Well, hi again, everybody.

I am Glenn the Geek, founder of the Horse Radio Network and host of Horses in the Morning daily podcast for the last 14 years.

Welcome to the WESA Retail Roundup.

The Retail Roundup is your go to virtual hub for all things retailed.

You can join panel discussions, learn from webinars.

We have Q&As like we're doing today.

And you know, you can share your thoughts by going to the Retail Roundup Facebook group.

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You can find all of the past retail roundups that we've done, webinars and Q and A sessions there.

Plus there's lots of other great content there, all designed to help make your life easier in retail.

I did retail for a long time with my own store.

I know what you're going through right now this time of year, a lot of 3am packing boxes.

I remember those days well.

And today's session we're excited to speak with retail expert Nicole Leinbach Hoffman, diving into key strategies from her book Retail 101, the guide to managing and marketing your retail business.

Today's session will focus on essential tools to strengthen marketing, curate a compelling product mix, and optimize in store experiences.

All things we want to do owning our own store.

Nicole is the founder of retailminded.com and an influential voice in the retail industry.

She has a fantastic website, exactly matches her sweater.

You have to check it out.

It's really well done.

I gotta say.

She is one of the most expiring women in retail and we're gonna find out.

We're gonna do a Q and A if that's okay with you today, Nicole.

Yeah, looking forward to it.

Thank you.

And one of the nicest things is you haven't seen these questions ahead of time, so they're gonna be a complete surprise to you.

What part of the country are you in?

So I'm based in Denver, Colorado.

North Denver.

Yeah.

Nice, nice.

You had a little snow recently.

In fact, I can see a little bit on my neighbor's lawn that hasn't quite met the.

There'll be more on the way soon.

Yes, yes.

So, and of course, WESA was housed in Denver for a long time.

It sure was.

I know.

I'm a big fan and I love that they have some roots here as well.

Not that far over from where I live, actually.

And now Dallas, now we've, we've packed up and moved further south.

Also a great part of the country though.

Yes.

Definitely.

So let's start with marketing.

What would you say are the key elements to a successful marketing strategy for a small retailer?

You know, something that they can get implemented without a ton of money and a ton of time because they have neither.

Well, that's a very solid point that you just made that they have neither.

Right.

So the very first thing I'm going to say is that consistency is going to be the most important component of all marketing efforts.

So that's why we lean into social media a lot, I think as small businesses because there's an opportunity for consistent messaging as that being a marketing channel that's both affordable and the opportunity to repeat.

But when it comes to marketing, I think the key is to really create outreach to your targeted audience.

So know who your audience is and do so with the effort to reach them as best as possible.

I think for small businesses in particular, a lot of the time that means partnering with like minded but non competitive businesses within their local community.

So who could be, whether it's a charity, whether it's a meetup group, whether it's another business itself, whether it's a group, a youth program that might cater to potential customers where you can be supportive of that.

Look within your community to see what you can do to be partner focused marketing strategies where you can actually do sometimes even a trade or minimal investment because budget's always got to be considered here.

And I think this can actually really elevate the opportunity to retain existing customers and build new customers as well.

I love that when we started Horse Radio Network it was our marketing partners that helped us grow and you know, we, we helped each other and there was no money exchanged hands on those deals.

And I think you can get, you can do that locally a lot easier than you can do that nationally.

So in a local market there's, there's those people you can, and you have to be creative.

You know, maybe something that, that is a little off the wall but really works for both of you.

Yeah, that's why, you know, I really emphasize that non competitive but like minded partnerships because you might find that there's a community of a youth oriented, something that overlaps and might want to support your store in bringing new writers or people who might be taking lessons into your space.

Or maybe there's something of a more mature audience that has a roundup of women who get together monthly sharing their love of horses or even local farms or nearby farms that still have like a horse community that they support and a variety of ways.

So there's amazing groups out there that sometimes honestly your Facebook search engine, you can start to put in some keywords around your own community to help find what might be going on that you might not know about.

Not everything's going to be front and center to you, but then obviously businesses that exist, so these are things that are also operating with store hours that are again non competitive but like minded.

So even if it's like a bakery or photographer, let's say during a holiday season, really any holiday season, you could bring in a photographer to do something with your horses.

It's benefiting them because they're getting a new customer reach.

