26 minute read
OPINION
LEADERS, MANAGERS AND TEAM PLAYERS
Consumer expectations are high, as is staff turnaround – so it pays to ensure every member of the team is pulling together. This month, US bed industry consultant Gordon Hecht reflects on how retailers can get the best from their staff – at every level …
EMPLOYEE
By GORDON HECHT gordon.hecht@aol.com
Earlier this year I read a quote from my favourite Canadian retail blogger, Donald Cooper. He stated that in business, “We all get the team that we deserve” – but what does that team look like?
The players on your team will reflect how you, as a leader, act, react, and proact to the environment around you. Forward-thinking leaders sharing a dream and a plan create a visionary team and the future leaders for the business. Those leaders build their business and their players concurrently.
Angry leaders who flare up at every bump in the road will either create angry players, or worse, frightened players who are unwilling to challenge their leader with new solutions. Leaders who listen create a team that is willing to share the ground-level issues that prevent the organisation from market domination. Absent leaders who just aren’t on site at the retail store create players who are also willing to check out early, or loathe the boss while they toil the retail schedule.
Communicative leaders share information about how the business is progressing. Some even share the financial knowledge of how to run a business. They create players who are entrepreneurs. Egotistical leaders who hog the credit for every victory and spread the blame for every failure create players who stop delivering the legendary customer service that makes the business remarkable.
You can choose the players on your team, and you can change those players as often as you like. Their actions, and the way they treat your paid-for-inadvance buying public, and each other, will depend on your leadership style.
Several years ago, I asked my everlovin’ bride if she knew the difference between leaders and managers. Her explanation was simple and brilliant: “Leaders lead, and managers manage.”
It seems that in many businesses crisis management is the job du jour. I’ll agree that the last two years has thrown every kind of roadblock our way, and we’ve had to dig out of a lot of holes – yet while we’re managing our way out of yesterday’s problems, we’re ignoring tomorrow’s opportunities.
Back in the day, IBM had a oneword poster in their offices. The word was THINK. In these days of eating a Grubhub lunch in front of a laptop, and where a coffee break is a lost ritual, many leaders are not providing their managers time to THINK – about how we could do things better, less expensively, attract more shoppers and team players, and exceed expectations. If you saw a store or department manager sitting in a chair staring at the ceiling and asked them what they were doing, and they answered, “I’m thinking,” you’d probably consider that your manager was losing her grip.
There’s probably no better time to schedule time out of the four walls of your store. Not work at home, but time to take lunch in a restaurant (no mobile phones please) or shop a competitor, or just walk in the park.
Chances are, every team member that’s worked in your business since 2019 is a loyal employee. They’ve had 730 reasons to quit in the last two years, equal to one a day. Be sure to thank and reward them.
But you also may have some bad players, or others that just got too comfortable in the 24-month pity party. A key rule of leadership is ‘poor performance that is not addressed becomes company policy’. And any department can have employees who are miserable and make everyone miserable around them. Sure, it’s difficult to hire these days, but your bad player will land up driving your good players to another team. Correct it or clean it out – that’s leadership your team will respect and appreciate
IMAGE CONSCIOUS
In marketing, images matter – so it pays to get them right, says Press Loft’s founder Nicola Snell, who offers a few picture-perfect tips for furniture businesses this month …
VARIED IMAGE LIBRARY AT THEIR FINGERTIPS
By NICOLA SNELL www.pressloft.com
The phrase ‘a picture says a thousand words’ may seem tired, but in a visual world filled with short attention spans, it’s never been more true. The reality is that you could have the most incredible brand story and new designs, but without top-notch imagery to illustrate them, your chances of being able to engage potential customers or retailers will quickly diminish.
From your own website to press placements, product listings on digital marketplaces to social media posts, an expansive library of product imagery is one of the best investments you can make. The brands that can capitalise on any opportunity that comes their way, or shake things up quickly if something isn’t working quite how they’d hoped, are those that have a large, varied library at their fingertips. Products come in many forms, and it’s important to know how you can use them all.
