Business

As large retail and grocery stores are fighting to see who can create the greatest convenience, we all seem to win! Meijer stores, a chain predominantly located in the Midwest, decided they would start introducing a new technology. Amazon sort of started the process with their few chain stores, but Meijer is the first major brand to implement this type.

Rather than standing in line, either for the self-checkout or for a clerk, you can now scan your items as you put them in your basket. It’s called Shop & Scan and was tested in stores in the Grand Rapids area for about 15 months and now looks to be released in all Meijer stores today. It is a great way to make shopping that much quicker and easier for their customers.

How Shop & Scan Works

If you decide to use this option, you can log into the Meijer app on your phone and scan the barcodes of items you want to purchase. You can even bag the items as you shop. As you do that, the system will tally up your total. When you’re done shopping, there’s a special checkout lane where you can just scan the barcode and the payment goes through. It only takes a few seconds to complete.

“As we’ve rolled the program out in six states, the response has been incredibly enthusiastic,” said Stephanie Brackenridge, director of customer experience for Meijer. “Customers have appreciated the ability to have a choice in shopping how they want, depending on how their day is going. Many are finding the opportunity to personalize their store visit with a cell phone is a great way to save time and help avoid lines.”

As a busy shopper, you even have the option to go onto the Meijer website and put together your shopping list and ‘download’ mPerks coupons that automatically apply to your order. No more having to clip coupons and scanning each one individually. Meijer has stated that more than 80% of the customers who downloaded and used Shop & Go use it every time they shop, proving its usefulness at saving time at the store.

Target, Kroger, Walmart, and other stores are all looking at developing technology that makes it easier and cheaper to shop with them. As online shopping continues to grow, more businesses are making brick-and-mortar stores worth the time to stop in.

Imagine looking for a job, finding one, getting hired, but not showing up for your first day. That’s what a lot of jobseekers have been doing recently. That’s because at the job market is so strong that opportunities are plentiful. That means people aren’t forced to take the first job offered to them anymore. No, they get to choose, and in a lot of cases, they find a better job before they even start the first one was offered to them.

“People are getting multiple offers in a market like today, and they are not showing up on their first day of work,” said Paul McDonald, senior executive director at staffing firm Robert Half. Steve Lindner is the CEO of another employment firm called the WorkPlace Group. He recalls the ghosting that has been happening as of late, even as he hires people for his own business.

“We had already shared the name with our support team and had a training program in place. Everything was ready to go,” said Lindner. “They just never arrived. It was complete job abandonment.” They never heard from the person at all. Even trying to follow up with them, sending emails and texts and not hearing a single word back. Eventually they had to send a termination letter.

This can be quite common when the job markets are so strong. People who are looking for work have more power in this instance. You don’t have to settle for jobs when it’s looking good that you’ll get multiple offers. This also has the impact of forcing those companies to offer more to attract good workers to the company.

Improving Opportunities

Jeremy Tolley hires people CareHere, a health and wellness company. He says that back in 2016, he started noticing that many people they were trying to hire never even showed up for their first day of work. That really force them to look at the types of employment opportunities they were offering. They decided to upgrade their website and improve contact relations with candidates to build a better relationship with them before they start their first day.

“We are creating a sense of obligation to this person,” he said. “That way it’s not just some company they don’t know much about, they start to think: ‘If I don’t show up, I will let them down, I know they are expecting and preparing for me.'”

Businesses are forced to make a move when workers simply stop showing up. Looking for good people to come and is a very expensive and time-consuming process for most companies. It takes time to weed through the resumes and have multiple interviews to choose the right candidates for the job. It’s even worse when they find someone and offer them the job, only for them to duck out on their first day and never hear from them again.

“It causes a lot of internal issues. The employer was counting on them and it could be embarrassing if customers and clients were also waiting for the arrival,” said Lindner.

Burning Bridges

Lindner warns that ghosting companies is not the best way to handle a situation. It might come back to bite you later on. What happens if the job market turns sour? As a new employee, you might be one of the first ones who gets axed. You’ve already burned bridges with other companies that you might be considered a good candidate for. What will you do then when the hiring power switches hands and the bosses have the upper hand?