You're also getting a benefit from them.

So creative marketing could be used as well.

So how can they stand out in a crowded market?

You know, it is a crowded market.

Well, that leads me to another question I want to ask you before that.

Does every retailer need to have online sales?

Now, I don't necessarily think every retailer needs to have online sales, but I do think every retailer needs to have online visibility.

Okay, not every brick and mortar store wants to manage e commerce.

In fact, I would say if you don't, it's better to still be visible online for how to reach you in store or to take phone orders, but at least share that communication.

Now there's going to be other categories of retail that I might not have that same answer for.

But in this category I think that that's honestly something to think about.

If you know you're not going to manage an e comm business, well, don't invest your time in setting it up if you don't plan to actually optimize it instead.

Because it's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work and there's ways to still be.

I call this the path to purchase.

The path to purchase is not straight.

I might go to Google today, put in horse retailer Denver, right?

This is horse shop, right.

I might say something just as a general consumer, without always using the right words, it still needs to lead me to a destination to find you.

And on that path to purchase there's going to be what I refer to as like road bumps or detours and there's also going to be collisions that take that customer totally off course.

What you want to do is keep them on path to you.

So being online still has incredible advantages even if you're not selling online.

So make sure every touchpoint online has visibility that ultimately leads them to that brick and mortar destination.

Even if it's a phone call for them to say, hey, do you have this or can I place an order for pickup?

Or can you ship this to me?

Sometimes it's the simplest things too.

Like the other day we looked up a tech business that was here in Ocala and they had not updated updated their Google Maps or Google listing.

So the hours weren't on there, the website link wasn't on there.

You have to really go.

You have to.

That's one thing you can do today that's free.

Go in and update your Google listing so that it shows up properly on Google Maps so that the hours are in there and only information that I need immediately if I want to go to your stores there.

It's simple, but companies forget to do it.

It's very simple.

And you know what else is free?

It's Google Analytics.

So while you're in there, go ahead and make sure you're setting that up so you can understand where are people coming from when they're searching for you.

That's also a free update.

I know for my own business I get little updates from Google Analytics saying you've been identified here too.

So they can even tell you where you may have been written about or highlighted.

Someone else on Facebook may say, I just had a great experience here, but it's not an official review.

They can help tell you that stuff.

So how can small retailers stand out in the crowd?

I think going back to what I said earlier about consistency, but I'll expand on that.

And there's five Cs that I like to always refer to when it comes to being a small retailer, to be clear, concise, courteous, consistent, and then ultimately have strong commerce.

So with that in mind, communication is going to be key in what you're doing, having a clear message of who you are as a brand.

I would love to challenge you all to say, is every touch point of where we're visible easily understood by a potential customer or an existing customer?

Standing out is literally through communication.

So your communication is both in store through signage, it's through your newsletter, potential newsletter, email blast.

It's how your customer greets somebody who or it's how your employee greets someone who walks through the door.

So communication is going to make or break, I think any business.

And I'll take that one step further by saying there's three steps to red carpet customer treatment for any store to think about.

And communication is the real key here.

When someone walks through that door of your business, the first step is to be starstruck.

Because what are you if you starstruck, you're paying attention, right?

You're looking, you've stopped all thoughts, distractions around you and you are focused on whatever that starstruck moment is.

That second step is to treat them like royalty.

So if every customer is a star, they also deserve royal treatment.

And royal treatment.

What does that have?

It has standards.

What does your store need?

Standards.

So identify what those standards are for.

How your employees greet your customers.

Again, going back to communication, to how they exit your customers, to how they support your customers through the destination of shopping, how they might recommend an additional sale once they're already at the cash wrap.

All of this really is around communication, but also how your customers navigate your store can also be better enhanced through communication through like signage.

So identify those standards.

And the final piece of that three step red carpet is to get their autographs.

Because if you're getting their autographs, you're getting the transaction, or better yet, sometimes both would be ideal, is to capture their own email address.

So you're staying in touch.

So be Star Trek, keep treat them like royalty, get their autographs.

And that means that you've building your business and you're hopefully doing so with really positive memories from the customer's perspective.

Well, part of being starstruck, when you walk into stores, merchandising, right.

It's how display and merchandising.

And when you're small, when you're a small retailer, it's tough to decide.

