What are you featuring in your windows and front zone displays right now? Have you restyled them to reflect the season, new merchandise, and new inspiration? It's simple to refresh existing merchandise to look new and appealing to customers...

It's important to get a fresh start after the holidays - your customers will be coming in with gift cards, gift certs, and money they received, and they deserve to see fresh new ideas. Inspiring them to buy what you offer can be as simple as taking what you already have and combining it in a new way to reflect the season...

Suburban Hill,  the " Hill" is the retail store Suburban Silk operates near Boulder Colorado in an Urbanist contemporary designed master planned neighborhood mixed with urban architecture homes and retail. We have operated our store for 2 years in its present location but a better more convenient to traffic pattern location has come available to us.  Now centrally located near the " central park" in the development, we are moving next weekend over the Holloween Weekend.  3 blocks to move and sometimes we think moving shorter distances is more complicated, we have come up with a great way to involve our neighborhood regular shoppers and get a little free newspaper publicity.

We have invited our current customers thru email blasts to help us move...  " We cordially invite you to help us move sometime Friday 10am to Sun 3pm to pick up a full carton, box of inventory, your end of a table, help navigate a fixture on a dolly to the new store location and you will receive a $ 20.00 gift certificate.".  What a great response we have already received in advance of our move next week.  Anonymously we have sent out a blurb to the local newspapers and have assured they will show up for photo and a human interest story of how a neighborhood pulled together to help a local retail/gift store move to a better location.

This week, the National Grid announced that it has begun a program for small businesses that "can save them up to 70 percent of the costs of installing energy-efficient equipment" (bizjournals.com).  In order to qualify, the small business must use no more than 100 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.  The National Grid services Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island.

The majority of the savings is found in replacing lights, while savings are also found in the replacement of motors in coolers and refrigerators.  Companies are able to finance their share of the project for up to two years interest-free, or they can save an additional 15% by paying one large lump sum.  According to bizjournals.com, the average payback is 11 months. 

There are $60 million available for this program.  For more information, click here.

Retail Makeover Business Planning Program. Are you ready for your Retail Makeover and manage your business more effectively?  Do you know what your job description is? I know how challenging it is to manage a retail specialist store. I want you to be the best retail store manager you can be.

Seeing the first Christmas ad of the year is a lot like seeing your first gray hair - it's a wake-up call.  It's become almost cliché to acknowledge how early Christmas envelopes our advertisements, circulars, and window displays, but every year it seems that the twinkling lights and singing snowmen work their way closer and closer to summertime as businesses look to start the holiday rush early. 

Pre-Halloween Christmas displays aren't as crazy as you'd think.   A John Lewis store in Hampshire, England put up its Christmas display in September.  By doing this, they've made headlines.  And as they say, any publicity is good publicity.

So while an early Christmas display might bring some novelty to your storefront, it might also seem a bit overbearing (especially in economic times such as these).  Now might be the time to start planning for your storefront's holiday décor. 

The scariest month is upon us - no, not February when the bitter wind chill makes even the most active consumer a bit sluggish - but October.  Halloween is a month away, so it's time to get in the decorating mood.  I find myself feeling more connected more to a retailer who has put up decorations in the front window.  Fake spiders, cotton-ball cobwebs and bloody hands in your storefront go a long way.  While sure, it reminds customers of the holiday fast approaching, it more importantly makes your store more welcoming.