“When the job market turns… applicants who ghosted are going to have fewer job opportunities available to them,” warned Lindner. “Own your decision,” said Lindner. “Most prudent people will understand. I may be disappointed as an employer that you initially accepted my job and are turning me away, but I respect the call.”

By ghosting the company, you might also be turning away from a better opportunity. The business you ghosted might have been willing to counter the offer they made.

“We understand the industry we are in and what the market is like,” said Tolley. “Sometimes this gives us an opportunity to counter the offer or figure out why you accepted another position. Maybe there is something we can do about that.”

Most of us have grand dreams about one day becoming an entrepreneur. Maybe you’re working on that dream right now. It would give us so much joy to be able to work on our own, set our own hours, and make good money from working at home. This is the dream life for so many people, yet it can be difficult to understand how it all works.

Like most entrepreneurs when they start out, you might have a 9-to-5 job. You have kids to take care of and a spouse. How do you manage your life and your dream at the same time? Guys like Warren Buffett did that. They had a regular job and created a thriving empire out of the chaos.

The Internet certainly makes doing this type of job easier. It’s going to require a lot of sleepless nights and doing side jobs and gigs as you continually build your business. Over time, the profit you make from your side gigs or your hobbies will start growing. Here are several ways to manage both your job and grow your entrepreneurial spirit.

1) Do Something You Love

This is an easy one to figure out. If you’re doing what you love, it won’t seem like work. Maybe you already do something as a hobby, like painting. You have a lot of friends who like your stuff and ask where they can buy it from. This can easily turn into a full-time business if you stick with it and devote time to doing the thing that you love. So, think of starting your business as simply extending your hobby. If you love doing it, it’s much easier to figure out how to make time to do it.

2) Start Slow

You’re going to want to take massive leaps in your journey. You may get frustrated because it’s not going as quickly as you would like when you’re not making the kind of money that you want to be making from it. It can take time to build an audience and to grow your business and to something that helps you thrive. But by getting frustrated and taking giant leaps you’re not ready for, you’re only adding more work to yourself. Work you probably cannot handle and you will lose interest in the business and walk away. You might even think that it won’t be for you. Instead, start small. Go at a slow pace.

3) Find the Best Market and Platform

There are a ton of websites out there that help entrepreneurs get going in their business. Again, you might start off slow like it’s just a side gig, but websites can help you get traction. Not just building your own website, but using social media. Facebook is the marketplace. Instagram is a marketplace. You can sell things on Pinterest and Etsy. eBay and Amazon are great for e-commerce. Whatever it is you want to do, there’s a platform out there for you to showcase your talents. Do your homework and find out we are audiences hanging out and start there.

Only 12 years after the last strike that cost General Motors billions in revenue, the United Auto Workers, or UAW, once again went on strike against the auto company. Both sides have been working on negotiating a new contract. That was until GM decided they would break off contract talks on Sunday. As of midnight, nearly 50,000 GM workers who are part of the UAW hit the picket lines.

The UAW was attempting to negotiate for their workers to get a larger share of GM’s profits. They want an annual pay raise, but what GM was offering wasn’t enough according to the strikers. Union officials say both sides are nowhere near close enough to make a deal, so GM decided they would leave the negotiating table.

President Trump tweeted about the strike, stating: “Here we go again with General Motors and the United Auto Workers. Get together and make a deal!” Other politicians have also shown their support for the workers, especially 2020 presidential candidates Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, and Bernie Sanders.

“The CEO of GM made nearly $22 million dollars last year—281 times the median GM worker. I stand with the 46,000 UAW members who have moved to strike, fighting for affordable health care and fair wages. GM can afford to do right by the,” Castro wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

GM’s “Generous” Offer

According to General Motors, they made a generous offer to the UAW. Not only did they claim to offer new products to be made in assembly plants scheduled to close, they also made a ‘strong offer’ that included a lot of great perks and benefits. Those perks and benefits include better wages, benefits, and they’ve even made a lot of improvements to plants in four different states.

