It’s already been a couple of weeks since CNBC encouraged consumers to get started on their gift shopping for 2021. “Your holiday shopping experience is likely to look different than years past,” they cautioned. “Between issues with supply chains, rising cost of goods, staffing shortages and problems filling shelves with merchandise, retailers are gearing up… Read More

When I wrote about setting post-pandemic store hours back in June, I had no idea that we would not be open on Mondays by the start of the fall season. Last year at this time, at the height of the threat from COVID-19, we were only open 20 hours a week. Now that things are… Read More

Most boomers will remember the temptation of ads promising “no money down, twelve months to pay.” Today’s younger consumers are adopting this same buy now, pay later mindset (conveniently abbreviated to BNPL) to make impulse e-commerce purchases that don’t require full payment up front. Independent retailers also selling online – i.e., bricks and clicks stores-… Read More

The past two years have been filled with challenges ranging from the global pandemic to the container crisis and staff shortages. But as we head into the holiday season, there are points of light that should help keep us hopeful.  Here are a few: In June, the National Retail Federation revised its annual forecast for… Read More

Forbes magazine describes shippageddon as a term from late 2020 “describing a conflation of global supply chain issues that led many brands and retailers to be under-stocked or otherwise unable to fulfill customer demand for purchases last year.” The container crisis, which I wrote about in this blog in early April of this year, is just… Read More

As if it wasn’t enough for small business owners to be dealing with the second year of a pandemic – now shops in many states are being hit by natural disasters ranging from flooding to fire and smoke. These events, caused by environmental factors such as storms, floods, and droughts, are becoming more common thanks to… Read More

“You’ve already paid for the services that the SBDC offers through your taxes,” Michelle Somes-Booher, Director of the Wisconsin SBDC, pointed out during a recent Zoom meeting. “I encourage you to take advantage of them!” The SBDC, or Small Business Development Center, is run in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). America’s SBDC… Read More

The pandemic has brought home a fact that many of us already knew – the majority of independent retailers (employees and owners alike) do not have access to the type of paid family and medical leave common in many European countries. This means that someone with a serious illness may not be able to afford… Read More

I wrote about the idea of Buy Online, Pickup in Store pre-pandemic, when this concept didn’t have much practical appeal for the majority of independent retailers. Brick and mortar stores just weren’t set up to have customers make a purchase on their website and then come in the store to pick it up.  But many… Read More

We are all ready for a return to robust in-person shopping – but the most recent news about the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is making it doubtful that we’ve beaten the pandemic yet. According the George Anderson on RetailWire, “while the Delta variant hasn’t resulted in any mass shifts in shopping behavior at… Read More