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Enjoy the latest Tusco Times and our off-white papers.
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SHOPPING 2011 & 2012
The US holiday shopping season will be judged a success with about a four percent increase over 2010, well above most predictions. Online buying surged about 15%. Though still small, online is a formidable path to purchase year round.
Black Friday (Nov 25) lived up to its reputation as the biggest consumer buying day of the year but was followed Dec 24 and Dec 26 as shoppers looked for the best deals. And retailers and online sources delivered the bargains – often with free shipping. Some retailers’ margins likely suffered; this might have been Kmart’s last Christmas.
Beyond yearend buying, 2011 saw more smartphone-enabled shopping and more review-seeking by shoppers. According to Google, consumers doubled the number of sources they use to 10.7 sources before making a purchase.
What will 2012 bring? As broadband reaches more households and shoppers, we’ll see more and better-informed shopping behavior as shoppers search for the best deal – price, availability, convenience – for them. Attracting and converting shoppers into buyers will continue to challenge retailers, brand marketers and in-store merchandising professionals as we seek to meet the needs of the better informed and more technologically-enabled shopper. It’ll keep us all on our toes!
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OCCUPY AISLE STREET
I haven’t slept well in weeks. Colder weather and unfriendly natives have dampened my spirits. Is it really worth it? Ever since I decided to camp out in the aisle of (name your least favorite store here), I’ve teetered between feelings of accomplishment and despair. We’ve been hassled by store security but, hey, this store is open 24-hours and I know my rights! Can we make these people listen? Don’t they know who we represent?
We are the 70%! Study after study confirm that, on average, shoppers make decisions on exactly what they will buy while in the aisle and at the shelf. We are the decisions made on what deodorant to buy, what brand and size ketchup bottle we purchase, what flavors of juice boxes we pack in our children’s lunchboxes, what style and package size of toilet paper we take home.
Marketers would rather we weren’t so loud. Why can’t we go home, let TV ads and radio spots and newspaper inserts and internet pop up ads work their magic? They’d rather we were invisible because we’re hard to track, difficult to define. Many of them just don’t know what to do with us.
But some people listen. Some people know where to put their marketing dollars. It’s right here. On-shelf, near-shelf, end of aisle, in the aisle. We are aisle violators and we won’t be denied.
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PUMPING UP P-O-P
As I filled my gas tank this morning, it reminded me of how that point-of-purchase has evolved over the past 25 years. I remember the first time I ever paid at the pump: an AM/PM store in Pittsburgh in the late 1980’s. The common wisdom then was, “Retailers won’t adopt this convenience because they want the shopper in the store.” Ha!
Fast forward to today. Most gas stations are convenience stores and vice versa. Virtually all of them offer pay-at-the-pump. I infrequently enter a convenience store when I get gas, instead conducting my business at the pump. Quick and easy, I scan my loyalty and credit cards, clean the windshield, replace the gas cap and go. Beyond the price of gas, of course, the attributes I appreciate are: pump clean and in working order, including the receipt printer. Trigger holder so I can clean my windshield while gas dispenses. Newer squeegee with actual windshield wiper fluid (not just water) in the well. Trashcan that’s not overflowing. Sufficient space between pumps so cars can easily park side-by-side. Canopy to keep me out of the weather.
And when I find the attributes I like, I tend to return again and again. And I’ll go to that convenience store when I don’t need gas. The gas pump P-O-P makes a difference.
How about you? How do you choose what gas station you patronize?
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AMERICAN RETAIL
One of America’s hallmarks as a society is the vibrant, constantly-evolving retail landscape. Consumer retail spending rings up about two-thirds of our gross domestic product (GDP). Five of the world’s largest retailers (by revenue) are US-based companies (#1 Walmart, #6 Kroger, #7 Home Depot, #8 Costco and #10 Target).
According to the 2007 Economic Census, there were 1,122,703 retail establishments with a total of 14.2 billion square feet of retail space in the US. That’s one store for every 250 or so people and a whopping 46.6 square feet for every man, woman and child in America.
Have we become over-stored? Undoubtedly. Back in 1980, there were 8.5 square feet for every US citizen. Even today, the UK has only 23 square feet of retail space for each of its people; Canada 13 square feet; India two square feet; and Mexico only 1.5 square feet. No wonder we see closing malls, vacant store fronts and wobbly chains. This year alone, we’ve seen 600+ Borders, 400+ Blockbusters, 200+ GameStops, 160 f.y.e stores, 117 Foot Lockers and thousands of mom’n’pop restaurants, drycleaners and cupcake makers close.