GM tweeted on Sunday: “The offer we presented to the UAW prioritizes employees, communities and builds a stronger future for all. It includes improved wages and health care benefits, over $7B in U.S. investments and 5,400 jobs. Let’s come together and secure our shared future.”

As of right now, a deal looks far from being done. Nearly 50,000 UAW workers in more than 6 states have hit the picket lines. These states include Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Texas, and New York. But GM is in a good place right now. According to Cox Automotive, GM has 77-days’ worth of inventory, including cars, SUVs, and trucks. That means the workers are in for a long strike if they hope to convince GM to come back to the negotiating table.

“If a strike occurs, GM has enough inventory on the ground so as not to hinder sales in the short run. Strong sales in August helped trim overall industry inventories to the lowest level in three years, according to Cox Automotive data, but GM’s inventories remain healthy and even above industry average,” according to commentary from Cox.

Facebook is truly one of the wonders of the modern world.  It allows friends and family to connect and stay close, even if they live a world apart.  But another way Facebook has changed the world is the way people do business. In a lot of ways, buying and selling has become infinitely easier.  Connecting with customers and building relationships with them has improved as well.  

Let’s take a look at several things you should know when running your business on Facebook. 

1) Facebook isn’t great for direct sales.  When I say that Facebook is amazing for buying and selling, there’s a bit more to it than that.  It’s great at generating traffic, building an audience, and interacting with your customers, but if you’re expecting to make immediate sales, then you’ll most likely be out of luck.

Facebook itself says it’s about building relationships.  When the majority of users sign on, they’re not typically looking to buy anything.  What works best is a method called ‘relationship marketing’. Relationship marketing isn’t focused on making direct sales or an ‘intrusion’ form of selling by always targeting new clients.

Relationship marketing focuses on keeping the customers you already have and building a repertoire with them.  There’s great value in the long term by advertising this way. So if you want to make immediately sales, Facebook is not the right platform for you.  But if you’re interested in actually having a relationship and building trust with customers, then you’re on the right track.

2) Make friends before making the sell.  As we discussed above, Facebook is all about relationship marketing.  The way you do this is by creating Facebook ads to build up your page.  Your ads, when target properly, will attract users to your page. Once they follow your page, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to build a relationship with them.  

Facebook marketing is slow and methodical, but will lead to amazing rewards on the back end.  Most marketers use Facebook as a means to drive traffic to their sales funnel. They spend the time up front building the relationship and trust so it’s easier to journey with them through the different stages of your funnel.  Taking the time to get to know your followers is key to your success. 

Another great advantage to Facebook marketing and building relationships is all the data you can extract from your pages.  You can interact directly with your followers, conduct polls, ask questions, and find out ways you can improve the way you do business.  You can follow trends to ensure you stay ahead of the curve.  

3) Have long-term goals in mind.  It’s incredibly easy to spend thousands of dollars on Facebook ads simply experimenting to find out what might work or what doesn’t.  If you’re spending that kind of money, what are you accomplishing, not having any goals is a waste. When you spend money in business, you should be gaining something of value.  

Since you’re not going to find instant sales through Facebook ads, plan long term.  What are your advertising dollars going toward? Do you want more likes on your page?  More traffic to your website? Plan out different stages with goals in mind for each stage so your money isn’t going to waste.  A quick one-week ad campaign probably isn’t going to make you rich.

Facebook is an amazing platform that can help grow your business in so many ways.  With that being said, it’s important to keep in mind exactly what Facebook does and how it operates.  It only works if you use it as it was meant to be used.

When it comes to buying and selling video games, really only one business comes to mind. Many gamers have fond memories of standing in line waiting for the latest releases, or taking old games back to get a few dollars in credit toward their next purchase. Okay, maybe these aren’t really fond memories, but it appears as if the digital age is about to claim another victim.

GameStop has announced that they are set to close another 200 underperforming stores by the start of the year. Of course, they don’t want to bypass the busy holiday season, so expect for them to wait until early 2020 before closing down shop. Jim Bell, CFO of GameStop, told this news to investors during an earnings call earlier today.

We’re “on track to close between 180 and 200 underperforming stores globally by the end of this fiscal year,” he said during that call. It would appear as if physical game copies are becoming a thing of the past. More gamers are digitally downloading games directly to their computer or game system.

