Retailers keen on Kolkata but the city faces severe shortage of large retail space

Retailers are interested in developing the retail scenario in Kolkata but the city faces a severe shortage of large retail space, so a number of retailers are going outside the city to look for space, in areas such as Siliguri, Jalpaiguri and Durgapur where RPG Enterprises will be opening all formats of its Spencer’s stores, ranging from 1,500 to 50,000 sq ft. Future Group's Pantaloon has set up its largest store in Kankugachi spread over 85,000 sq ft and Spencer’s will soon be opening its largest hypermarket in Kolkata.

Is Web 2.0 killing retail stores?

A lot of retailers are feeling the pinch of lost sales due to Web 2.0 and social networking. Web 2.0 has done a great deal increasing transparency online and retailers are often at the losing end, since shoppers who focus solely on price are using the Internet to find the best deal available. The focus on price is pushing factors such as customer loyalty and service away from the decision making process, as the difference in price between online retailers and brick and mortar stores can be huge. In a 2005 study conducted by BizRate Research, 923 online shoppers were surveyed, of which 87% compared online retail prices with catalog merchants as well as retail stores to find the best price.

Electronic retailers are choosing to compete solely on price, according to the marketing guru Al Ries. Promotions are all based on sales Email Marketing Software - Free Demo and low prices. Where's the work to build the brand and create brand loyalty? If this trend continues, according to Ries in a December issue of Advertising Age, the retail industry is heading for the same fate as the airlines.

Disney theme park tickets

Visiting Orlando for its theme parks and wondering where to get the best deals on tickets for the parks? Here's the scoop, the number one source for Disney Discount Tickets for Disney World as well as other theme parks in the area is Orlandofuntickets.com. Everyone knows that tickets to theme parks can really add up, so finding a great deal on tickets is a great way to make sure your holiday is cost efficient thus making it more fun. Since there is just so much to see in Walt Disney World, with its four theme parks, two water parks etc, there is an option to buy tickets called the "Disney Magic Your Way", which range from one to ten days, depending on your stay. So, whether you want to spend your entire time at one theme park or visit all of them, including Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and watch some of the shows at night such as Arabian Nights, your Disney Magic Your Way tickets will take care of everything for you.

Pyramid and Baderwals form JV

Pyramid Saimira Theaters, the Chennai based movie theatre company, announced that it had formed a joint venture agreement with Baderwals Infraprojects, a real estate firm. The companies will jointly set up 200 integrated leisure and shopping complexes in tier II and tier III towns. The total investment for the project is expected to be around Rs. 1200 billion.

BoKlok: a new idea in housing

Ikea's cool idea that goes beyond just furniture is gaining in popularity. BoKlok (pronounced booklook) which means "smart living" in Swedish, this one involves the entire house. BoKlok's are houses that are not really the ready to assemble type houses, but they are affordable, energy efficient, and quick to build. The company has already build over 3,500 homes in Sweden and now are starting in the UK, in St James Village in Gateshead, which will be ready by the end of the year. The BoKlok dwellings are aimed at consumers who make between GBP15,00-30,000 a year, and usually coast less than GBP100,000. BoKlok is a joint venture between Ikea and Skanska, the Swedish construction giant.

The bestselling BoKlok design in Sweden has an exterior of blood-red weatherboard, square white windows and a pitched roof; it wouldn't look out of place in a typical Swedish town. Danish ones are dressed more fashionably, for example, with black cladding and steel balconies, and they have found it easier to build straight blocks rather than L-shaped ones on Norway's hilly terrain. Typically, it is situated among other housing types in a suburb of the city.

Cost effective ways to communicate

As business expand globally, it is essential for them to update technologies of communication and networking. VoIP is one such new technology, that can save a lot of money as well as maintenance requirements, and is very well suited to small businesses. Using this technology, a small business that has branches across the country can use the same phone system and have the same private list of phone extensions in all branch offices. There is also an additional 4-digit dialing system between branches, to take care of all inter-office communications. The cost of such small business phone systems has been significantly reduced and the benefits such as free support and improvement on long distance as well as international plans have made it a very viable option, especially for small business owners.

Consumers need to by wary of credit card use

Consumers need to step it up if they want to protect their identity and personal data by reducing use of credit cards. One way to do it would be to only pay cash, avoid loyalty programs and always have a receipt for making returns. Any data that you give retailers could be open to attack from hackers who are looking for credit card information, social security numbers, personal data etc. Although retailers have spent millions to update their systems there are still lots of loopholes and old techniques used in the business.