Lifestyle images are the perfect way to help potential customers envision your product fitting into their lives. A wellstyled living space with a comfy looking sofa or a table that has been set ready for a summer BBQ are great ways to engage and excite your audience. Whilst using models can be a great way to further paint the picture, and are useful for your own brochures and marketing materials, they can limit the images’ versatility in press and on social media – so, if you’d like to include models in your shoot, be sure to also get some of each set up without them.
Styling is incredibly important when it comes to lifestyle images, as you want to display the product in a natural, engaging setting, but with balance so that it’s not lost.
Cut-outs, which are sometimes known as deep etch, are probably the most useful image type in your arsenal. Where styling and theming can sometimes date or become oversaturated, a cut-out’s lifespan is as long as you are selling the products for. They are great for website and digital marketplace listings, but also for press, given how versatile the format can be. In fact, 60% of press features will use cutout images in their features.
As well as the whole product, it’s worth also taking some cut-out shots of fabric swatches, textures and materials too, as this will help the viewer really get a feel for the product.
There’s some opportunity to take some hybrid images too, which look great on social or peppered throughout online product listings. Sitting somewhere between a lifestyle and a cut-out, these semi-styled images retain the simplicity of a cut-out, with the opportunity to add small amounts of personality and character. This could be the simple addition of a coloured or textured background, grouping the entire collection in one frame, or adding styling accessories to a flatlay that help tell a story – a bobbin of thread next to a hand-stitched cushion, for example.
Then there’s behind the scenes or context images, which can be great for social media and press. Don’t forget to keep a library that documents your products being designed and assembled, as moodboards of swatches, materials and samples that helped you bring the piece to life.
In terms of timing, if you want to see your products featured in a glossy magazine or included in a third-party campaign (think trade show you’re exhibiting at or a retailer who stocks your brand), remember that they’re going to want your images as soon as possible. If you’re scheduling a shoot, don’t forget to factor this in, as well as having props and briefs ready for seasonal styling so you don’t miss allimportant retail periods like Christmas or the start of summer.
Finally, you can have the most beautifully styled images going, but if they’re low quality then their use is extremely limited, and any resource invested into them will not be worth it. A minimum of 300dpi is the industry standard, so be sure to meet this. Whilst images taken on a phone can suffice, remember that some apps will reduce the quality of the images when editing. Also, remember to keep plenty of white space around your products so the image can be reformatted and resized with ease
GET ON THE MAP
One of mankind’s earliest wayfinding methods was following stars – and more recently, satellites have provided navigation information to our phones. Today, digital indoor wayfinding apps are being developed to help people reach not just the entrance to a store, but the department or even shelf they want, writes Joe Fernandes, founder and CEO of navigation platform BuzzStreets …
By JOE FERNANDES www.buzzstreets.com
Wayfinding is an important aspect of running a business – and here are three ways it can help boost yours:
1. Think basics Many businesses miss key details. Clear signage outside your business is obvious – but what about beyond your front door? By making it obvious to your customers that they are nearby, you reduce the risk of them becoming lost.
Finding a place of business quickly and easily creates a positive feeling of support and professionalism. Customers feel that they can rely on you to show them the way – it is the beginning of building trust. Trusted companies are more popular, and they do more business.
On your website, Facebook page or in a pinned Tweet (perhaps a thread), include a few directions about where people can park, which entrance to go through, as well as any details that might let them know they’ve reached the right place. You may even consider including photos to help reassure customers that they’ve gone the right way, since many people are visual learners. But don’t assume that everyone will be driving. Provide details of bus routes, stops to get off at, and the frequency of buses and trains.
2. Think community Supporting local businesses is important to many people, and you can use your wayfinding to highlight how connected you are to your local community – perhaps pointing out other local businesses or points of interest. This shows that you are integrated within and supportive of your community.
You could include images of the local pub or school on the corner, to let people know that they are close. These visual reminders are both useful and place your business within a wider community that will help customers feel secure, and that they are dealing with a knowledgeable, friendly brand.
Supporting other (non-competitive) businesses is another way of being helpful while showing that you champion your community. Tell them where the best place to get a coffee is, or where your staff tend to get the best lunchtime snacks. If there are any interesting points along the way, you could tell people a little about the history – be connected, friendly and informative.