This news comes after the company has already closed 195 stores globally after slumping sales hit their bottom line. These additional 200 stores really show the shape the company as a whole. There’s absolutely no way for them to compete and they’re going out the same way Blockbuster did. Soon, there will barely be a few GameStop in a few select locations.

Slumping Sales

Sales for GameStop have already slid down 13.3% in the first quarter alone. They’ve also laid off hundreds of workers throughout the organization. They’ve even let go nearly 14% of all their corporate sales associates at their headquarters in Texas. And if you like their magazine Game Informer, then that is probably next in line to get axed. They’ve let go nearly half of the people they had working to publish that magazine.

All of these moves lay out the obvious for GameStop. They can’t keep up with digital downloads and can offer nothing to get their share of the market back. It won’t be too much longer before GameStop is yet another relic of a previous time when games were at their peak. But we may be wrong here. The gaming companies like Sony and Microsoft are expected to release their next-gen consoles in the next few years. Could the PS5 and latest XBox save GameStop?

Maybe for a time, but these consoles can be purchased online via Amazon and other department stores like Walmart. Without the regular game sales to go with the consoles, they will have no other way to make money.

Wendy’s doesn’t think that the breakfast wars should be between McDonald’s and Burger King alone. They no longer want to sit on the side and let these other companies rake in extra profits. Instead, they’ve decided that they would like a piece of the pie and are now putting out a few breakfast items in a few stores to see exactly the kind of demand they would have.

It’s been 33 years since Wendy’s last sold breakfast. Only recently have they released their new menu to about 300 restaurants, but now they expect to be expanding it to all of their 5,810 establishments all over the country. Some of the items include the Breakfast Baconator, Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, and even the Frosty-ccino, as well as the main breakfast staples of coffee.

In order to roll out the new breakfast menu, Wendy’s has to hire an additional 20,000 employees over the next few months to help work the breakfast shift. This breakfast expansion is set to take place in 2020. The last time they made this move was in 1985. There breakfast menu only lasted nine months before the company decided to pull it as McDonald’s took over the scene. The company says this time will be completely different.

“Launching breakfast into our U.S. restaurants nationwide provides incredible growth opportunities,” Wendy’s President and Chief Executive Officer Todd Penegor said in a statement. He added: “We are well-positioned to pursue it. We believe we have the right team and structure in place, and we put Wendy’s fan favorites on our breakfast menu to set us apart from the competition.”

Breakfast Competition is Heating Up

As more Americans are eating breakfast at a fast food place than ever, many of these fast food companies are looking to make a dent by offering options to meet the demand. Burger King and White Castle have up their breakfast game in recent years. Taco Bell has even jumped into the mix by offering a breakfast CrunchWrap and other breakfast taco/burrito items.

Breakfast was so popular that McDonald started offering an all-day breakfast menu, but has recently decided to start scaling it back. Offering an all-day breakfast menu is difficult on the workers and not too many people want breakfast items in the middle of the day. Still, NPD Group, a market research team, has staid that morning breakfast traffic across the country is growing.

More Americans are looking for cheap and quick meal on their way to work. They released the data that shows less people are eating breakfast at home. “In-home breakfast declined eight meals per capita between 2015 and 2018 and foodservice gained two breakfast meals per capita during the period,” the report noted.

When these plans to release more information about their updated breakfast menu on October 11 during a board meeting with investors. Here’s to hoping that their breakfast expansion last longer than nine months, especially considering that more people are looking for fast food breakfast options than ever before.

In a free market economy, many companies put profits over everything else. If they can sell it, they’ll sell it, even if it puts their customers at risk. But many other companies are starting to see the light. Starting to put their morals over profits, many companies are taking a big risk but it often pays off.

CVS is one of those companies. September 2019 marks the five-year anniversary since CVS took all tobacco products out of their stores. You might be thinking that this is a bad move for CVS, but they take a lot of pride for having made this move. That’s because of who CVS is and what their brand represents. Their focus is on helping customers improve their health, not destroy it.

