OT
Ike,
I thought this may interest you:
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THE AAURA AADVISOR 4-04-01
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Published Since Last Century
IN THIS ISSUE:
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING
HEY BIG SPENDER
APRIL FOOL'S-OR IS IT??!!
THE MARKUP GAME
OKAY, WE'RE NOT PERFECT
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING ***********************************
The London office of the World Gold Council recently began publishing
a new quarterly magazine called GOLD. The World Gold Council's
fundamental mission is to promote the demand for gold. The sheer
geographical breadth of gold's impact on the world might surprise
you-what happens to gold and the gold mining industry has a profound
affect on individual lives around the world. This magazine explains
all these factors. The full-size magazine has a nice look to it and
has in-depth articles written from every angle. The Aaura Aadvisor
has set up a direct way our readers to subscribe, at no cost, to this
quarterly magazine.
Click here to see the covers of:
Issue #1 aaura.com,
Issue #2 aaura.com,
and Issue #3 aaura.com.
Click here to get the subscription form that you can, email, fax or
mail: aaura.com
HEY BIG SPENDER********************************
As more and more women cross the line to financial independence, a
new consumer is on the horizon. The Small Business Administration
states that women are responsible for more than half of all new
start-up businesses. Women have become responsible for a larger piece
of the "pie" when it comes to consumer spending.
Professional Jeweler Magazine stated, "Last year women made or
influenced 87% of all consumer spending decisions. In jewelry, women
now buy 90% of all silver jewelry, 60% of all gold jewelry and 30% of
all platinum." In addition they added, "When buying jewelry for
themselves, women are eager to upgrade to platinum and higher karat
gold, they've exhibited an average spending threshold of $700 for
impulse items."
This noteworthy information has some rather tempting opportunities.
In an intensely competitive atmosphere, good business sense tells you
that you need to react to your selling environment. Learn to think
outside your situation as an observer and you will find some
interesting ways to continually fire-up your business. You goal for
this week could be: How can we attract more women to pay attention to
what we have to sell?? Re-think your ads and pay attention to the
demographics.
APRIL FOOL'S - OR IS IT??!! *************************************
Sauerkraut will never be the same again. The Herald and Weekly Times
(Australia) reports that a New Zealand scientist has suggested that
cabbages could be the next big thing in gold mining. Yes, cabbages.
To be accurate, cabbages will not help to mine but to harvest gold,
as they have been shown to be capable of drawing gold from the soil.
Last year, our Newsletter got rave reviews for its April Fool's Day
issue (http://www.aaura.com/newsletters/040100.htm). This story would
have been perfect for that newsletter, except for the fact that the
story is true - and pulled from the pages of the World Gold Council's
GOLD magazine. We think the free offer from the World Gold Council is
noteworthy of two separate mentions, and besides, we liked the story
about cabbages!
THE MARKUP GAME, by Abe Sherman **********************************
(This article reprinted with permission)
Our store visits have revealed some interesting insights that we
cannot see from just reviewing computer reports. Retail prices are
rising, in some cases, due to the successful sales of specific items,
which has priced these goods considerably higher than the normal
selling range in the marketplace.
We've seen it mainly {although not exclusively} in stores that have a
computer system that teaches its users to mark up the retail prices
of the items that consistently appear on their fast-seller list. This
is the Peter Principle of merchandising - these goods are being
marked up until they stop selling.
Fast turning items should be encouraged to turn faster. Period, end
of story. Turn and Earn will be the way to make money in this {and I
believe any future} retail environment. If you'd like an absurd
analogy, imagine your local supermarket pricing the milk higher and
higher because it sells so fast. Sound silly?
If you are fortunate enough to have a computer system that identifies
fast-sellers, do what you can to sell more of them. Consider lowering
the retail price from $209 to $199 for example. Feature the
fast-selling items by themselves. Highlight their prices. Backup the
best of the fast-selling inventory. Never run out.
Then grow the category, the style selection and the price-points of
the fast-selling items so that you have a core inventory of these
goods. Maintaining an inventory of fast-selling items, meaning:
identifying, merchandising, reordering and pricing, is a lot of work.
It should be your primary focus this year.
The only danger of committing to nurturing your fast-sellers may be
to cash-flow. These items will continue to eat cash until you have
built a significant inventory. Then they feed on themselves and just
make you rich. In the slower months, like now for example, you may
have to allow some of them to sell down in order to move out your
older goods. Fast-sellers not only eat cash, but they also slow the
reduction of your obsolescence problem, which in many stores is
significant. But the saddest inventory is that which used to be
fast-sellers, which is now obsolete - because their prices were
marked too high.
Abe Sherman will be a featured speaker at the JCK show in Las Vegas
on May 30, 2001. The subject will be "Merchandising Like the Majors".
If you will be attending the show, make sure you set aside the time
to attend this seminar. Got a question for Abe?? Email him at
AbeSherman@Aol.Com.
OKAY, WE'RE NOT PERFECT *******************************
Ooops... We were a little embarrassed when our last issue included a
link to the wrong Buyer Registration Form for the JCK Las Vegas Show.
Within a couple of days we replaced the form but we need to let you
know that if you filled out a Buyer Registration Form from our
website, it might be a good idea to look at the correct form
(http://www.aaura.com/forms/vegas_registration_form.pdf) to make sure
you got the right one. Our form allows you to type right on the form
before you print it and sign it. There's nothing quite like a neatly
typed form, especially if you have a long, hard-to-spell name.
(Except for the ability to type directly on the form, it is exactly
the same as the one found on the show's official website.)
In case your wondering how to do this sort of thing, you need is to
buy the full version of Adobe Acrobat. It's easy to use and you can
find some really nifty uses for the program - check out our Forms
Library area of our website (http://www.aaura.com/forms/). We'll be
adding more forms every so often, so check back often. And of course,
if you want to use the new-and-improved version of the registration
form, we encourage you to do so.
UPCOMING SHOWS *************************************
What a spring-a whole bunch of tradeshows one after another after
another! We have a nice break until the JCK Las Vegas Show, June 1-5.
We'll be sponsoring the pre-show Gala on Thursday night, May 30th at
the Paris Hotel. We'll fill you in on the details later, but make
sure you arrive in town early enough to attend. There will be
thousands of people there and it's a great opportunity to mingle
before the show starts.
For more information, visit the official website for the JCK Las
Vegas Show at: jckvegas.expoplanner.com.
________________________________________________________________
(c) Aaura, Inc. 2001. Comments to webmaster@Aaura.com. General
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