I have a crazy idea that I think could help you drive more traffic and sell more products in your store… offer a class that ties in the merchandise that you sell. You could offer a class on trimming the perfect holiday tree, or putting together great gift baskets, or even something more crafty like designing a wonderful fall wreath.

Now it'd be helpful if you or one of your staff has strong skills in visual merchandising and/or decorating, but if you don't, you can always find a local expert by looking in your area (putting up flyers in local coffee shops, asking loyal customers if they known of someone, or even posting a free listing on Craigslist.org).

Here's how it would work: you sell the basic supplies needed to complete the project and then (maybe?) charge a nominal fee for the class instruction depending on how much you pay the instructor, how much profit you'll be making on the supplies and how much it's worth getting customers into the store. If it turns out that the average customer spends $100 every time they visit your store, it may be worthwhile not to charge a fee at all. (If you don't have space in your store for classes, you can find inexpensive room rentals in your area. You may even want to consider a local club (i.e., Kiwanis Club), hotel or a chamber of commerce office.)

One of the local independent toy stores in our area has created a weekly craft project for kids (for a small fee they complete a project in an hour) and it's a great way to encourage us to stop by more frequently. Big box stores are doing it too.. just last week I received an email from William Sonoma, inviting me to take cooking classes in their local store.

I hope you can offer a creative class and boost your sales, and if you're already offering one, I'd love to hear about it.

According to the National Retail Federation, 34.5 million consumers (in the US) will buy patriotic-themed merchandise leading up to the Fourth of July. Many local and national retailers are counting on Independence Day to spark their July sales, while others have said that the holiday doesn't have a huge impact on their business. And based on the survey, almost 89 percent of consumers say they'll celebrate the holiday, and 57.9 percent say high gas prices won't affect how much they spend.

I personally love decorating and celebrating the Fourth of July. I've always loved it because I enjoy the fact that we celebrate in the warm summer months (what can I say, I like the heat), and I love the red, white and blue motif.

I hope you're able to sell lots of Americana and Fourth of July products this year. I've already stocked up, but I'd love to know: what's your best-selling product for the Fourth of July?

Over the years, a lot of retailers have asked me what my thoughts are on how to best motivate their sales team. Personally, I've always been a fan of utilizing rewards to encourage the team (or an individual) to reach a particular goal. Godiva, a nationally-known chocolatier, put together a very creative contest recently. They were offering their store manager, and the store's top performing employee, an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii for a week if the store hit a specific sales goal during the eight week holiday season. And you better believe that store manager was motivated to sell like crazy and to think of ways to encourage the team to do the same.

There are lots of effective contests, such as a pizza party at the end of the month, or a store gift certificate for beating last year's monthly sales. Back when I worked as a store manager at Casual Corner, they used to hold an annual dress sale during the summer and sales associates were paid $5 per dress sold (normally commission was not part of the compensation package). It was a great incentive to encourage friends to come in, and to establish a great rapport with customers.

Since the summer months tend to be a little slower for most retailers, I challenge you to think of a fun employee contest and roll it out for the month of July. Let me know what you decide to try and how it works.

Last week, as I sat flipping through channels, searching for something entertaining to watch, I saw a TV Show that caught my eye. 20/20's In Touch was doing a piece titled "The Lucky Ones: Is It Serendipity or Smarts?" (You can find it here if I've piqued your interest.)

I thought the gist of the show was going to be that some people truly have more luck than others, through forces out of their control. However, it ended up that the "lucky" ones tended to believe in themselves and what they could accomplish. In the end, the main premise was that if you believe in yourself, there are no limits to what you can do.

I've found myself thinking quite a bit about the segment ever since. It just further illustrates what I have always thought, you can turn your dreams into reality if you believe in yourself.

Back in December I came across a blog for a young entrepreneur who had decided to start her first business… and it wasn't an ordinary start-up story. As part of an entrepreneurship business class, Carolynn Duncan opened a cart in her local mall with a budget of just $100 (for a 30-day trial period).

I was impressed by her tenacity to start a business on such a shoestring budget, and with her ability to actually convince her local mall to work with her (she had a bit of luck as well… it turns out a retail merchant needed to vacate the space during the holiday season, so the mall decided it was better to fill the opening than to have it sit unoccupied for the remaining time). We were so intrigued by her story, we covered it in an article in the spring 2007 issue of Specialty Retail Report and invited her to speak at SPREE West.

I managed to snag some time to sit down and chat with her there and one of the questions I asked is what she might do differently the next time she starts a business. She told me that she plans on doing a lot more research and creating a (mini) business plan (that would include a budget to make sure the numbers work). It turns out that she had just "jumped in" and had completely skipped the planning phase of the business altogether!

I know as a business owner (and as a person who loves to execute things and leave the planning to others) it's easy to skip the planning and just get going. I have also seen the reverse in business, people who spend five years writing a business plan only to find out they really can't sell anything when they get around to trying. It is truly a delicate balance of the two: planning and execution.

What do you like to do better—plan or execute? Has it helped or hurt your business?

Rachelle Anderson, Carolynn Duncan and me at SPREE West in San Jose

It's a regular occurrence. My phone rings and it's a kiosk retailer, and they have one thing on their mind: what is the hottest new idea/concept/toy/etc. for this season?

After chatting with three of our exhibitors at SPREE West in San Jose, it's clear that this particular category is still going strong… licensed sports collectibles. And why not? Sports teams never go out of style. Who doesn't love to wear a T-shirt or baseball cap sporting their favorite team logo (especially here in Boston).

