Today's news for the franchise & small biz owner

Log In / Register | May 22, 2013

Employees Who Care

RSR has long sung the virtues of an empowered, knowledgeable workforce. It’s time to also sing the virtues of employees who care enough to do the right thing in a timely way.

Retailers Report Strong January Sales Despite Payroll Tax Rise

NEW YORK — In further evidence that the economy's private sector is gaining steam, U.S. chain-store retailers sizzled in January, posting a gain of 4.5% compared to last year.

Being Context-Aware Is New Bar for Customer Service

I have to start this article with a couple of caveats. I’m about to share with you a customer service fail that happened to me in the week following the NRF Big Show.

Bad Marketing Losing Retail War for J.C. Penney

We wrote a column a while ago about how J.C. Penney, wasn’t a brand in the classic sense, if you defined that as a name imbued with some differentiating meaning.  Oh, no differentiating just on price, which would more accurately make it a commodity.

What I Learned at the Mobile Marketing & Commerce Forum

Last week I attended the MMCF – Internet Retailer’s Mobile Marketing & Commerce Forum. I could attempt to organize everything I learned into some kind of story or structure and say that it all ties nicely together, but that would be really hard.

Observations of Australia's Retail Scene

I had the privilege of spending the last week in Sydney, Australia, attending the Online Retailer conference and expo.

Small Retailers Outperform Overall Retailers

Data source: Mastercard SpendingPulse report, July 18, 2012

PURCHASE, N.Y., and SAN FRANCISCO – A U.S. retail report by MasterCard and Wells Fargo found that consumer spending with small retailers increased eight percent in June compared to the same period in 2011.

Here Come the Millennials

As a certified Baby Boomer, I’ve grown quite accustomed to being catered to by every possible marketer over the course of my life.

Retailers and HealthCare: Opinions, Facts, and Inferences

With the big announcement last week that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled favorably on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly referred to as "Obamacare", the two big trade organizations in the U.S., the National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) were quick to react, although the tone of their reactions differed significantly.

US vs. EU: Inventory Localization

I wrote recently about a couple of trips to Europe that I took that underscored some of the differences that I see between the evolution in omni-channel in the US vs. the evolution in Europe.