Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category
A bluffer’s guide to incisive IT supplier evaluations
May 28, 2009 ManagementHow to cut through geek-speak to unmask a supplier’s viability. Ask the right question and a prospective technology supplier will reveal wonderfully useful information to help you in your evaluation. While merchant’s can feel intimidated by acronyms and jargon, you *can* talk tech about the product you’re thinking about buying. The secret is to ask [...]
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Funding & recovery
May 15, 2009 Consulting, Funding, InvestmentHaving been through a “recovery” myself, I understand the challenges faced by businesses in the multi-channel retail sector facing a distress situation. I’ve therefore assembled a consortium of investors willing to provide recovery finance, management input and board level advice to small and medium sized multi-channel retailers. If this is of interest to you, please [...]
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The ‘SEND’ button can be a fickle friend during a downturn
January 22, 2009 Featured, MarketingMeasure email ‘success’ with care or risk squandering your list When a merchant struggles to meet it’s sales plan, resisting the ‘send’ button on another email broadcast can be devilishly hard to do. Relatively fast and cheap compared to catalogues, where’s the harm with frequent email offers? Let’s explore the answer with one merchant’s true [...]
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Building an effective team in a growing business
January 22, 2009 Management“Your team is your greatest asset, and its overall value to your business is much greater than the cumulative value of the individuals within it.” The sentiment behind this well-worn maxim is one that is impossible to resist, and many owner-operators of growing catalogue businesses yearn for that “dream team” of sparky, committed and hard-working [...]
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Benchmarking Fulfilment Cost & Quality
January 22, 2009 ManagementI don’t think I was the first naïve owner of a fledgling multi-channel brand to think that fulfilment was not a core part of my business. Surely it was the clever creative, the inspired range selection and the hard-nosed marketing that would make or break my company – rather than a straightforward commodity service like [...]
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Managing your bank manager
January 22, 2009 Featured, ManagementHard-working entrepreneur WLTM generous, sharing M or F banker for LTR – deep pockets & GSOH essential. Box 3428. Is our dream bank manager really out there? Someone who’ll always be there to support us when the going gets tough, encourage and nurture us, share our risks as well as our profits? It’s a touching [...]
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Catalogue photography on a budget
January 22, 2009 MarketingPoint – press – publish, and hey presto: welcome to the digital age of photography! If only it were so easy. The “happy slapper” school of photography may work in theory, but it won’t get you very far in practice if you’re setting out to produce compelling, high quality catalogue photography that’s going to send [...]
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