In spite of all of this, new stores, restaurants and dress shops open every day in America. We’re a nation in search of new, different and better. And this search drives our economy, stokes our competitive fires and makes us what we are as a nation. In some ways, we are what we buy. At Tusco Display, we thrill to serve this demanding, brutal, creative marketplace.
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ON THE MOVE
One hundred years ago, American society started to go mobile as automobiles entered mass production (200,000 units in 1911), roads got paved, and traffic lights started to be deployed. Fifty years later, the interstate highway system accelerated our mobility and changed the way we perceive and interact with the world.
Today, a new form of mobility dominates. Worldwide, there are 5.1 billion cellphones for 6.8 billion people. There are more cellphones than TVs – or toothbrushes. These and more stats can be found here.
This new mobility impacts at-retail marketing. Quick-response (QR) codes, augmented reality (AR), mobile coupons – redeemed at 10X the rate of traditional coupons – and mobile search increasingly drive in-store behavior. And when people search online while shopping, 70% of those searches result in action within one hour.
Just as cars changed our culture and our buying habits (e.g., Holiday Inn, McDonalds, suburban malls), so too smartphones are changing how we perceive and interact with the world. Understanding and responding to these changes in-store is driving a great deal of marketing creativity today. How are these things impacting product merchandising? Look for them.
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INNOVATION
According to the current Harvard Business Review, Procter & Gamble is developing a "new-growth factory" to combine the best features of Edison's labs and Ford's assembly lines to deliver fast, far-reaching breakthroughs. That's helped the company's innovations hit their profit-and-revenue targets 50% of the time, up from a 15% a decade ago, and executives say they expect innovation-driven revenue to double again in coming years. "We know from our history that while promotions may win quarters, innovation wins decades," says P&G chairman and CEO Bob McDonald.
Tusco has been around for decades too and knows the vital importance of innovation. That’s why we invest so much time, effort and other resources to stay abreast of materials, process and other advancements but also shopper marketing, retail trends and even neuroscience.
We will be highlighting our innovative nature on our website as never before, commencing with the relaunch of www.tuscodisplay.com this week. Please visit and tell us what you think.
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Faster, Better, More
1. We must be faster than the other guy. Faster to the market, faster to respond, faster to get our clients answers and their stores displays.
2. We must be better than the other guy. Better productivity, better impact, better value.
3. And more. More for your money. More choices. More care. More creativity. More guts.
We must be than the other guy. Faster to the market, faster to respond, faster to get our clients answers and their stores displays. We must be than the other guy. Better productivity, better impact, better value. And . More for your money. More choices. More care. More creativity. More guts.
Nimbleness and reliability remain essential to our success. We have more competition than we did yesterday. Expect that trend to continue.
"Growth that adds volume without improving productivity is fat. Growth that diminishes productivity is cancer." ~Peter Drucker
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URL or UR out of Luck?
Texting and abbreviated techspeak have become quite popular with many people. LOL. IDK. LMAO. ROFL. If you don’t know what these acronyms mean, ask your kids or grandkids.
The acronym URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It indicates where something on the web can be found and how to find it. This is commonly known as a web address. Many people mistake having an address for being findable. Just because I put on a nametag and stand outside on Chestnut Street doesn’t mean that people looking for me will find me. They’d have to drive down the street, see my nametag and actually stop. Having an address and being found are not the same thing.
The Internet has opened the world to many people. Search on the term "point of purchase displays" and you’ll get 1,280,000 responses in less than a quarter-second. (Google "award-winning point of purchase displays," though, and Tusco Display pops up as the #1 response. Try it here.) Having a great URL remains an essential tool for every company looking to sell products and services beyond their own neighborhood.
At Tusco, we focus our web presence to attract people who need what we do well. We want them to find our URL quickly and easily. But, day-to-day, we primarily focus on helping our clients market their goods where consumers buy products: at-retail. Retail remains the only place where the product, the person and the propensity to buy co-exist. That’s why as much as 94% of all retail purchase dollars are still spent in stores.
"Everything looks nicer when you win. The girls are prettier. The cigars taste better. The trees are greener." ~ Billy Martin
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