The shortened holiday shopping season spurred consumer spending in November, as Americans took advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to make holiday purchases, according to the National Retail Federation. November retail sales, excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants, …
Read More »Industry News
N.Y. Hardware Store Receives National Small Business Award
The national small business movement Independent We Stand announced Trio Hardware & Paint as the recipient of the 2013 Independent We Stand Independent Small Business of the Year Award. The family-owned hardware store has 15 employees and has been in …
Read More »Unemployment Down in November
The unemployment rate declined from 7.3 percent to 7.0 percent in November, and total non-farm payroll employment rose by 203,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in transportation and warehousing, health care and manufacturing. Both the …
Read More »True Value Information Technology Team Honored
True Value was recently recognized for the achievements of its information technology team. The co-op was named Large Company Winner and tradeMONSTER Group – Small Company Winner by The Chicago chapters of the Association of Information Technology Professionals’s (AITP) and …
Read More »Lowe’s Unveils New Product Locator
Shoppers at all Lowe’s locations can now use the Product Locator capability to search for products and instantly see the items’ locations on a detailed store map using Lowe’s iOS and Android mobile apps or Lowe’s mobile-optimized website. All in-stock …
Read More »Retail Sales Strong Over Thanksgiving Weekend
An estimated 141 million unique shoppers shopped during Thanksgiving weekend, up from 139 million over the same time frame last year, according to the National Retail Federation. For those who shopped multiple times over the weekend, the survey estimated more …
Read More »RETAIL THERAPY: The Right Stuff
When I was younger I wanted to open a chain of stores. The stores would be part shoe retailer, part hair salon and part pub, and I wanted to name them Jaime’s Shoes, Dos and Brews. While this was just …
Read More »The Secret Behind Customer Service
Want to know a secret about amazing your customers? Here it is: Don’t start by focusing on the customers. To consistently deliver high-quality customer service that will give your business a competitive edge and keep customers coming back, you must …
Read More »