We're here to give you the most help, and a chance to be helpful, too.

learning how to create value instead of lowering prices

bundling products or services to benefit customers

an interview with the owner of cloud mover spa

refining product choices to meet consumer wants

gaining new customers from your neighborhood

frustrated by coupon-cutters who always purchase with coupons? this 5 page action guide will teach you how to increase your profit margin by getting your customers to "kick the coupon habit." learn the secrets of a reliable three-stage program to help "rehabilitate" your customers to curb their coupon addiction.

it is easier to keep your customers than trying to get new ones. so, stop losing customers! this 7-page guide will help you learn ...and most importantly how to win them back.

this 5 page action guide provides proven techniques to successfully increase customer loyalty

it's wonderful to have so many customers in your location that they may have to wait. do you and your staff do "the right things" to keep them happy while they wait? this 4-page action guide contains over 25 tried-and-true "right things" to keep your customers waiting contentedly.

do you know how to go about creating, implementing and nurturing successful co-promotions? this 4-page action guide spells out the step-by-step details to creating cooperative promotions that work!

so, how do you, the small retailer, make sure your customers continue shopping at your store during tough economic times? here are 12 ideas to consider:

advocates setting three short term goals to achieve success

mri study identifies five buying style segments: * buyers of the best * swayable shopaholics * habitualized havers * conscientious consumers * penny-pinchers

“we’re scheduling more ‘try me nights’ where people can come in and work out for free. we schedule these on the slow nights of the week and let our ‘regulars’ know that they’ll be a few more people here on those nights. we give our regulars who are in on the ‘try me’ nights a free juice drink to make up for any inconvenience.”todd h, cedar city, ut fitness center

“last summer we decided to focus on children in art. we took all items that even remotely seemed like something a child would like to work with and put them on sale. we have had weekly contests for children to participate in...a different theme each week....awarding them a small gift certificate.all of this naturally brings in parents...and we endeavor to engage them in buying their own supplies!.” hannah y, elsmwood, ct teacher supply store

we've started to give away bookmarks with the name, address, web and phone number for the store, and we drop several in a bag so people can share with their friends. we're trying to think of other low-cost freebies too, including book club reading lists, for customers.tom t., bookseller, spokane wa.

as far as comments on products or service we need to get better about getting out from behind the counter and interacting with our customers and creating a dialog. one of the things that helps is doing role plays with the staff on a regular basis and coaching them on how to converse with customers. most of the information we get from this is anecdotal, we don't capture it, but it can help to identify trends.” jackson t, miami, fl café owner

“at our store we ask the customer for their phone number when we are taking their order. our pos system allows us to collect that piece of data which we can later reverse append to get a land address. this is somewhat effective but can become expensive. more recently we are working on building our list of email addresses so we can communicate with our customers that way. we run different promotions to incent people to sign up (a contest where one person will win a $25 gc or 5 free lunches or something), but mostly we just try to have a consistent presence in our store letting people know about the online program and also tagging everything we do with our web address.”jackson t, miami, fl café owner