Independent retailers from other industries served up their stories and
bits of advice to attendees at the ABA's Winter Institute last week.
Jeff Leopold, whose Standard 5 & 10 Ace variety store in San Francisco, Calif., sells hardware, cards, gifts, stationery, health and beauty, told the lunch crowd that "although the number of independent hardware stores are dropping, sales for independent hardware stores are growing. In our business, we're able to grow the store. We're working harder at it."
Service, Leopold continued, has been "the No. 1 way to fight the competition" so he has hired people who can "smile and carry on conversations with customers. We want people who can engage customers and sweep them off their feet." He requires employees to undergo 16 hours of extra training a year beyond their initial training. Products and displays also set the store apart and "chains are slow in responding to new products and displays," so he looks for "new products every day. I want to make sure our merchandising is fresh and innovative. I want different products in endcaps every two weeks at least."
Leopold also has an incentive program--the most successful it has tried--tied to the average transaction sale. "We say if the average transaction goes up 5%, an hourly fulltime employee will get five extra hours of pay per month," he said.
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Randy Kemner, owner of The Wine Country, a wine retailer in Signal Hill, Calif., noted that even though wine consumption has undergone a revolution in the U.S. in the past 30 years and the wine business here is at "an all-time high," competition has grown, too. "You can buy wine at the local Sav-On, at 7 Eleven, the pharmacy, online," he said. "Costco is now the leading seller of Bordeaux and Champagne." He prefers to call his offerings "specialty" products and theirs "chain products. We have to offer products you can't get in chains."
Kemner also emphasized the importance of the look of a store and tries to make his "gorgeous, presentable and attractive." He called himself an "avid enemy of fluorescent lighting."
He, too, stressed customer service. "We always greet people with a smile," he said, adding that one study found it is 30 times more costly to develop a new customer than keep a current one. "Don't piss them off!" he advised.
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Dora Herrera said that Yuca's, her family's taco stand in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, between Hollywood and downtown, unintentionally has fit in with several major recent trends in American dining: adventurous dining or "trying new cuisines"; traditional, which often involves comfort food; and carefree, best defined as "eat anything at any time." As for the trend toward health consciousness, well, Yuca's still cooks using lard.
Yuca's successes over the past 30 years have broken just about all the guidelines and rules of business schools, business books--and even some of the panels at the Winter Institute. Herrera's parents started Yuca's with no business plan and no advertising. "They just started cooking," she said, and her brothers flagged down cars with the offer that if customers didn't like what they bought, it would be free. If they liked it, they would pay double.
The turning point came when the Los Angeles Times published a feature on the store, based on many interviews with her parents, who didn't speak English. (Herrera did a wonderful parody of them nodding pleasantly as the reporter talked and talked and occasionally asked questions.) The stand still gets a lot of publicity, but usually without trying to get it. In that vein, Yuca's won a James Beard America's Classics award last year: "We got a call, but we had no idea of what it was," Herrera laughed. As for constantly reinventing itself, the stand has had "the exact same menu for 30 years." One of the few translatable efforts the store has made was cross promoting with other businesses, including Skylight Books and local libraries. "A big part of our success is that we love our food and we love our people," she said.
Herrera brought the house down when she summed up: "I'm actually a fraud. I don't have a clue of what you need to do."
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Dave Hanson, owner of Jax Bicycles, five bicycle shops in Long Beach and Orange County, also emphasized service. His goal is for employees "to say hello [to customers] in five feet or five seconds," no matter what they're doing. In the tradition of Southwest Airlines, he said, "We try to make [customers] laugh or smile."
Hanson trains staff members not to accept "just looking" as an answer when they ask if they can help. "We treat each customer as a guest. Imagine if someone 'just looked' [while visiting] your home." Obviously, he continued, customers "are looking for something."
He also tries to teach his staff leadership and wants to mold the staff-customer relationship into one of "the customers being clients under the trusted care of an advisor." As of March 1, he is ending discounting and is training staff to "graciously decline discount requests." The store's price tags don't read "best offer," he said.
