Halfords Incorporate New Techniques

Starting as a small hardware store in 1892, Halfords has now become a huge business having 370 superstores and an online presence. The company works in two main areas, car maintenance products and bicycles.

After first only selling car maintenance products, the company now also fits the parts for its customers, changing the company from a retailer to a service provider. In the last few months they have spent on training their workers for the tasks involved in the service and have also scheduled extra workers for the busiest times.

As for their bike sales, according to their Chief Executive David Wild, this area is a major one for income and is doing better each year. The business does well in offering an extended range of childrens' bikes and also has a focus on premium bikes.

Halfords now sell their products online. There were fears initially that an online option would impede customers coming into stores. After implementing it however they have learnt that around 80% of online customers still come in to stores. With a reserve and collect service, where the online user can choose a product and check which stores it is available in, shopping in store is actually becoming more attractive.

The online presence also brings new customers who otherwise would not shop at Halfords, but now do after seeing the company's offers online.

Source: Working Lunch, BBC. (21-01-2010)

Halfords Incorporate New Techniques

John Smedley Coping in the Recession

The family owned knitwear company, famed for its quality and price, are now celebrating their their 225th anniversary. The company makes around £15M a year on jumpers, cardigans and twinsets.

Andrew Caughey is John Smedley's Managing Director. He says that during the recession sales for the company have remained stable. The reason, according to him, is that in a downturn consumers are often willing to forego cheaper and lesser quality products for those which are more lasting.

Only a third of John Smedley's sales are in the UK, and it turns out that the Kingdom held strong for the business recently due to its weakening sterling which has attracted tourists to buy more.

Source: Working Lunch, BBC.

John Smedley Coping in the Recession

HMV

HMV, who also own Waterstones, are one of the only succeeding music street stores. Strangely enough the store actually loses money every year for the first 6 months. This year they saw a loss of around £25M in those months which is actually a lot less than usual (Working Lunch, BBC).

The businesses busy months are the later 6 which includes Christmas time and that is when they make their profits. This time around HMV is hoping to have augmented sales due to influence from the TV show X-Factor.

HMV

Beware of Fraudulent Shopping Websites

Counterfeit websites used to steal customers' cash and credit card details are still big business today. The Metropolitan Police have already closed down over 1,200 of these websites.

The sites could be lookalikes which are made to resemble genuine websites or may act as their own company selling branded products online. The problem is these products they sell are either fake or just non-existent.

Even with the polices effort to close down these websites the trend is still enormous. Charlie Abrahams at MarkMonitor says that at any one time there will be literally thousands of phony websites for any major brand. One problem lies in the fact that the perpetrators operate from almost any country in the world which makes it impossible to catch them.

Attempts are being made to stop these dodgy sites from the servers and search engines and to make virus checkers spot the threats and notify users before hand. However even these methods are not fool proof and as of yet the best solution to the problem is making Internet users more vigilant.

Among the advice given to Internet users is:

• Research any websites you might use to buy from
• Check contacts of email adverts
• Look for the yellow padlock symbol when buying
• Use a dedicated credit cart for quick cancellations if anything goes wrong
• Report any problems immediately to trading standards or police
• See if the site has a feedback option or land line to enquire if the site is safe
• Check bank statements regularly
• Be wary of suspicious looking sites

In the end the best thing is to use common sense and if something seems too good to be true then chances are it probably is.

Source: Working Lunch, BBC.

Beware of Fraudulent Shopping Websites

Chance of Price Cuts in Stores

People are still spending more in stores. The BRC records that sales were up almost 2% this November from last year. However this is still less than the 4% higher sales recorded in October.

Shop keepers were expecting better increases and say this heightens the chance of price cuts to attract more customers for their Christmas shopping.

Source: Working Lunch, BBC.

Chance of Price Cuts in Stores

Onine Shopping at Christmas

As people are gearing up for Christmas this month online sales are hitting new records for companies. This November has already seen a 17% rise in internet sales from the previous year, much more than last Novembers 9.5% rise (BRC). It is expected that approximately £300M will be spent online this Christmas.

Evidence shows that an increasing number of people are finding it more comfortable to purchase items with just a few simple clicks rather than taking the time to walk the busy town centres. Trust in online security when shopping happens to be improving as well.

Yet, contrary to predictions once held, most people today still prefer high street shopping. Online retail only amounts to around 3.9% of all retail sales (ONS). Richard Dodd of the British Retail Consortium (BRC) thinks this might be because of the social and leisure aspects of active shopping as well as being able to notice more variety of shops and items whcih online they wouldn't.

In spite of this, online shopping this Christmas is still looking good. Take Play.com, a leader in selling entertainment online. They've mentioned selling 1,000 orders a minute and up to 550,000 units in just one day, a definite boost up from the previous year.

Fewer overheads in e-commerce equals cheaper prices and this is another reason why more shoppers are buying online this winter. And with the continued simplicity and trust in internet transactions next years Christmas may see even better.

Online Shopping at Christmas