3. Think indoors Wayfinding should not stop at your front door. Indoor wayfinding is especially important if you are situated within a shopping centre or are a concession within a larger store.
Using an indoor wayfinding system helps people find your business within these larger, more complex environments. Systems like BuzzStreets can also provide the best route – the quickest, the least busy or with fewest stairs. You could even point out useful places along the way, such as the nearest toilets or coffee shop inside the shopping mall.
An extra benefit of some indoor wayfinding systems is that you can gather additional anonymous data about your customers. You can discover where they entered an environment such as a shopping centre, what route they took, how long it took them, whether they missed the cafe because they took a different route, or which routes are most used. With this new data, you can ensure that people find you quickly and easily, where you might need to add signage, as well as understand the best placement for things like water coolers, toilets or concession stands
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TAKING CHARGE
The global supply chain crisis has impacted the furniture industry at every level – but how are consumers likely to react when faced with late deliveries and no-shows? In this article, Monica Eaton-Cardone, COO and cofounder of Chargebacks911, explains how damaging transaction reversals (or chargebacks) can be, and how they might be avoided …
IF CUSTOMERS CAN REQUEST
REFUNDS
By MONICA EATON-CARDONE www.chargebacks911.com
The world has a serious supply chain problem. It’s been reported on at length throughout the pandemic, with shipping issues and rising transport costs exerting significant pressure on the furniture industry.
The term ‘chain’ is important to remember, because what happens at one part of the chain has knock-on effects further down – and one of these effects is likely to be an increase in chargebacks. If customers aren’t getting the goods they order on time, many will initiate a chargeback, which will end up costing significantly more than a refund and could contribute to your company being charged more for every transaction.
The crisis started over two years ago as the pandemic started to impact major manufacturing centres, such as China. Factories at these locations had to shut down or slow down production, and the shipping companies who take their finished goods across the world similarly slowed down their operations in anticipation of less demand.
This period of decreased demand clogged up the international shipping system, with even the containers used to ship goods across the world being in short supply. The cost of shipping skyrocketed, and the sudden influx of ships overwhelmed the capacity of ports. What’s more, because of decades of lean, JIT logistics practices, there was little in the way of warehoused goods to fulfil demand – meaning that the crisis is still ongoing in many places.
How does this affect chargebacks? Furniture businesses that rely on shipping physical products to customers will have been affected by the supply chain crisis – domestic shipping has been affected by increased demand and a decreased number of delivery drivers. Inevitably, this means that customers have been getting their products later, or in some cases not at all.
Although many will contact merchants directly to resolve issues, some will simply initiate a chargeback. Technically speaking, these ‘goods not received’ chargebacks are only supposed to be used if merchants refuse to refund customers for goods that are not delivered – but too many consumers consider them a first-line solution to their problems, mainly because in most cases, chargebacks are highly likely to get their money refunded.
However, a surge of chargebacks can be devastating for furniture businesses, as they can be very costly – they also include fees levied by the acquiring bank and take time to process, particularly if you intend to dispute them.
Should your company receive enough chargebacks, your acquirer may decide that your company is risky and will therefore increase their processing fees, meaning that every transaction will cost more.
How can chargebacks be stopped? The first step is to offer robust, easyto-use package tracking for all your deliveries. Even if a delivery is running late, a customer will still be able to see it, and that should prevent a request for a refund or chargeback.
It is also important to make sure it is easy to request a refund for an item that doesn’t arrive. If customers can request refunds easily for the furniture they purchase, they will choose that option over the relatively more complicated process of initiating a chargeback, and although refunds aren’t ideal from a business standpoint, they are preferable to chargebacks
RESULTS DRIVEN
Three sofa retailers dominate the UK’s online search market – but where are they missing a trick, and what can other e-tailers learn from their approaches? Lucy Dodds, senior content strategist at Evolved Search, asks Google …
£37M A MONTH
By LUCY DODDS www.evolvedsearch.co.uk
As online sofa retailers recover from the volatility in traffic caused by the pandemic, many are preparing to maintain and grow their presence in Google Search.
With a lasting impact on brick-andmortar stores, consumer attitudes have shifted to buying products online which previously had a much stronger presence at stores – including sofas. With this change in attitude, online retailers must react. But this does not simply involve increasing rankings and growing their presence in Google – it is about developing lasting relationships with consumers and building trust so customers are willing to shop for something they previously would never have considered buying online.