Jeff Leopold, whose Standard 5 & 10 Ace variety store in San Francisco, Calif., sells hardware, cards, gifts, stationery, health and beauty, told the lunch crowd that "although the number of independent hardware stores are dropping, sales for independent hardware stores are growing. In our business, we're able to grow the store. We're working harder at it."
Service, Leopold continued, has been "the No. 1 way to fight the competition" so he has hired people who can "smile and carry on conversations with customers. We want people who can engage customers and sweep them off their feet." He requires employees to undergo 16 hours of extra training a year beyond their initial training. Products and displays also set the store apart and "chains are slow in responding to new products and displays," so he looks for "new products every day. I want to make sure our merchandising is fresh and innovative. I want different products in endcaps every two weeks at least."
Leopold also has an incentive program--the most successful it has tried--tied to the average transaction sale. "We say if the average transaction goes up 5%, an hourly fulltime employee will get five extra hours of pay per month," he said.
---
Randy Kemner, owner of The Wine Country, a wine retailer in Signal Hill, Calif., noted that even though wine consumption has undergone a revolution in the U.S. in the past 30 years and the wine business here is at "an all-time high," competition has grown, too. "You can buy wine at the local Sav-On, at 7 Eleven, the pharmacy, online," he said. "Costco is now the leading seller of Bordeaux and Champagne." He prefers to call his offerings "specialty" products and theirs "chain products. We have to offer products you can't get in chains."
Kemner also emphasized the importance of the look of a store and tries to make his "gorgeous, presentable and attractive." He called himself an "avid enemy of fluorescent lighting."
He, too, stressed customer service. "We always greet people with a smile," he said, adding that one study found it is 30 times more costly to develop a new customer than keep a current one. "Don't piss them off!" he advised.
---
Dora Herrera said that Yuca's, her family's taco stand in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, between Hollywood and downtown, unintentionally has fit in with several major recent trends in American dining: adventurous dining or "trying new cuisines"; traditional, which often involves comfort food; and carefree, best defined as "eat anything at any time." As for the trend toward health consciousness, well, Yuca's still cooks using lard.
Yuca's successes over the past 30 years have broken just about all the guidelines and rules of business schools, business books--and even some of the panels at the Winter Institute. Herrera's parents started Yuca's with no business plan and no advertising. "They just started cooking," she said, and her brothers flagged down cars with the offer that if customers didn't like what they bought, it would be free. If they liked it, they would pay double.
The turning point came when the Los Angeles Times published a feature on the store, based on many interviews with her parents, who didn't speak English. (Herrera did a wonderful parody of them nodding pleasantly as the reporter talked and talked and occasionally asked questions.) The stand still gets a lot of publicity, but usually without trying to get it. In that vein, Yuca's won a James Beard America's Classics award last year: "We got a call, but we had no idea of what it was," Herrera laughed. As for constantly reinventing itself, the stand has had "the exact same menu for 30 years." One of the few translatable efforts the store has made was cross promoting with other businesses, including Skylight Books and local libraries. "A big part of our success is that we love our food and we love our people," she said.
Herrera brought the house down when she summed up: "I'm actually a fraud. I don't have a clue of what you need to do."
---
Dave Hanson, owner of Jax Bicycles, five bicycle shops in Long Beach and Orange County, also emphasized service. His goal is for employees "to say hello [to customers] in five feet or five seconds," no matter what they're doing. In the tradition of Southwest Airlines, he said, "We try to make [customers] laugh or smile."
Hanson trains staff members not to accept "just looking" as an answer when they ask if they can help. "We treat each customer as a guest. Imagine if someone 'just looked' [while visiting] your home." Obviously, he continued, customers "are looking for something."
He also tries to teach his staff leadership and wants to mold the staff-customer relationship into one of "the customers being clients under the trusted care of an advisor." As of March 1, he is ending discounting and is training staff to "graciously decline discount requests." The store's price tags don't read "best offer," he said.