You only have a certain budget to buy to for inventory.

Right, to buy inventory.

So you're, you're constantly weighing what should I have in inventory?

And that's a constant battle between the basics and what's trendy now.

Right.

So how do you, how do you play that game when you're a retailer with a limited buying budget?

You know you can't buy everything.

No, you definitely can't.

And particularly for brick and mortar small businesses, I tell them, if you had to analyze your inventory in just two categories, okay, we all know there's way more than two.

But if you had to identify what your statements are and what your staples are, your staples are the bread and butter of your business.

Those are the things that everybody needs.

You want to make sure that they're always in stock, they're replenished, that you've identified them for merchandising strategies so that people either don't forget them or make sure to get them your statements.

That's going to be the things that people might want, but they definitely don't have to have.

But it also becomes a high margin opportunity.

These things might be Items that bring stronger margin into your business.

And then you want to create a merchandising strategy that effectively supports both.

But from an inventory management perspective, those staples are going to be the drivers of your business.

People come into your store because they need those staples.

Right.

Did you see my little guy?

He ran in here.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about your little guy.

There's two more.

I'll let him say hi real fast.

Oh, hi.

Love to say hello.

And so those.

We love when dogs and horses appear on our shows.

So I should have gone to my, my sister in law's house.

They have many horses.

So we are a horse family.

We do have horses in the family and ironically we.

This dog's name is Bitzer and they adopted a horse recently named Bit C, B I T Z Y.

Which I just thought was kind of funny because it's not a common name.

So we have a Bitzer and a Bitsy in the family.

And one of those.

The Bitsy is the bigger horse, by the way.

Yes.

So.

So yeah, those staples and statements are a great way to really bring balance to your inventory management.

The other thing is, of course, data.

I mean, at this point in time, I would hope everybody is using a point of sale system and inventory management system that brings clarity to what's truly selling and what's not.

You know, that's going to ultimately be the truth of what your business is.

Yeah.

And what's nice about the systems today is they tell you categories, you know, those broad categories.

Because there might be an individual item in a category that's selling well, but the whole category is not selling well.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And that's some different things.

Yeah.

That it helps you.

You can micromanage your inventory much better than you could 20 years ago.

For sure.

Oh my goodness.

A lot of it is not just gut.

Right.

I think honestly, as store owners, there.

Is that gut, especially in the horse world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You still have a little bit of that left.

I think I was gonna say.

I think that's important.

But we still need clarity to our gut.

Yeah.

Well, it, it justifies your gut.

That's or doesn't.

Yes, yes.

One way or the other.

Yeah.

So what are some simple changes retailers can make to enhance the in store shopping experience?

I could tell.

Can I, can I throw one in there?

Because we had this recently too.

The store was busy, which was good.

Right.

But the aisles are so narrow.

They were losing sales because people just couldn't get down the aisles.

I know.

I didn't go down the one aisle to look at something I was really interested in because I couldn't get down the aisle.

And then I never did, you know, then I got looking at something else, and I never went down that aisle to look at that item because there was always somebody in the aisle and it was really one person aisle.

They were so jam packed.

Well, what's interesting is you see that I'm envisioning, you know, there are actual aisle standards by the disability act and different things.

So making sure that your store actually accommodates everybody is important.

You want to at least have that passerby effect.

Right?

But, you know, enhancing the store is really, I tell people, look up, look down, look left, look right, okay?

And it's everything.

It's all over.

It's not just what's ahead of you as a customer.

All of those details matter.

When you walk into a store for the first time as a business operator, you know it like the back of your hand.

But other consumers don't always.

So we need to make sure that we're giving them an understanding of which direction should they go, why should they turn and go that way?

Is there any clarity through signage to help them understand?

There's again, like staples and statements or a clearance section, things that.

Or a call to action, like let's say it's horse feed, or let's say it's riding accessories, whatever it might be.

So really lean into how the flow of your store complements or distracts the customer experience.

And I think we always say that every barn has a feel.

When you walk into a barn, you know, it's a boarding, stable or whatever it is, a show barn or whatever, they all have their own feel.

And it's hard to describe that feel, right?

It's hard, hard.

It's hard to describe what you're feeling, but you're definitely feeling something, right?

Stress, tension, happiness, relaxation.

All of those are things that you feel when you walk into somebody's barn, a barn you've never been to before.

