Home-Depot Offers Trade-Ins to Promote Energy Efficient Products

This article from retailwire discusses how Home Depot is trying to get consumers to trade in their old, worn out power tools and drills for brand new items by offering them big discounts. The company is offering a 15% discount off the purchase of lithium-ion drills and is also offering consumers $3 off new holiday LED lighting. The company is doing this in light of its new Eco-options program which promotes more energy efficient products.

Retailers Cranking Up AC to Bring in Shoppers in the Dog Days of Summer

There are many retailers that prop open their doors to lure in potential consumers with air-conditioning, but NY is the first city to ban large retailers from doing this. According to this post on retailwire, most of society are viewing this as a shameful sign of energy waste.

A survey conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council points out that keeping the door open with the AC on raises energy costs by as much as 25 percent but can lower temperatures outside the store by as much as 20 degrees. With environmental issues becoming a huge concern for consumers now, it's no wonder why many shoppers are angry. The lesson learned for retailers is keep your doors shut when the AC is on to not only save on energy costs, but to keep consumers happy as well.

Kroger Experiments with New Displays to Simplify Shopping for Beverages and Snacks

According to this post on CPG Matters Kroger, the Cincinnati-based retailer, has come up with a concept to design a 4-aisle section where signage and color will help direct shoppers to select their drinks quickly and easily. The same concept will also be applied in their snack aisles in some stores.

Companies like Ocean Spray, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Coca-Cola, Lipton, Tropicana, and Gatorade are already major participants in this new concept, with other companies edging to join as well. According to Ocean Spray there sales were up by 10% in Kroger stores and they believe this is hugely accredited to Kroger's consistent focus on working on innovative shopping concepts, ideas, and theories to make shopping easier for consumers. It will be interesting to see if other retailers will roll-out similar concepts since it is working so well for Kroger.

Benefits of manufacturers working with retailers

Earlier this month, we posted about what the benefits were if manufacturers and retailers worked together. I wanted to know more about this topic, so I turned to LinkedIn to ask the question. Vivek V. Krishnan responded with a great answer I'd like to share with you:


It is easy to see the benefits for the retailer and the manufacturers have in coming together, sharing information, possibly resources and streamlining the entire supply chain to get the product right up to the shopper. ( By the term shopper I think you mean the buyer of the product. Typically, a shopper is not necessarily one who buys the product but one who simply spends some time interacting with a product or the retail environment). One would think that the most common benefit to the streamlining of the supply chain to the buyer of the product is reduced prices. A good lean supply chain would reduce various costs for the retailer and the manufacturer the benefits of which one would hope would pass on to the end buyer. Simple enough!!

I strongly believe however that there are other benefits to the union of the two parties for the end buyer.

Before exploring the benefits, one would have to outline certain assumptions on the coming together of the two said parts of the value chain. The union has been carefully put together in accordance to the best practices prevalent in the industry today and that the information and resource sharing is whole. The retailer is willing to share the benefits gained from the partnership with the manufacturer with the end buyer.

The benefits to the end buyer then are as follows:

1) The price of the products would come down as a result of lowered inventory holdings, shorter supply chains, increased margins, better forecasting capabilities etc. This as I had said earlier would be the most obvious outcome of such a partnership.

2) The diffusion of new products would be quicker. Today, the buyers find out about the launch of a product much before the actual arrival of the product on retail shelves, which results in many days of frustrated waiting and decreased interest levels. Such a collaboration will greatly shorten the time to market for new products and the buyers will benefit. Please note that while this may be novel during the first few times, there is a risk that this short time to market will soon become a hygiene factor and buyers will begin to expect it.

3) As Reno before me said, information and training about the new products can be given to the end users and buyers more effectively through the retail channel partners.

4) The retail store can act as a single point of contact for the buyers for all things relating to the product manufacturers, such as after sales services, replacement of faulty products, sourcing of product related accessories, promotions, upgradation, servicing of warranties and guarantees etc.

These are few of the benefits that I think would affect the buyers greatly with a very effective collaboration between the retailers and manufacturers.

How to Increase Consumer Spending in Troubling Times

This article in the NY Times highlights that as shoppers are becoming more and more reluctant to open their wallets, retailers are starting to adjust their advertising and marketing to play up the aspects of value of what they sell.

Companies like Whole Foods, and J.C. Penny have even changed their campaign approaches to emphasize more saving and better pricing on their products. For example, Home Depot recently changed their slogan from “You can do it. We can help” to “More saving. More doing.” As these campaigns roll out over the next couple of months it will be interesting to see the effect it will have on consumer spending.

Manufacturers and retailers want to work together

According to The Gourmet Retailer, both manufacturers and retailers both want to commit to capturing today's retail shopper. However, a new study by Miller Zell looks at the relationship between the two members of the party and finds that they understand their business challenges and the shoppers, however fails to see the same in the opposite party.

One hundred percent of the participants want a high level of involvement in the development of in-store marketing strategies; however, the perception is that there is not enough meaningful dialogue and co-creation solutions.

How can these two parties come together to make a better experience for today's shopper? What are the benefits of today's shopper if manufactures and retailers work together?