If you're interested in getting in on this action, here are three companies you may want to learn more about:

1. Forever Collectibles… They have a fantastic line of licensed sports collectibles (with team logo embroidered or imprinted) on everything from Santa hats and ornaments to bobble heads.

2. Fan Mats… This one is a great cart concept, and it's so simple: car mats with team logos. Check out the "House Divided" line.

3. Sports Scene… This line would be a great addition to any sports cart or as an entire concept. The company wholesales signed merchandise by pro athletes, including jerseys, photos and sports equipment.

SPREE West has been fantastic so far, and I'm finding lots of new products to share.

Here are my top three picks for today:

1. Rockcycle—Terrific line of products including handbags and notebooks made from recycled record covers. I love the nostalgia of the line (and it doesn't hurt that it's made of recycled products, either).
   
   
   
   

2. T-Photos2Go—Amazing printer to create customized, high-quality T-shirts at any retail location. The unit starts at $30,000, however, the product cost is around $2 per unit and the T-shirts retail for $25-$30. Nice margins.

   
   

3. Top Results—A new sports product for any athlete looking to improve flexibility or strength. I think the demo aspect makes this particularly appealing.

I'll be posting more new products tomorrow, so be sure to check back!

Yesterday was opening day of SPREE West (in sunny San Jose, CA), our expo for the cart and kiosk industry. Fortunately, I'm feeling much better, especially since I love being out of the office at a show, seeing new products, networking with friends and meeting new people.

We have several companies launching new products at our show… and I'll be debuting a few of my favorite product finds in the next couple of days. It's been so exciting to hear how the entrepreneurs came up with their idea, found a way to get the product manufactured and saw their dreams realized when it came out in the market.

Stay tuned!

Today's guest post is from Poornima Apte, editor of GIFT SHOP magazine.

The National Retail Federation recently reported that the average person will spend $98.34 on Father's Day this year, up from $88.80 last year.

That $98.34? That's us! They must have been following my girls and I as we scooped up stuff for Dad this past weekend.

According to the NRF, "as in previous years, the most popular gift for dad will be a greeting card (69.9%), but he can also expect to be treated to a special outing such as dinner (42.7%). Other popular gift items include apparel (37.1%), a gift certificate or gift card (29.9%), consumer electronics or computer related accessories (17.8%) sporting goods or leisure items (13.9%), tools or appliances (13.6%), and home improvement or gardening tools (12.4%)." Even if it's my 9-year-old's favorite Daddy gift, there's not much demand this year for soap-on-a-rope!

Do you stock special products in your store for Father's Day? Remember, it doesn't have to be anything very extravagant. As the numbers show, greeting cards are very popular. Try a line with a touch of humor. Also of particular appeal are mugs and plates kids can customize for Dad.

As for our Father's Day purchases, after we returned from our shopping expedition, we ran into my neighbor who asked: "How come we have to hang out with the kids and do brunch on Mother's Day while for Father's Day, the men get to hang out with the guys and golf all day?" Good question! It's one, I'm sure, not many surveys will (or can) address!

Today's guest post is from Allisyn Deyo, Webmaster and editor for the Pinnacle Publishing Group.

One of my first jobs (and second, and third, and fifth) was working in the specialty coffee industry. I worked for a large corporation out of Seattle (not that one.. a smaller, but direct competitor) that was intent on having their employees be the most well-educated employees in the coffee industry, and as such, I had several days of training at our corporate headquarters.

While I learned how to pull shots, steam milk and sell espresso machines, they never taught me what to do if money was missing from the till, or if I caught a shoplifter. Granted, our shops didn't sell a ton of products, but we definitely sold high-end merchandise ($699 espresso machine anyone?) and of the four locations I worked in over three years, two of them weren't in the choicest areas of town.

By the time I left that job, I'd held management positions for two years, hired and fired numerous employees and dealt with three shoplifting incidents… one that involved firing an employee.

At the time it happened, I still hadn't received any formal training (or literature, for that matter) on how we dealt with shoplifters, but the one previous experience was with a couple of teenagers, and I had used an age-old method I learned from my mom—I put the fear of god into them. In other words, I called a beat cop (who worked our area and regularly got coffee from us) and he came in and verbally thrashed them, all the while threatening to call their parents. In the end, the tears were enough for me to not "tell on them." They came into the shop a time or two after that, and while we were all on high alert, I never had a problem again.

The employee theft shook me the most. It was someone older than I who had worked with the company for a long time, and I had just been placed in charge of her store. (I had a great manager when I first started, and because of her, I became a "fixer" manager, who went into stores that were problems and helped get them up to speed.) We fired her (one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life), hired some new blood and the store turned around quite nicely.

There's an article today in the Bradenton Herald about how much retail crime costs stores per year ($30 billion), and reading through it, I realized they didn't mention employee training to prevent the thefts. Oh they discussed security cameras, and locking high-ticket items behind the counter, but this article never mentioned how employers could teach their employees how to spot a shoplifter.

My question is this: do employers nowadays (my coffee job was almost a decade ago) teach their employees how to spot a thief? Do they tell them who to call if they do see one? Or is most of the teaching about how to be friendly and sell?

Don't get me wrong, it's important to sell well and lord knows I hate when someone follows me around a store, but I wasn't trained and part of me wonders are employers really doing all they can to train their employees to stop theft?