It's the same thing when you watch walk into a boutique shop.

And it's so hard to nail down how to get the feeling you want when somebody walks into a store.

But it's there.

Oh, 100%.

And that, that can really describe the sentiment to the consumer of what they want out of that experience.

Like, ooh, I want to be here.

Oh, I need something, even though I don't.

Or I love, love that person helping me.

I mean, that sentiment can really drive dollars.

So I think it's important.

And I think too, it Depends on what you're shopping for at the moment.

Obviously if you're going and I want warmer and I want supplements and I want this.

You're not expecting a cozy shop, you're expecting a place where almost sterile, vet office type of setting.

And I have seen some stores.

We're so fortunate to live in Ocala because there's like 10 tax shops within 10 miles of us.

We have more than probably anywhere in the country.

And they all have a different feel and they all.

You're, you're going there to shop for different things.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, it's interesting too as you think about that.

It made me think about that generational customer and how consumers are changing and stores are going to have to start recognizing the consumer change of the buying customer.

Who is that buying customer right now, you know, and who are they going to become?

How will the dollar shift?

And those are things that the general business of retail across any category are going to always need to sort of look at too.

So what are the young twenties looking for now?

So if you were going to take a look at that generation, what, what, what's different about what they're looking for in a shopping experience?

So one of the things I actually really love about their generation, I think it actually mimics Gen X.

So Gen X would be really, you're just under your baby boomers, right.

So everyone I feel like is familiar with the term baby boomers.

They would be just under your baby.

My age, yeah.

And I follow the Gen Xer myself.

And then also you have Gen Z now.

Gen Z is your younger customer.

They're going to be your little bit older teens into the 20s.

So both of these generations really relate to what I refer to as shoppertainment.

And that means they want to be entertained while they shop.

It might be a demonstration, it might be a volunteer opportunity, it might be a charity tied event to a store.

So anything that's going to elevate the experience as a consumer beyond just buying.

So it could be a Saturday night get together or morning mimosas at the barn.

Right.

There's ways that you can do things that just bring entertainment to the store or sometimes your store leaves the store and goes somewhere else and does a little pop up somewhere and still brings that entertainment.

So that shoppertainment I think is really something to think about.

So what is it that small retailers overlook?

What's, what's the, you know, what are the couple of big sins that they always overlook?

And it's something that they should be paying More attention to.

And it's probably something you run into in your consulting all the time.

Yeah, honestly, it's the not so fun stuff.

You know, people open up stores tied to certain categories typically because they have a love for that category.

Right?

Yeah, we like horses, so we open a tax shop.

Yeah, that's exactly the case.

And that can be true for.

I bet you it's more true in our world than any other world.

Actually.

I would say biking and you have a lot in common.

Skiing.

Both of these are riding businesses.

Like you're riding a horse, you're riding a bike.

There's a lot of passion around that.

And I respect all these categories, by the way.

But one of the things that I often see is that the passion for that business, the drive to open that store doesn't always have that same passion when it comes to like behind the scenes details of the data of the point of sale, the customer management, or I'm sorry, employee management, such as doing an annual review with your employees or heightening training opportunities or introducing a loyalty program or incorporating best practices for that customer service we talked about earlier.

Often it's around the product, but it's not around the experience.

So I tell people, make sure you take the time to create the experience because that's what's going to help sell the products.

You know, the passion lies is the product and employees.

That's a tough one too nowadays.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

So I'm sure that you have people coming to you all the time talking to employees.

Oh yeah.

I mean, employees have challenges historically, but I think modern day employees have even more.

Part of that has to do with the generational management of them.

Right.

So whoever's hiring and managing is often of a different generation than some of their part time or even full time associates.

And that alone, generational communication, back to that word communication preferences really vary.

So I might say something to someone and they interpret it as a negative feedback, whereas I looked at it as a precise delivery of hey, we need to get this done.

And they look at it like, oh my God, why are you yelling at me?

So we need to be mindful of all these details, but at the end of the day just aware that they do exist and considerate of what that looks like.

You know, even how we communicate with our team.

Thankfully there are apps that allow you to have like organized communication.

If you have five or more employees, I think it's more important to consider that.

But if you have five or less, I don't know if it's always as Needed.

