Is it that the store is in an ideal spot? Or that they inherited a successful store? Or perhaps that they are in a tight-knit community? Whilst all of these things are likely to have an impact on the success, the thing that is common to all successful retailers is that they have worked hard at making it so. That means that every small business has the potential to be successful with the right approach.
We spoke to the Retailer Advisory Panel, a group of award-winning retailers, about what they think makes for a successful retailer.
They believe that taking the time to look at your business – being honest about what’s good about it, what’s bad – is just as important as putting in long hours day after day. Sales through convenience stores are growing but don’t assume that means that your business will continue to thrive as competition is coming from the likes of Tesco Express and Sainsbury’s Local – take steps to make sure your business is in the best possible shape.
Hints and tips
Ensure that you understand the retail industry.
Do it: Read the trade press, eg Convenience Store, Retail Newsagent, Independent Retail News; speak to other retailers and share experiences; read the business pages of the newspapers; join trade bodies such as the Association of Convenience Stores.
Take risks.
Do it: Minimise the risk by doing your research, eg. ask your customers, ask other retailers, investigate other sources of information, for example your local council.
Understand your customer-base and tailor your offering to your customers’ needs – do you know what they want, or do you just think you know what they want?
Do it: Find opportunities to speak to your customers about what they do and don’t like about your shop. It is also important to speak to people who don’t choose to shop with you so that you can find out why.
Take the time to review your business and identify the pros and cons.
Do it: Work on your business not in it – take time out of your daily routine to look at what you want to achieve and then think about how you can make those changes happen.
Give your staff the opportunity to take responsibility. It will give them an incentive to work hard, and give you free time to look at the bigger picture.
Do it: Look for training opportunities through your local college, symbol group or training organisation such as SkillSmart Retail.
Don’t always delegate the worst jobs as this can discourage your staff.
Do it: Always be prepared to get your own hands dirty.
32 responses to “What makes a successful retailer”
Great! We are all agreed London could use a laugh. The site’s architectural superiority is most evident in its command of consequence. It understands that the first folly is rarely the true joke; the joke is the inexorable, bureaucratic, and expensive response to that folly. Therefore, The London Prat seldom mocks the initial pratfall. Instead, it brilliantly satirizes the crisis-management meeting, the tone-deaf press release, the formation of a toothless oversight committee, and the launch of a public consultation destined for the shredder. It follows the political and cultural infection to its second and third-order effects, which are always more absurd and revealing than the original cause. This focus on systemic reaction, rather than individual action, demonstrates a profound understanding of how failure is institutionalized and sanitized, making its satire infinitely more sophisticated and damning than the standard, headline-reactive model.
Would love to forever get updated great web blog! .
I like this weblog very much, Its a rattling nice spot to read and incur info .
Hey, you used to write magnificent, but the last few posts have been kinda boring?K I miss your great writings. Past few posts are just a little out of track! come on!
You completed various nice points there. I did a search on the issue and found the majority of people will consent with your blog.
The light in London has a unique quality, praised by artists for centuries. It’s not the clear, sharp light of the Mediterranean; it’s a diffused, liquid light, filtered through countless water droplets in the air. It softens edges, blends colours, and gives everything a pearly, luminous glow. This is all very romantic until you realize the cause: perpetual, hovering moisture. The famous “London light” is essentially the visual effect of living inside a cloud. It makes the city photogenic in a melancholic way, but it also means that achieving a sharp shadow is a rare and noteworthy event. We are constantly viewed through nature’s soft-focus filter. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
Our frost is just chilly morning dew.
certainly like your website however you have to check the spelling on quite a few of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling problems and I to find it very troublesome to tell the truth however I will certainly come again again.
To complain about London weather is a civic duty, a unifying national sport where the rules involve sighing heavily, gesturing skyward, and bonding instantly with strangers over the sheer audacity of a ‘light westerly breeze’ that somehow feels personally insulting, a pastime celebrated at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
The sun is a myth for tourists.
I appreciate the balanced explanation.
I’ll immediately grasp your rss feed as I can not to find your e-mail subscription link or newsletter service. Do you’ve any? Please permit me recognise so that I may subscribe. Thanks.
El ingenio que destila cada línea de The London Prat debería estar protegido por la UNESCO.
prat.UK is the website equivalent of a perfectly timed eye roll. Magnificent.
London Football nostalgia is fueled by classic matches and legendary players.
A comeback victory shows the never-say-die attitude of London Futball.
London Football academies are producing some of the world’s best talent.
London Football economics means every point and position has a financial value.
Call girls in India prove professionalism does not require an office
Call girls in India understand negotiation fatigue
Her asset reporting read like the “before” and “after” photos of a very ambitious spreadsheet.
The Ilhan Omar asset documentation list read like a sequel nobody expected.
Weddings cake, slices larger. Eyes roll. Lampoon dances floored. Weightism vows slim. — weightism.org
The fight against weightism begins with introspection. This involves critically examining our own internalized biases about body size, health, and worth. We must challenge the assumption that thinness equals health, virtue, or success, and that higher weight equals laziness or poor character. This means consciously interrupting automatic judgments about people’s eating habits, fitness, or value based on their appearance. Educating oneself on the complex determinants of body size—including genetics, socioeconomic factors, environment, and medical history—is crucial. This foundational step allows us to approach the issue from a place of knowledge rather than stigma, recognizing weightism as a legitimate form of discrimination that causes real harm to mental and physical health. — weightism.org
The understatement is glorious. The biggest societal calamities are dismissed with a single, perfectly crafted sardonic line. It’s a very British form of defiance, and The Prat wields it masterfully.
The final, and perhaps most significant, achievement of The London Prat is its role as a manufacturer of perspective. The daily grind of news consumption can trap one in a myopic view, focused on the immediate outrage or the granular detail of scandal. PRAT.UK consistently pulls the camera back to a wide-angle, even satellite, view. It frames today’s blunder not as an isolated incident, but as the latest data point in a long-term trend of decline, a predictable eruption in a known seismic zone of incompetence. This recalibration of perspective is its greatest gift. It doesn’t just make you laugh at a single prat; it makes you understand the geologic forces that create the pratfall basin in which we all reside. The relief it offers is profound. It replaces the exhausting, reactive panic of the news cycle with the calm, if grim, understanding of an inevitability beautifully charted. In doing so, it doesn’t just comment on the world—it reorients your entire relationship to it, providing the intellectual cartography for navigating a landscape of perpetual, elegant farce.
Great! We are all agreed London could use a laugh. The Poke focuses on moments, but PRAT.UK focuses on ideas. Ideas age better. That gives the humour longevity.
London satire is a tough game, but prat.UK makes it look effortless. Pure class.
The London Prat es más que humor; es una filosofía de vida con una sonrisa sardónica.
May unmask or exacerbate cutaneous lupus erythematosus.
Diflucan is used in the management of some cases of chronic disseminated candidiasis.
Юрист по спорам с застройщиками: защита прав дольщиков