"The retail sector has some unique vulnerabilities from the older technologies they use, often from legacy systems," said Tom Arnold, partner at PSC, a San Jose, California-based data security and compliance consulting firm. "Adopting more up-to-date security standards has been a slow process."

French luxury brands keen on India

French luxury brands are keen on investing in India and predict a strong growth rate for their brands. Representatives of international luxury brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Lanvin and Cartier are currently visiting India and are excited about the prospects of growth. According to Damien Vernet, General Manager for West Asia and India for Louis Vuitton, said, "India is a very strategic market, and the market is close to fulfilling its potential." Igor Baschet, area manager for Cartier, who is in India to identify projects and partners, said, "The elite in India are growing at 20 to 30 per cent. India already has about 36 billionaires, with 14 of them who are new to the list."

Code of conduct for bloggers

There's talk about Bloggers to have a code conduct in view of the recent threats to a bloggers life via comments on her blog. I think that it essential to live by rules and bloggers and especially anonymous commenter's should be responsible for what they put on their blog or allow on their blog in regard to comments. Tim O'Reilly talks about a Blogger Code of Conduct on his blog O'Reilly Radar and I personally feel that it would be a welcome addition to the Internet world.

Using Zakle: first hand experience

An update on my experience at Zakle, a new social networking site where you can trade favors. I signed up just last week and requested a favor from anyone who could give me advice on finding the best cheesecake in Dubai. When you make a request at Zakle, you can specify from what location it can be completed. I left it open and heard from Jim in St. Louis, who said he had the dibbs on finding the best cheesecake in Dubai. I accepted his offer, he sent me a message giving the details of Limetree, a cafe on Jumeria Beach Road which is famous for its carrot cake, brownie and cheesecake. I released the points to Jim for doing me a favor and that was it, a really simple and great way to find information and do things for others. I can't wait to go to Dubai and try it for myself, once we move there in a couple of months.

Here's my earlier post on Zakle: Trade favors at Zakle which I wrote on Saturday, March 24th, 2007.

Marketers target Wal-Mart's in-store TV network

Wal-Mart's initiative for it's in-store TV network is being noticed for its huge target audience. Marketers are increasingly realising the value and reach of retail-based TV networks to target new and hard-to-reach consumers. Wal-Mart has 125,000 screens in 3,100 of its stores, giving marketers an audience of 127 million shoppers each week. Wal-Mart's in-store TV network system offers much more than store discounts, it has the news, weather, entertainment programs mixed in with paid advertisements and has become the country's largest and most sophisticated in-store TV networks.

The network, operated by Premiere Retail Networks, is about to get even more sophisticated with a systemwide upgrade from satellite broadcast TV to an Internet-based system. The change will give advertisers, who now can deliver messages to different store departments, the ability to target individual screens, says Keith Daly, PRN head of programming strategy and broadcast production.

Long checkout lines are customers biggest pet peeve

No one likes standing in long lines and according to a study by National In-Store and M/A/R/C Research if your store has long checkout lines, you're likely to have lots of unhappy customers. The study found that 1 in 10 customers leave stores without making a purchase due to long waiting times at the check out counter. The study was conducted using 3,500 in-store audits and responses from over 17,000 shoppers in six categories, such as grocery, drug, consumer electronics, office supply, mass merchants and club stores.

More than 90% of shoppers were extremely satisfied with a checkout of 1-3 minutes. After 4-5 minutes, satisfaction levels fall below 80% for all but club stores, where shoppers are slightly more tolerant of longer checkout times. Satisfaction declines sharply for waits longer than five minutes.

Men are more likely to forgo a purchase because of long checkout times, as are women in the 35-54 age group, the study found.

Will US customers go for 'unlocked' cellphone plans?

Chinese cellphone manufacturers, Alcatel Mobile Phone and Haier Group, are showcasing their cellphones at CTIA Wireless 2007, a gathering of the cellular industry. Haier is introducing cellphones that have very distinctive handsets called Elegance and Sterling that will be compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile although they will not be sold with any service provider package and will be "unlocked" so consumers can select their own service provider and add the "SIM" or the subscriber identity module into the handset. Alcatel will be offering cellphones with wireless providers to consumers. Unlocked cell phone plans are common in Europe and Asia, where consumers have the choice to buy any cell phone and select any service provider.