It’s not just our economy, but our entire country who seems to be moving to a more social conscious way of living. What companies represent has more value than just seeking profits. They want to represent something, help their communities, and be a brand for change. TOMS shoes, for example, hopes to donate a hundred million pairs of shoes by next year. This has only inspired others to want to shop at TOMS to help make a difference.

Whole Foods has designated a certain day in which 5% of all their sales on that day is donated to community-based organizations. Patagonia, a clothing and recreational store, made sustainability a priority with the products they make. Steps like this make a huge difference in how the younger generations are perceiving. These are bold steps that might dig into profits, but it shows these companies have purpose and people are buying into that purpose.

People Over Profits

There’s certainly a drive and a desire to create a legacy that makes the world a better place. To improve the communities in which they operate, to help the environment, and to give to those in need really are the types of companies that are world needs right now. Putting people over profits increases sustainability versus companies that profit in the deaths of others in the destruction of our environment.

CVS realized this when they took tobacco out of their stores. How could a company that advertises its ability to focus on our health turn around and sell tobacco products which is the leading cause of death and disease in our country? Selling these products was contradictory to their model and was a major barrier to their growth as “a trusted health care provider.”

Americans are now smoking less and CVS as part of that reason. In 2017, the American Journal of Public Health found that Americans purchased 100 million less packs and CVS’s decision had a big impact on that number. The study found that people who exclusively got their cigarettes at the pharmacy were 38% more likely to just stop buying them all together. This is a major impact the company has had and it’s the one they’re extremely proud of.

So, CVS took a stand and while they ended up losing money from the lack of tobacco sales, they made a major impact on the health of their customers. This also let the customers know that they take health very seriously and now there are one of the top pharmacies in the country.

Most companies look for a way to increase profits. If you own your own business and margins are razor-think, there’s a tactic top retailers have used for decades called cross-selling…and it works!  If you want your customers to spend more money on products or services related to a featured product, then you need to cross-sell.   

In fact, cross-selling is so popular I can guarantee you’ve been sold to in this way multiple times.  Odds are, most of us have fallen to this tactic a time or two. Have you ever gone through the line at the supermarket and grabbed an item that was conveniently placed near the check-out?  That’s cross-selling.   

Another example is often seen when buying online.  When you get to the check out portion of your buy on sites like Amazon or Walmart.com, do they attempt to pair your order with another?  Usually it’s an ad pop-up saying, “frequently bought with” or “customers also bought”. This is an extremely effective method at getting you to spend more money at checkout.   

Cross-selling is an Effective Tool

Cross-selling another way is when two products obviously go together, but are sold separately.  How many times have you bought an electronic toy, but it didn’t come with batteries or other essential components?  You buy a razor, but the cartridges are separate (and generally much more expensive) than the initial item. Or you get a digital camera, but you also need a memory card.  What good is the camera without the card? Yet they are sold separately. 

When you go through the drive-thru, they are always anxious to add onto your order.  Do you want fries with that? An apple pie or two? Want to upsize the drink for a dollar?   There’s no escaping it. Cross-selling is everywhere you go because it’s so successful at getting you to buy more than you originally intended.   

So how can you use cross-selling to increase your own profits?  Here are a few ideas that will help: 

-Think about extra accessories that can go with your product or service.  There was one cookbook writer whose recipes became viral. So, she decided to release her own brand of sauces.  They are related items that can be paired together. Think about a computer which needs a power cord. Or maybe higher RAM, a faster processor, etc.   

-If it’s not included in the original package, find a way to bundle it together, even at a discounted price.  This can encourage a quicker buy if the customer feels they are getting a good deal. Price the objects separately at a higher price, but together they are a few dollars cheaper.  They’ll eat it right up. 

-Find a way to demonstrate how the two products work together.  If you have the means, to create a video or some other type of presentation that will entice potential buyers.  If you can actually see how they work together (or even how they’re designed to be used), they’ll be more inclined to buy.   

As cross-selling is perhaps one of the most popular ways to sell more products, you can learn from these examples to make extra profits in your own business.  Take your overall process and work backward so you can find ways to turn one product into two or more, then sell them together for more money.