But there are some apps that can be integrated into any size business to help with employee management trading schedules.

For example, like hey, last minute, I can't work Saturday.

Can someone cover my shift?

Okay, so that you led me right into my next question was are there apps that you would recommend for in general for the running of a small retail.

Yes.

And so unfortunately I'm not going to quote them each because there's like three or four.

And I know for a fact that all of them vary in the size of which that's what I would need to confirm.

Some only begin at like 20 plus employees, other begin at 10 plus.

Some begin at actually 2 plus.

And so there are employee, they're called employee management apps or employee shift.

Like shift is actually the name of one of them with Y.

Shift with Y.

So that's a great place to, if you were curious to lean into those apps to see if it could sort of ease communication challenges.

Also as an owner or manager, the scheduling on that becomes a little bit easier too because you can even do it, you know, if you wanted to from your phone when you're not actually in the store or if something changes, you can quickly make that.

So it's very beneficial for sure.

And I know, I know some small retailers that are using, that are using the basic Google apps for all of that stuff and they're using it well, you know, and it's fairly dismissed the.

Same way we talked about the analytics earlier.

Google is a very powerful and often free tool for many of us.

Yep.

Yeah, I mean I, I run the whole network on Google.

You know, we have for 16 years, you know, and it, it hasn't changed.

So how is there something that you recommend for streamlining basically the daily operations so that you have more time for customers and engagement and doing the fun stuff, especially as the owner.

You know, obviously tools would be, I guess your number one recommendation is make sure you have all the tools in place that help you do those things.

You know, I really think it takes some clarity within yourself to identify what does your weekly rotation look like.

Okay, so meaning is Monday your remerchandising day?

You know your schedule better than anyone else.

Where are your busier days?

So let's just use a general seven day week if you're open five or six days, making sure that you identify on certain days based on the historic customer flow of your store that you're incorporating key responsibilities that you have to do like billing, invoice management, but also that you want to do within the store space, like merchandising you might identify, listen, we need to change those grab and go items at our checkout thing at least once weekly.

That gets lost in our mind if we forget about it.

So I always tell people, create like your basic checklist of daily chores that you can just literally check off.

And it could be simple, but at least it doesn't.

You don't have to think about it then, you know, every Monday this is what you do.

Every Tuesday, this is what you do.

Sometimes they're even inserting things like clean the bathroom, right?

So Wednesdays, clean the bathroom day.

I mean, these are the not so fun parts of running a business, but they all have to get done.

And sweeping the front porch or the front stoop or however it might be identified.

So all these things are things you can sort of separate within your five or six day or maybe seven day work week and then even break it down into your shift management.

I've seen some stores really successfully identify, here's your opening responsibilities and your closing responsibilities, but those vary each day of the week.

So things like that and have them in writing, oh, 100%.

And have them ideally a signature upon completion.

So it's old school, but it's effective even for myself.

Just, you know, I'm in my office a lot.

I go to trade shows all over.

I'm very fortunate to, you know, speak and travel and consult across the world.

But if I'm in my office, I have written checklists of what I have to literally check off and I literally check it off.

It's old school, but it's effective in your store.

That traditional manual that a brick and mortar store has, I think is where you keep these things.

It's also a reminder.

You put those three steps of be starstruck, treat them like royalty, get their autographs, those little reminders tucked in throughout your store as well, the back of a break room.

And it all adds up and really does help.

So I want to talk about something else that we've been, we're using more now on our side, on the media side of the world.

And that's AI.

Where do you see AI coming into retail in the next year or two?

I spend a lot of time talking about AI across a variety of different either clients.

And I've been fortunate to go to like big tech events and learn about it firsthand.

I think that like ChatGPT can offer marketing copy if you just want to like learn ways to more effectively communicate to your audience, come up with something, even if you go back and then shape it out to feel a little bit more authentic to who you are as a brand.

That's always great.

People who struggle with social media content, what do I share that can also help you there?

I do think that AI should be reviewed, though.

I don't think you should just like do it and throw it out there.

I'm a very, like, I love communication.

I hesitate to use AI much, but I know that it adds tremendous value to people who are not as comfortable writing or communicating.

And I think that's going to be from a retailer side, one of the most optimized ways we can leverage AI.

And then, you know, you might want to think about how you can even use AI to create social media graphics and other marketing components for your business because they're doing amazing things through that.