America's Internet users

I was quite surprised by these numbers. According the a study conducted by Parks Associates as part of its National Technology Scan, 29% or 31 million households in the US that do not have Internet access and have no plans to get it anytime in the next year either. The main reason for not having Internet at home for 44% of these households was "that there was nothing in cyberspace that interested them", along with other reasons such as not having enough information on how to use it, or not being able to afford a computer, or using the Internet at work already.

Age was an important factor in determining a household's interest in the Internet. The two age groups with the highest percentages of non-subscribers were those who were 55 to 64 year olds (18.8 percent), and those 65 years old or more (38.7 percent), according to Parks.

"There's a generational effect going on," Barrett said. "There are some people that because of their age, the Internet really doesn't appeal -- doesn't resonate that well with them."

As the portion of the population born before the Internet shrinks, he said, so too will the number of households that don't have an Internet connection.

Future Group to open cash-and-carry business

Kishore Biyani’s Future Group will be entering the cash-and-carry segment to compete head-on with Reliance and the Wal-Mart and Bharti JV. Future Group's new cash-and-carry business is to be named KB’s Wholesale after it's founder and promoter Kishore Biyani and will be opening in April. Approximately 15 stores will be opened in the next 18 months. The first store will be in Burdwan in West Bengal and a second store will open in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.

Kirby Building Systems looking to enter consumer durable retailing

Kirby Building Systems, the Indian division of one of Asia's largest business houses Alghanim Industries, is looking to enter the retail sector. Kirby is interested in becoming a 'multi-brand consumer durable retailer' although the government has not permitted FDI in that area as yet. According to Srikant Gokhle, CEO of Kirby India, “Our retail plans are still very preliminary. We are exploring ways to enter Indian retail in tandem with existing policy regulations.”

HighFivez: a place to vote or plug blog posts

There can never be too many social networking sites for bloggers, since a major reason to blog is to interact with other bloggers. HighFivez is a new community where you can submit a blog, read other member’s blogs and vote for or against a post or a blog. It's also a great place to keep all your favorite blogs in one place for easy access and quick viewing. Members themselves do all voting and ratings so users will get a true idea of their blog or post instead of a computer generated rating.

Andrew Gilmore founded HighFivez.com in his quest to create an option of finding blogs with similar interests and categories without going through he millions of blogs. What really makes HighFivez interesting is that real people rate all posts and blogs and not computer robots, with the end result that is much more attuned to your own preferences. To be a member you have to be a blogger and have an active blog. The navigation is really quick, so with one click you can go to the most popular posts or the most popular blogs and vote or plug them. It looks like a winning idea and a nice twist to the run-of-the-mill social networking scene.

Retailers use Esops as bait to retail talent

I found this rather interesting since most retailers are struggling quite a bit to come up with a fool proof plan to attract and retain its employees, especially those that the top rung. Nationwide most companies are lowering the value associated with giving employee stock option plans as fringe benefits due to the government's decision to include them in the tax net, but retailers are still finding them a useful tool in retaining employees. Leading retailer Provogue has just installed its own Esop plan. According to Salil Chaturvedi, promoter of Provouge, “Besides controlling attrition, Esops help in aligning the interest of the managers with those of the owners. Whatever be the outcome of FBT on Esops, I feel Esops are worthy of investment in our human resources.” Other retailers using Esops to attract and retain talent are Reliance Retail, Shoppers’ Stop, Future Group and Piramyd Retail.

Finding localized information

The Internet has made it possible for people from across the world to connect, but what about those at a local level. Do you know what is happening in your local community? Can you locate a local servicemen such as plumbers and electricians easily? Localized focus sites are a great way to connect even small communities so that residents can easily find out about upcoming events as well as find a good contractor to take care of that leaky roof. UK based company Itsmymarket.com does exactly that and much more. Besides a community website there is a section on local news and weather, an event guide, local blogs, local classified ads and even a dating section. This was an area of the market that had been ignored, but there was definitely a need for such services. Even if you are not a local, you could find pertinent information localized to the area, such as bed and breakfasts to stay in.

Make money online with Fummo

Have you heard about Fummo ? It's the newest kid on the block in the business of making money online. The company will officially be launching on 20th May, but you can still earn money by referring your friends till then. Fummo will pay you $5 for each referral and a 10% commission on their earnings, so you could have a pretty tidy sum waiting for you by the time Fummo officially launches. Check it out and sign up to make the most of this incredible deal.