Our Search Competitor Insight Report found that the market value of organic search clicks in the sofa sector is worth over £37m per month. However, three brands dominate the search engine results pages (SERPs) and hold more than 83% of that non-branded organic click value – DFS, Sofology and ScS.
As expected, the larger brands lead the way for highly competitive generic sofa and product category terms, although DFS is significantly contributed to by the site’s strong lead for sofabeds, holding a 60% market share – 1.5 x higher than the other 18 brands in our report combined. Sofology isn’t as strong for the generics, but consistently ranks in the top three positions for highvolume sofa product categories.
According to overall search visibility alone, Furniture Village is the highest performer. However, stripping away branded keywords shows an organic downturn, which coincides with a 2018 Google core update that focused on E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). Sites with poor-quality content were affected by this major algorithmic change, and it appears Furniture Village was impacted as a result.
Loaf.com is another site that has seen a significant drop in visibility since 2018 – a huge -55% decline – although we have seen more recent changes which could make it one to watch this year.
Our report found that almost all brands are missing out on key SERP features, including ‘Featured Snippets’. A study by Ahrefs says that the search query ‘answer box’ steals away a third of clicks that would normally go to the site in position one for that search term. However, only DFS, Sofology and Darlings managed to obtain more than two Featured Snippets.
In total, only 0.5% of Featured Snippets have been acquired by the sofa brands in our report, out of a total of 6577 opportunities. This is even more interesting when you consider that Featured Snippets are normally acquired through well-targeted, highquality content, and where a site has the correct technical implementation, indicating that even the largest brands are falling down in this area.
For other SERP feature opportunities, only Love Sofas has correctly implemented Rating Schema for around 200 rankings – which allows sites to display rating stars in the search results. conversionXL found that star ratings improve organic clicks by +35%, indicating that almost every site in the sofa industry is missing out.
Meanwhile, the Digital PR segment of our report shows that several sofa sites are subscribing to an outdated link acquisition strategy by poorly targeting topically relevant sites. Even larger high street names such as ScS are not acquiring relevant links on topical sources such as Apartment Therapy or Country Life. Surprisingly, Loaf is a leader here, having earned the most topically relevant links as well as other strong links from Tier 1 sites, mostly through proactive expert commentary and product PR.
Our CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) analysis of the industry shows that almost all brands could increase their organic traffic value by reducing PLT (Page Load Time). Several companies are losing out on a significant number of sales from lost traffic caused by a high PLT impacting the bounce rate of these sites – with one losing up to £220,000 worth of organic traffic due to a less-optimised PLT
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PURSUING HAPPINESS
The cost of living crisis is all around us, with many suffering more than they’d like to admit. Here, Sue Dean, welfare officer at industry charity The Furniture Makers’ Company, offers some advice on how to cope, and how institutions like hers can help …
DESTROYING
By SUE DEAN www.furnituremakers.org.uk/welfare
Everyone’s talking about it – the cost of living crisis. Mr Micawber, the fictional character from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, probably best summed up the effect of low income with his principle – annual income exceeding expenditure equals ‘happiness’ and household outgoings higher than income equals ‘misery’.
That’s what many are experiencing today. Misery. Even with the most prudent household budgeting, this crisis is going to challenge many. At The Furniture Makers’ Company, this is what I’m hearing, both from grant applicants and HR professionals in the industry.
Many describe this time as a perfect storm. Filling a family car is now exceeding £100, energy bills are at a record high, food, transport and supplies for industry all going up. The Office for Budget Responsibilities is forecasting the highest inflation in 40 years at +9% (forecast to go to +10% soon). Public service unions have been asking for wage rises in line with inflation, with the governor of the Bank of England requesting employees show ‘restraint’ when negotiating pay. For those on welfare benefits, the picture is even bleaker, as benefit uprating won’t keep up with inflation.
