OLYMPIC DREAMS

The Olympics captivate us, don’t they?  We marvel at the feats, strain to see our nation’s athletes compete, hope for success.  None of us may expect to compete at that level but we can still learn from it.  Here are a few ways to apply Olympic lessons to our lives.

1.    Persistence pays.  How many stories did we hear of athletes overcoming tremendous odds to succeed?  Look no farther than the Paralympics which start this weekend for more such inspiring stories.

2.    Set goals.  If you don’t know where you’re going, what you’re trying to achieve, how will you know when you get there?  How many athletes reached London without explicitly making it their goal?

3.    Feed your passion.  Dreams are not enough; passion pushes people to perform.  Just “keepin’ on keepin’ on” doesn’t lift your game to winning heights.  Find your passion then feed it.

4.    Teamwork trumps talent.  Think of the sand volleyball duo of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings.  There may have been better, younger, faster athletes across the net but no better team in the history of the game.  Their teamwork was their advantage.

5.    Have some fun.  Performance takes a great deal so you better build in some fun or what you’re doing will become drudgery.  

None of us may be Olympians but we can all be champions.  

At Tusco, we had a client who needed some in-store equipment in their London flagship store.  Their Chinese supplier had failed them.  Our team sprang into action, went to Olympic lengths, worked around the clock and met this emergency need in record time.  We helped our client win in London.  We received no medal but we showed our mettle.

James "Cash Mob" Penney

Poor ol' JC Penney can't buy a break lately.  They hired Ron Johnson from Apple to revitalize their marketing.  They quickly settled on an approach to remake the customer experience with a thoughtful approach to pricing and periodic sales.  But their sales are well below forecast and they have suspended their earnings guidance for investors based on a sizable sales volume drop.

Retraining customers who have grown up only buying on markdown has been neither easy nor swift.  And it's not being done in a vacuum - competitors are gleefully licking their chops at the prospect of carving off JCP shoppers for themselves, especially during the crucial Back-To-School period.  

As their website proclaims, "Over 110 years ago, James Cash Penney founded his company on the principle of treating customers the way he wanted to be treated himself: fair and square. Today, rooted in its rich heritage, J. C. Penney Company, Inc. is re-imagining every aspect of its business in order to reclaim its birthright and become America’s favorite store." 

When was the last time you visited a JCPenney's store?  See for yourself what they are doing.  I think that you'll find the merchandising much improved, their pricing indeed "Fair and Square," and their approach to brand curation - from Sephora to Levi's to Liz Claiborne - a far cry from what JCP has been doing or what most other retailers are currently doing.

If you believe that they are now headed in the right direction, consider being part of a slow-rolling Cash Mob to save James Cash Penney's namesake chain.  Sure, they aren't the typical target for local support but supporting a company that's trying to shake up the retail world with more straight-forward pricing seems a worthy project to me.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON SHOPPING

...and it's not very smart.

Most people who shop know the silliness of some pricing.  From BOGO deals to the .9 cents on every gallon of gasoline we buy, we know that pricing plays many roles: it implies value, it encourages behavior ("Buy me!"), it provides context.

The Atlantic's Derek Thompson shows us some of the ways in which we as shoppers are led - and sometimes misled - by pricing tactics.  http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/the-11-ways-that-consumers-are-hopeless-at-math/259479/

STORES CAN DO BETTER

   According to a Motorola Solutions survey released in June, 75% of US retailers believe that developing a more engaging in-store customer experience will be critical to their business in the next five years. A significant proportion of them expect to provide personalized product details, based on previous behavior, to a shopper’s smartphone.  In fact, retailers believe that 42% of sales will come from online, mobile, and social commerce sites in the next five years, says the report.

   Though retailers appear to understand the need to customize the in-store experience to better appeal to shoppers, a high proportion seems unable to do so. Three-quarters of retailers said they don’t know when a specific customer is in the store and 85% cannot customize a store visit. Additionally, 89% are unable to connect customers’ activities online with what they do in the store today.  This is a problem – and an opportunity.

  Big box stores, for instance, wring their virtual hands about showrooming and the like but in fact have tech tools increasingly available to make the shopping experience more powerful, more relevant and more successful. Here's a link to a nifty example.

   Our clients continue to make the shopping experience more effective and satisfying for shoppers, sometimes with some stunning technologies.  At Tusco Display, we love the challenge of helping them accomplish this.