“Good marketing is more about brains than bucks.” This is just one glimpse into the many words of wisdom from Shop.org friend, author, and entrepreneur, Andy Sernovitz. In his must-read blog and New York Times bestselling book, he shares his insights and best-in-class examples of how to simplify your business, earn word of mouth, and thrill your customers. And as a treat for our Shop.org community, we’ve asked Sernovitz to bring is marketing expertise, energy, and tactical delivery to keynote our Digital Retail Boot Camp at the Shop.org Annual Summit in Denver this September.

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, it's a bird, it's a plane, NO IT’S SUPERMAN. 

I woke up this morning, read a review, and saw a video about the new IPhone 4S which isn’t so new in computer terms. It's a few months old already. That doesn’t matter, because I WANT IT. I want to talk to Siri, the voice activated assistant. It’s like having an imaginary friend/assistant. The virtual world and the real world are coming together faster than even the wildest of predictions. Everyday there is something new/different and even more exciting than the day before. 

There are many clear differences between colleagues of different generations. But these have less to do with age and more to do with the impactful events that occur during formative years. When you're managing employees, consider the values the different generations hold dear.

According to a new Whitepaper from Nielsen, What’s In Store, In-Store For U.S. Retail In 2016, presented byTodd Hale, Senior Vice President, Consumer & Shopper Insights, traditional mass merchants and supermarkets have yielded share to value channels (club, dollar, and supercenter) and drug stores, prompting a series of changes, including format blurring, new marketing outreach techniques and shopper entertainment.

Publishers Need a Plan to Engage the Audience and Make Money -- With Pictures

It's starting to feel as if this photo frenzy isn't just a passing phase. Maybe there's some inescapable human affection for pretty pictures. We just can't help ourselves.

Why you need them and what should be in them

Returnability is a new word that I created which describes the appeal a website has to have for the need, want or desire to return again and again. The Returnability Quotient will simply be a measure of all of the elements combined that create a measurable and comparable score to judge the effectiveness of a website. Let me list the 10 key elements that the Returnability Quotient is comprised of. The simplest test is for you to give yourself a score of 0 or 5 or 10 for every one of these ten categories.

Is business BAD or are we becoming IRRELEVANT in the eyes of our customer? That is a scary thought and something we all need to consider. Why? Because in a time period where retail business is tougher than ever emerges a giant that changes the rules in less than 10 years, does more business per square foot company wide than the wildest dreams of the greatest retail executives, and sells their merchandise at full price, and NEVER has a sale, in the most cut-throat and price sensitive of all of retail categories.  Of course I am talking about Apple.

The term “hidden in plain sight” is becoming a very popular management philosophy. It means that so many times the answers to some of our most complex problems are right there in front of us, only we are too focused on posturing, politics, people or other problems that prevent us from discovering the answer to the solution which is right under our noses. If we would only stop to see the world around us, to read what people have written or listen to what they have said, the answers would just magically appears right in front of us.