I’ve watched the percentage of online sales accelerate while at the same time brick and mortar locations are dropping like flies. Business news outlets report almost daily on more store closings and it makes one question whether the retail landscape has changed forever. As they say, it’s not over until the fat lady sings, but […]
“The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand that Rules the World.” That well-known saying is the title of a poem by 19th Century American poet William Ross Wallace. And if you look at the dramatic increase in women small business ownership, today you might say that the hand that rocks the cradle is […]
As I’m writing this, Walmart’s @walmart Twitter account has racked up almost 250K tweets. You’ll find similarly huge numbers if you check out many of the country’s biggest retailers. This is because Twitter has become a major conduit for customer service conversations and many companies use it – and other social media – quite wisely […]
Back in the 1950s, an urban legend circulated in the United States that Japan renamed one of its cities Usa, so they could stamp items “Made in USA.” At that time, Japan’s manufacturing was in trouble and the whole world looked to the United States for top quality products. Of course, since then Japan has […]
Every brand needs to occasionally take out the pruning shears and polishing cloths to spiff itself up. Sometimes these efforts are a big success, as LEGO has proven recently, and sometimes they are major flops; think New Coke. LEGO had let its brand slide over the years. In part it seemed to think that as […]