Kent Lambert of Luscious Men's Grooming Products, Redcliffe Jetty Markets. Picture: JOHN COKLEY
Big day at the shops today. We met Kent Lambert and his beard at the Redcliffe Jetty Markets (above) and viewed the crafts of the Colombian and Panamanian Embera Chami tribe.
We also discovered the (relatively) new premises of REWIND retro and vintage shop at Sandgate (see gallery below).
And we continue our extracts from Shopping News about the economic value of shopping.
For every shopper, there are also sales people. In the US, there were about 4.5 million retail sales jobs in 2008, of a total labour force of 139 million people, and these were mostly in clothing and clothing accessories stores, department stores, building material and supplies dealers, motor vehicle and parts dealers, and general merchandise stores such as warehouse clubs and ‘supercenters’.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were an extra 156,500 self-employed retail salespersons. In Australia, more than 10 percent of the workforce has a job in the retail trade, and the top 10 jobs by volume among them are: sales assistant (general), retail manager, checkout operator and office cashier, shelf filler, pharmacy sales assistant, retail supervisor, motor vehicle and vehicle parts salesperson, store person, purchasing and supply logistics clerk, and motor mechanic.
In the UK, according to the British Retail Consortium ‘retailing is at the heart of our towns, cities and neighbourhoods’:
One in every eight households has someone who works in retail and with 60 billion visits by consumers every year, retail plays a unique role in listening to and leading our communities.
How to make sense of all this? In the years I have spent travelling and shopping around the world and reading about shops, restaurants, tourism, marketing techniques and manufacturing, the key things which have stood out are: (1) how we get to the shop, (2) what we do inside the shop, and (3) what happens next.
In these three big categories we will keep in mind where the shop is located and how it looks and feels to the customer, including signage; how each product is made, packaged, labelled and priced; how stock is selected and acquired by the store ‘buyer’; how inventory is stored and displayed in the shop; the promises which are made to the customer before a purchase is made; crucially, how the money changes hands; and how those promises to the customer are fulfilled.
If you are in any of the disciples of marketing, merchandising, and consumer behaviour, you’re tearing out your hair right about now, screaming: ‘There’s so much more!’ You’d be correct, generally speaking. But for the current project of learning lessons from shopping, these three will get us started.
More next week ...
We also discovered the (relatively) new premises of REWIND retro and vintage shop at Sandgate (see gallery below).
And we continue our extracts from Shopping News about the economic value of shopping.
For every shopper, there are also sales people. In the US, there were about 4.5 million retail sales jobs in 2008, of a total labour force of 139 million people, and these were mostly in clothing and clothing accessories stores, department stores, building material and supplies dealers, motor vehicle and parts dealers, and general merchandise stores such as warehouse clubs and ‘supercenters’.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were an extra 156,500 self-employed retail salespersons. In Australia, more than 10 percent of the workforce has a job in the retail trade, and the top 10 jobs by volume among them are: sales assistant (general), retail manager, checkout operator and office cashier, shelf filler, pharmacy sales assistant, retail supervisor, motor vehicle and vehicle parts salesperson, store person, purchasing and supply logistics clerk, and motor mechanic.
In the UK, according to the British Retail Consortium ‘retailing is at the heart of our towns, cities and neighbourhoods’:
One in every eight households has someone who works in retail and with 60 billion visits by consumers every year, retail plays a unique role in listening to and leading our communities.
How to make sense of all this? In the years I have spent travelling and shopping around the world and reading about shops, restaurants, tourism, marketing techniques and manufacturing, the key things which have stood out are: (1) how we get to the shop, (2) what we do inside the shop, and (3) what happens next.
In these three big categories we will keep in mind where the shop is located and how it looks and feels to the customer, including signage; how each product is made, packaged, labelled and priced; how stock is selected and acquired by the store ‘buyer’; how inventory is stored and displayed in the shop; the promises which are made to the customer before a purchase is made; crucially, how the money changes hands; and how those promises to the customer are fulfilled.
If you are in any of the disciples of marketing, merchandising, and consumer behaviour, you’re tearing out your hair right about now, screaming: ‘There’s so much more!’ You’d be correct, generally speaking. But for the current project of learning lessons from shopping, these three will get us started.
More next week ...
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