable

In fact in an article called Niche Retailing: Uncovering New Retail Opportunities 

Frank Lucer suggests the following rules:

-       Catering To Customer Preferences

-       Going Deep Instead Of Going Wide

-       Leveraging Your Small Size

-       Learn from Amazon about leveraging the Long Tail

Small retailers can use this same strategy to attract customers and encourage sales. It is the essence of niche retailing. It can help independent shop owners cater to their customers' preferences and "go deep" into their product categories while leveraging their size.

As the level of competition rises in every sector, uncovering these new opportunities can make the difference between success and failure in unprecedented times.

Tesco Book publishing: All You Want To Know About Fruit

News that Tesco hopes to boost sales and consumption of fruit via a ‘non-Tesco’ book promoted this week in Tesco Superstores and Extra stores raises some interesting ideas about the future of book publishing.  

The book is written by Mark Blaylock and based on an idea by Tesco category director Nick Tatum. But although Tatum and members of his technical team are credited, the book does not bear Tesco branding or identify contributors as Tesco staff.     

This ‘non-Tesco’ livery, combined with free distribution to shoppers spending £5 on fruit, and special fixture display in the fruit section is bound to qualify the book for best-seller status, with obvious benefits for suppliers, Tesco,  shoppers and authors alike.

Suppliers in other categories should anticipate, even encourage similar treatments in their categories.

However, the real payoff for shoppers could be the extension of the idea to the commissioning of fiction works targeted at specific segments within Tesco’s 15m Clubcard population…

Think of the pleasure of curling up with a bespoke Stephen King novel, populated with like-minded folk within our income bracket, sharing our interests, health profile, age and family demographics, shopping and eating habits….scarey!

Football Legend Ronaldo To Be Used As European Central Bank Collateral

News that Ronaldo (or his feet) has been submitted by Bankia Group of savings banks in response to the ECB’s demand for guarantees of its solvency, raises the possible consequences of the player being transferred to the ECB in the event of a default….

However, apart from providing additional evidence of the complete farce that the global ponzi scheme has now become, the move could provide a way of optimising the increasing value of a good NAM.

For instance, if a leading-edge Tesco NAM, representing what could be 40%+ of a supplier’s sales and profits, decides to move, then the current supplier, Tesco and the new employer can suffer from the resulting ‘gardening leave’.

Why not introduce the practice of paying a transfer fee to cover all feelings of resentment and possible breach of confidences, thereby allowing the NAM to hit the ground running, and giving all three parties a vested interest in reducing the job to essential KPIs and their achievement…?

Have an underwritten weekend, from the NamNews Team!

Spending a Penny in WHS?

A shop assistant at WH Smith caused a nationwide stampede when she leaked details of a special 1p-an-item sale of discontinued items.

The worker, username Hermione987uk, told the moneysavingexpert.com website that a list of 42 games, books, DVDs and stationery items costing as much as £39.99 were slashed to just a penny at 1,000 outlets.

Bargains included the Simpsons Ho Ho Homer 500-piece jigsaw, originally priced at £39.99, as well as £19.99 Adopt a Penguin and Adopt a Rhino gifts, £12.49 Lego brick lights, £12 Host Your Own Dog Race Night DVDs and £6 Snowman jigsaws.

Given the diminishing influence of fragmented TV media, falling circulations of print media and the rise of savvy consumerism, could the 1p sale become the final traffic-builder, or the final chain-pull…?

Big Opportunities to Buy-it-small, online?

With Nescafe at £0.12, and Lynx at £0.33, Piccola’ new online site offers just enough on key supermarket brands

New 'Buy it Small' website enables travellers to stock up on just enough portions of supermarket brands…

Bearing in mind that the pound stores had similar low-key beginnings there is an opportunity here for suppliers to anticipate the spread of use from the obvious travel packs..

Launched this month Piccola Online is the UK's very first online store to specialise in individual, miniature, and handy small-sized packs of practically everything from around the supermarket.

Over 6 months in the development the site is now live and boasts an impressive 530 different products across all departments. Sitting alongside the UK's favourite brands are some other unusual foodie products sourced from a range of the UK's finest independent producers.

Visitors to the site can purchase quantities from as little as just one unit of food and drink items, toiletries, fragrance and pharmaceutical products. The collection has been sourced from all over the world and prices start as low as just 2p.

Time to re-think all end-use behaviour in your product portfolio?

Listing issues? – Try shopgifting…

Instead of wasting time trying to wind down on Saturday and gearing up again on Sunday, why not devote this weekend to ‘shopgifting’ in stores that have so far resisted your presentational skills?

Follow Julian Evans' lead and "shopgift" them onto shelves.

