Improve your store, one idea at a time.The pace of retailing is breathless. You have a mile-long list of “to-dos,” and three feet of runway. You are not really in control of what happens today, or any day. Customers, order deadlines and deliveries drive the tempo, and employees who don’t...
How to protect your profits as you maintain competitive prices.Truth #1: Competition tends to reduce profit margins by putting downward pressure on retail prices. Truth #2: The more competition, the greater the pressure to lower prices. Truth #3: A growing industry will attract more competitors. Are you feeling pressure to...
Customers see your store as a brand—even if you don’t.In seminars around the country, I ask independent natural products retailers if they believe their store is a distinct brand. Usually only a few raise their hands. But even if you don’t think of yourself or your store as a brand,...
What WholeFoods Magazine’s 35th Annual Retailer Survey Tells Us.Last month, WholeFoods Magazine published its largest-ever survey of independent U.S. retailers representing nearly one-million square feet and $665 million in natural products sales. Retailers large and small, from every part of the country, responded to the survey questionnaire, giving us a...
Are your co-op ad dollars going to someone else?Would you like an extra $30,000 to promote your store every year? There’s a rather large and open secret in the natural products industry: independent retailers are consistently losing out on their share of cooperative advertising dollars that manufacturers have allocated to...
The Future of Food Retailing and the 20,000-Square-Foot Field of PlayIn 1980, you couldn’t find yogurt in a supermarket. By the early 1990s, Peter Roy and John Mackey of Austin, TX-based Whole Foods Markets were “rolling up” the largest independent natural products retailers around the U.S. to form the first...
Most of us didn’t miss a wink while Durbin’s amendment failed.Washington, D.C., 10:00 p.m., Tuesday, May 22, 2012 Late in the evening on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, the advocacy team of the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Products Association (NPA) became aware that longtime natural products industry opponent, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin...
Discounting can put you out of business.Recently, several natural products retailers have asked me about discounting in the form of “rewards” or “loyalty” programs. Because most natural products retail stores operate on thin net profit margins—usually 4–6% before paying taxes—discounting in any form can badly damage your profits and, at...
How important is it to promote your store?Giving seminars around the country, I ask natural products retailers to tell me why they think it is important to tell the story of their store. “Because we care,” says one. “Because we’re knowledgeable,” answers another. “Because we help,” offers yet a third.
Independents of the future will offer professional nutritional advice. States have a variety of laws governing the “practice of medicine,” and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), under the U.S. Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) regulates the manufacture and sale of “dietary supplements” as a...
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