And we use it, we use it similar to that and we do.

Obviously you proof everything you know and you're, you're going to change it to your own voice, but it can save so much time.

Like if we're doing commercials, we can tell it, you know, we want you to, we want you to write a commercial about this weather, beat this individual weather, be the product from a funny point of view.

Yeah.

And it'll do it.

We tweak it and double check it and you're good to go.

And I think it's on the business side.

Remember, we're talking about that business side.

I think that's where AI in the future is going to save us a lot of time.

You're going to be able to do some of those boring, monotonous business tasks.

AI will help you with that.

The more and more it gets developed.

It's being developed to help you with that.

And I think that's really where we're going to see in the coming years.

You know, don't be afraid to try it out.

And it's meant to be a time saver.

So.

And I think also to your point, don't be afraid to try it out.

What I tell brick and mortar is don't let it scare you because it can actually help you bring physical bodies into your store.

You know, brick and mortar I'm very passionate about, I love, I truly believe communities come to life through their brick and mortar commerce experiences throughout the town.

And with AI, it can help you digitally communicate, stay in touch with so many people to bring that traffic to your store because you're never going to really replicate that once they're in your store.

Once they're in your store.

This is where you get to shine through customer service.

Your product assortment, all the other things we've talked about today.

I mean, I can go right now and this is where it's going to affect you in the future too.

I can go right now to chatgpt and say I want the, tell me the most highly rated tax shop in Ocala, Florida.

And it's going to search the ratings for me and it's going to look it up and in two seconds I'm going to have an answer.

And that's where it's also going to affect you down the line because that's going to become a common thing as these things become, as they roll them more out and people understand it more and they segment it more so that there's a website specifically you can go ask that question to and they're going to get answers and that will affect your business.

Then down the line, you may not use it directly, but your customer probably.

Will be, well, that's the difference.

And that path to purchase we talked about earlier.

If I'm a 22 year old young rider spending my own money because mom and dad aren't anymore, how am I going to get to my next destination?

Maybe I move to a new town and I'm not familiar with where I need to go.

These are the things we have to think about across the generations too, like making sure we're staying up to speed with how customers are shopping and the resources out there for them too.

Because the teenage, the teenagers today, AI is just part of their life and it's just going to be more part of their life, you know, and for them it's not.

They don't look at AI as this bad thing.

Right.

Which our generation tends to do.

Right.

We tend to be adverse to AI and they're not, they're.

It's, for them it's just there, you know, it's just been there and that's.

It's another tool.

Exactly.

Right, yeah.

And so it will affect you in the next five years.

Oh, it totally will.

And you might have employees who work for you.

Maybe it's not your thing, but if you've identified on your team, even a small team of one, two or three, to say, is anybody here comfortable helping us understand this so we can maybe leverage it for some of our things?

It doesn't have to be this deep dive.

It could say, let's use a little, see how we like it.

You know, everything takes a learning curve.

So this is an election year, which everything's weird.

Always an election year.

Sales are weird.

It's just everything's weird.

So, but what, so what do you see other than AI, what do you see in the next couple of years or things that retailers are really going to have to pay attention to that you're going to make it better or worse?

Oh, that's a great question.

And I think that, you know, for retailers, how customers pay is going to start to influence them.

It's, I mean, cash, we already see cash a long time fading away.

Not always.

I mean, there's some great rural towns and people prefer to pay cash.

But what's happening is again, as consumers start to shift and their buying power begins to shift, younger customers, they're going to use their phone like they want that touchscreen.

Literally, they want to use this as a payment avenue no matter what they're doing.

The other thing is that there's something called quad installment payments.

So this is where it's almost like the old fashioned layaway.

Do you remember that at all?

Yeah.

And now a retailer can integrate these great companies into their payment options that allow a customer to divide something into four payments.

Now the retailer is actually not going to be charged for this.

There's no consequence to the retailer.

They are identifying whoever that company might be that they've aligned with here that's going to be integrated.

What I would tell a retailer is whoever your point of sale provider is, look to see what integrated partners they have for payment.

And there will be companies there that they could incorporate this for.

So that's something we're going to see how customers are paying.

There's also loyalty groups to certain payment methods that customers are following.