Julian Evans founded his children's wallpaper murals company Walltastic eight years ago, growing it into a £2m-turnover international business, but sells very little in the UK.

Following rejection by all UK retailers, the founder of Walltastic* childrens’ murals has been shopgifting i.e. strategically placing his goods in store, so customers pick it up and try to buy it (causing demand at checkout, got it?).

Walltastic now sells over 5,000 units every month in over 35 countries, and has products stocked in large online retailers such as Amazon as well as 150 other online shops specialising in homeware and children's goods.

Why not have a really different weekend, from the NamNews Team?

High Street Silver Lining…?

Given falling rents on UK High Streets, Crate & Barrel, the US homeware chain, is just one of a handful of overseas retailers heading for London to open new stores, despite tough times on the high street.

The Chicago-based, German owned company is planning to bring CB2, a smaller version of the Crate & Barrel concept, to the UK and is in talks with UK landlords to find small 5,000 sq ft stores

CB2 is joined by Marmot, a Californian-based outdoor clothing and equipment retailer that was founded in the 1970s, is set to open stores in London and the South-east.

The Spanish young fashion chain, Coolway, is close to signing leases for two stores in London and Bluewater, while the Portuguese group, Sacoor Brothers, has also entered into agreements to open shops in the South-east.

US retailers American Eagle, Victoria's Secret and Forever 21 are all planning new stores in the UK, and last week the New York-based womenswear brand Kate Spade signed up for a 10-year lease on a Sloane Square store, which will open in September.

The right place at the right time...?

UK unveils first ATM for gold…

Given the pressure on sterling and economic uncertainties this weekend, why not avail of the new gold-to-go machine at Westfield Shopping Centre? Risk-neutral KAMs will probably avail of the 1g gold bar, costing about £41 and "about as cheap as a bouquet of flowers but sure not to wither", an offer that may prove irresistible to partners that matter….

Westfield's gold ATM will sell bars and coins in various sizes, including a special 2.5g bar with the London skyline engraved on its reverse.

Makers Ex Oriente Lux said its products are sold in "top quality" boxes and are "a great gift idea".

...and even an opportunity for risk-seeking KAMs to profit from the 10 minute interval in gold price updates...?

Go on, have a precious weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Trade credit-pulled TJ Hughes appoint administrators

Just three months after its suppliers reportedly had its trade credit insurance pulled, the discount department store collapsed into administration.

Given that retailers can enjoy 45+days free credit, often combined with daily delivery, it still surprises suppliers that their customers can run out of (their ) cash…

For instance, a supplier having a net profit before tax of 5% needs incremental sales of £3m for every customer that goes bust owing them £150k.

If a supplier’s wholesaler’s (say 1% Net Profit BT) customer goes bust owing £150k, the wholesaler needs incremental sales of £15m, in this market!

For this reason it is always worth running the numbers on customer exposure, especially in the current climate.

It can be unfortunate to go bankrupt, but crazy to go bust because someone owes you money….

Six months austerity in the High Street

• So far this year, 15 UK High Street chains* have gone bust
• Some blame the consumer, others the multiples
• Real issue is supply and demand mismatch
• Consumers are cutting back predictably in response to unprecedented economic pressures,
• Savvy shoppers demand convincing of value
• All Multiples started as 1-shop operators
• Grew by matching demand with efficiency
• Efficiency driven by shopper-focused management of state-of-art retailing
• Doing simple things very, very well..
• …and minding the money, driving down prices to match need
• Others can survive, perhaps even thrive, by doing the same
• Rocket-science comes later…

In case you had not noticed, the year so far…

January

British Bookshops & Stationers Bust, 40 jobs lost

March

Henleys Clothing In administration, closed all 18 stores and lost 200 jobs.

Officers Club Clothing shop into administration; lost hundreds of jobs.

April

Oddbins Administration, 300 jobs lost.

May

Focus DIY Administration, 55 stores sold, 3,000 jobs being lost.

HMV Closing 60 stores.

Mothercare Up to 120 stores to close.

JJB Sports In difficulty, with 95 stores.

June

Homeform Announced some stores to close, 1,300 staff jobs under threat, plus jobs of 1,500 fitters used by firm.

Haldanes Supermarket Administration; 26 stores and 600 jobs threatened.

Habitat Administration, 30 shops closed, 750 jobs at risk.

Thorntons (below) Plans to close up to 180 stores, putting 1,125 jobs at risk.

Jane Norman Administration, sold 30 stores but 1,000 jobs at risk.

TJ Hughes Administration, 57 stores, 4,000 jobs at risk.

Carpetright Profit warnings, closure of up to 50 stores