The reality is that the cost of living crisis is fuelling a sense of desperation. The temptation for many – especially low-income households – is to extend overdrafts and borrow. If the economic arguments were not enough, we have a public health crisis emerging. One in six are now making visits to food banks, 22% of children are now eligible for free school meals, and 14.5 million are living in poverty in the UK. There’s a recognised correlation between poverty and poor mental and physical health.
If all this is making you feel despondent, you’re not alone. One of the biggest public health concerns we have is our mental health. Struggling day in, day out to keep to a tight budget is soul destroying. It’s no wonder people on limited income face increased levels of anxiety and depression – reports suggest typical incomes will fall by £1000 over the coming year.
So that takes me back to Mr Micawber’s principle … if you’re feeling overwhelmed, here are some tips to help you though this crisis. Firstly, help is available, in the form of measures from central Government.
Next, my experience highlights to me the urgent need for people to build financial resilience into their household budgeting. The Money Charity has tools and advice to build financial resilience.
Look into whether you/your family are claiming the right benefits. Findings from Turn2us show there are £15b unclaimed welfare benefits annually. They and Citizens Advice have a benefits checker to see if you could apply.
And don’t forget your occupational charities, like ours. Requests for grants surged during the pandemic, in part due to the reduction in the perceived stigma associated with reaching out to a charity at a time when ‘we are all in this together’. Today’s crisis has similar connotations.
The Furniture Makers’ Company has been supporting the welfare of people working in the furnishing industry since 1903. We can provide various grants, depending on the person’s situation, to help alleviate financial hardship. If you’ve worked in the industry for two years or more and need advice or grants, then please get in touch.
We will come out of the crisis eventually, but it is going to take some time. Use this time to plan how you will manage your finances – you may be surprised by what you learn
INDUSTRY PARTNERS
Young Furniture Makers exhibition.
THIS MONTH, WE’RE ASKING …
Mike Murray (Land of Beds) We advertise the business locally through specific geo-targeted ads on Google, Bing and social media channels. These ads are served to customers within a specific radius of each store. The campaigns are tailored to the needs of local customers
Huw Williams (Toons Furnishers) Advertising is difficult because we sit on the edge of both the East and West Midlands. We use a mix of local radio and social media – I feel the days of newspaper and leaflet advertising are long gone
Steve Pickering (Sussex Beds) We market locally through a wide variety of media. Targeting our key demographic, each medium is tested and measured to ensure ROI is provided. Types of marketing employed are TV, press, radio and direct mail, mixed with modern digital media such as AdWords, email and social channels
Steve Adams (Mattress Online) We advertise on local radio and occasionally the printed media. More recently we have joined the local Chamber of Commerce, which has raised awareness of Mattress Online as a great employer and contributor to the local economy, in both Rotherham and Sheffield
HOW DO YOU MARKET YOUR BUSINESS LOCALLY?
Wendy Martin Green (Peter Green Furnishers) I am on the marketing team with my MD Mike Devey and our digital media manager, Iulia Pop. My daughter provides the artwork for us. We have a TV ad which is served to our target demographics and works very well for us, and we use various local radio stations quite heavily. In more recent years we have turned to social media, and we do very much less in the way of printed advertising now. We are a creative group, with marketing, writing and graphic skills – our ads are created in-house, and we seem to do very well with them. Most of all we enjoy it, and I think our listeners and readers can feel that
Royce Clark (Grampian Furnishers) We very much focus on direct mail combined with social media, and have stopped all our regular press and radio advertising. Our new building is situated on a busy main road, so our advertising spend has actually gone down due our prominent location
Peter Harding (Fairway Furniture) We use a full range of marketing media across our bricks-and-mortar trading area and online to a UK audience. TV, radio, direct mail, digital mail, social, online, sponsorships, doorstep, outdoor – they all play their part
Andy Stockwell (Gardiner Haskins) We’ve moved to a more digital-based marketing strategy since Covid. Social media is growing in importance, and we use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. We have even used a ‘social media influencer’ who lives locally and now appears on national TV. We have the obligatory listing on Google Maps and have a new website under development. We occasionally use local radio (we stopped using it for a while, but we had a jingle that really stuck in your head, and when we stopped using it many of our customers thought we had gone!). We also use local press and glossy magazines, though this is much less frequent than it used to be
BACK TO NATURE
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#394 July 2022
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