Facebook has millions of fans across different categories of payment on how customers prefer to buy.

So marketing actually can start to overlap into payment channels.

So you might as a retailer be like, wow, now there's a whole community of people who only use quad installment payment.

That's one example.

Quad, quad installment payment.

And I'm going to market to that audience of customers.

So payment is going to, I think, start to really influence a lot of variety in our commerce.

Affirm is one of the companies that you see everywhere, right?

Yeah.

And it is it.

They make it easy.

You know, it's just easy.

I remember when I bought my first electric bike like five years ago, a firm had just started and the company I bought it from had it and I did it and four payments I was done and I had paid no interest.

I don't know how they made any money.

But you know, so it's.

I totally agree with you even see Amazon using that now.

Yep.

So that's interesting is, was there any others to really look out for?

I would say, like, definitely the payment thing.

The other thing I would say is that there is a lot of drive for customer spend based on sentiment going back to like, what they care about.

So the more and more retailers can align themselves and you talked about even the election year, but the more and more retailers can align themselves with charities, organizations, do good, feel good type experiences.

That's going to help drive customers and their spending, a lot of customers, particularly the millennial audience.

But again, their spending habits are going to begin to get higher and higher.

They're reaching the peak of their earning years in the next 10 years.

So 10 to 15 years.

But like they're starting, they'll be in their 40s.

They're going to start to become like pretty powerful spenders.

They're going to spend at places that they feel, do good, feel good.

And if businesses, even small businesses can start to be a little bit more visible about where they're giving back to or organizations they partner to, that can help drive dollars.

Anything else you, we're running out of time here.

Anything else you want to add to this?

No, I mean, I think that's great.

I think the biggest thing for retailers always to think about is to don't, don't stand still too long.

I know you never do because it's 100 hours a week for a job that never ends.

But meaning make sure you're always considering new ways to really boost your retail.

Yeah.

And of course, going to WESA and finding terrific new market products is one of those ways.

Coming up in January, only two months away for the next show.

So where can people find you and what do you offer?

Yeah.

So retailminded.com we offer totally free retail business insight.

So there's a lot of great content on there.

I would encourage you to use that search bar because we've been around since 2007, so we have a lot of great insight.

I'm available at Nicole and I C o l e retailminded.com if you ever need.

We do mystery shopping, virtual mystery shopping, virtual consults.

I'm based in Colorado, but we do a lot of support anywhere.

We do a lot of webinars, so we're always happy to help, like train your team, do things like that.

And really we're just here for you.

I love, I love being a champion of small business, retail and retail in general.

So certainly always help.

Just happy to cheer you on.

God, the Mystery Shopper.

Oh.

So remember that from so many years ago.

It's still very effective.

It's fun.

Yeah.

I never thought about virtual mystery shopping, but that would be something fairly easy to do and I never thought about it.

Yeah, it's very cool.

It's also very revealing.

Yeah, I imagine.

I imagine.

Yeah.

Especially if you know what you're doing.

That would be really revealing.

Yeah.

Very cool.

So get the website one more time.

It's retailminded.com so that's retail as we all know how to spell it.

M I N D E D dot com.

Well, this has been fascinating.

Thank you, Nicole.

Appreciate it.

And thank you for joining us on Wes's retail roundup.

If you missed part of this, it will also be available on the WESA podcast.

It's called Wisdom by Wesa on your podcast player.

They also do other episodes where they interview manufacturers in the horse world about their products.

So if you're buying products, it's a definitely a podcast to check out called Wisdom by Wesa.

You can find Also on the WESA Trade Show YouTube channel and on the WESA website, wesatradeshow.com of course, the next one's coming up in January.

I'm hoping to be there for that one.

I'm usually trying to make the January one.

And the next retail roundup will be Posted on Monday, November 25th.

That's Thanksgiving week.

It's already next week.

Wow.

That means Christmas and the end of the year's coming up.

So you'll find that next week and it'll be on the retail roundup Facebook group.

I can be found@horsesinthemorning.com we have 3, 500 episodes for you to listen to.

If you have a year of 24 hour a day listening, you might catch up up.

But we have plenty of content for you over there.

It's a lot of fun.

We do that every day.

We chat with about horses and all things in the horse world five days a week for about an hour every day.

So thank you all.

Thank you and we'll talk to you again next week.