$21.47 Billion The retail sales of toys in the US in 2009. This is down from $21.65 billion in 2008. 69% of that spending was for children 8 and under. The top toys for 2009 included Bakugan, Barbie, Crayola, Star Wars and Transformers. Licensed toys made up 25% of all sales in 2009. Source: The …
Tag Archive: retail
Mar 29
The Sad State of RadioShack
I grew up around electronics and computers. My dad was an electrical engineer who always had some sort of computer around for us kids to play on, and my grandfather helped me build a working radio one summer so I could pick up emergency frequencies. I wrote programs in BASIC on my old 8086 “portable” …
Mar 11
The Truth About Mystery Shopping
When I was working in retail, one announcement I absolutely dreaded was that sometime in the next few weeks, my store would be mystery shopped. Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t have anything to hide. But I’d been through enough mystery shops to know that they almost always yielded bad things for me as a …
Mar 09
The Secret to Retail Success
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I used to work as a retail manager, and a good one, in fact. I was a manager for EB Games, a video game retail chain that was eventually acquired by its rival, GameStop. Here’s a little video I made for a contest we had one year to explain …
Jan 29
Customers Care About Competence, Not Culture
Over the last year or so, I’ve been trying to keep my shopping a little less chain-oriented and a little more local. I’m a big fan of small business, and I’ve found that I can generally have some neat experiences if I stick to the little shops and restaurants instead of going to the big …
Jan 12
Customer Service, Not Sales, Should Be Your Highest Priority In Retail
Recently, I purchased some computer gear from a national retailer. The experience of the purchase was great – the non-commissioned sales associate helped me track down the components I needed at the best price, and he was very knowledgeable about the pros and cons of the different options that I had. I walked away from …