The Rich Limited Retail Display Blog

It's becoming increasingly important to be conscious of our footprint on this planet, and retail fixtures are one area that has been somewhhat neglected. Nearly every display we sell breaks down for shipping, which means it also can be disassembled and submitted to the proper recycling repositories.

As an environmentally friendly company, Rich Limited is committed not only to giving our customers access to tools that will make it easier for them to recycle our products, but also other companies' wares. We think the best way to accomplish this is to work with local and national authorities to establish a reliable database for store owners and corporate partners to search for the nearest recycler that will accept old (in our customers' case, very old) retail fixtures.

The plan is to start locally, and slowly build a reliable grid based on demand. If this is something you'd be interested in, please visit the permanent link for this entry and leave us a comment.

The price of steel has been increasing by record amounts in the past months. In a study provided by the Ohio department of transportation, I saw that from April to May of this year the price of steel increased by 150 dollars a ton. To put that in perspective, consider that before that jump it had taken about two years to increase by that amount, from February '06 to January '08. The reason for the huge jump has been a couple things. First, the majority of the world's steel today is produced in China and India. In preparation for this year's Olympics, and as a result of the recent earthquakes, China has had to re-dedicate itself to internal infrastructure issues. What that means is that it's a lot harder to get your hands on steel, and if you're able to, you're going to have to pay a lot more for it.

Our industry is heavily affected by steel prices, and retail companies all across the nation are surely feeling the pinch of these raw material increases. Regardless of whether you do your manufacturing overseas or domestically, the price of raw materials has increased universally, seemingly as the economy has waned. Are you finding that steel prices are putting your business behind the 8-ball? We'd like to hear your story.

Recently, Rich Limited moved its U.S office. During the process I began thinking about what it means to move your business and when it's the right move. I think we made the right decision, but there are lots of people who debate with themselves whether it's the right idea. After all, it's a pretty big risk. Here are some questions and comments to consider if you're thinking about trading up:

1.) The size or layout of your space is limiting your potential profits - In our case we nearly doubled our warehouse space to about 50,000 sqare feet, which was a highly profitable move for us. But if you're a small business owner how much can you stand to improve profits in a larger space? If you think the result could be negligible it's certainly not worth moving. Moving is highly disruptive to business regardless of how organized you might be and should only be done if greener pastures are ahead.

2.) Preserving your customer base - In an article I read recently on Trio's Blog, I noticed a startling statistic. It said that 75% of consumers consistently shop at the same 1 or 2 stores when they're looking to buy. As a small business owner you don't have the selling power of a walmart or target, but you do have loyal customers that have grown accustomed to turning to you for certain goodies. Are you confident that this base is replaceable? How much downtime would you have? Will your customers be willing to make a drive? If you're unsure as the answers of these questions you should give serious thought to your moving plans.

3.) Adding a branch vs. moving - If you're confident in your brand and you have the revenue there's no better investment in your business than adding another store. Instead of giving up on a good thing, consider whether you have the time and energy to coordinate the opening of another store. The obvious benefit here is your income won't freeze during building, meaning you can help offset the pricetag during construction.

4.) Don't rush it - Moving too early is one of the biggest mistakes small businesses make. It doesn't make sense to spend revenue on a larger space if that money could better serve to increase your profitability. I would always reccomend erring on the side of safety. If you think it's time for a change, 9 times out of 10 the best move is to streamline your business and re-invest in something revenue-generating.

Many retailers already see the benefit in bringing their business to the web: exposure, a hands-off selling environment, and an overall different way to interact with your customers. Yet despite these facts, there are many store owners who haven't yet taken the leap. If you're a store owner that's just starting to look into what it might take to sell your products on the web, here's your roadmap.

1. Do the research - go to Google, and type in a query that relates to the kind of product you sell. What kind of results come up? Who is selling your product? If it's Walmart or Target, you're going to have to consider creative ways to bring your product to market . If you're seeing smaller boutiques and store owners coming up as results, there's a good chance you'll be able to compete. Browse some of the sites, and start to get a feel for how you'd be different and would offer a shopper a different experience.

2.Consider The Investment - This is the step that stops most people, but it shouldn't discourage you. Any step you take to improve your revenue is a good one, and in the information age it's critical to have exposure on the net. There are any number of ways to figure out the best way for you to get a site up and running. The most popular way nowadays is by putting the project out to bid. The best way to get some idea for how much your project will cost is to create an account on elance . After creating and activating your account, you can create a project. Be sure to include every detail of what you'd be looking for. Set your budget, and see the bids roll in. As they do, you'll be able to view each bidder's portfolio of work, browse past references, and get some idea of what you'll expect to spend for a good site.

If you'r e the do-it-yourself type, there are options for you. Yahoo Merchant Solutions offers an easy to use shopping cart. You pay a monthly fee, and they supply you with the site and a shopping cart. One thing to consider before committing to a solution like this is the fact that website builders don't build search engine friendly sites. If you're planning on climbing to the top of the search engines, it makes sense to invest in a professionally built site. .

3. Buy An Internet Property - Once you're settled on building a site, it's time to look for a domain name. This is the.com, .net, or .biz name you want your site to have. The internet is a saturated market, so there's a good possibility that the domain name you want is not available. Go to GoDaddy and type a possibility into the domain search field. If your domain isn't avaliable, GoDaddy will recommend other similar names that could work. Domain names that contain keywords related to the searches your customers will be performing have a tendency to perform better in the search engines. Consider this when looking for a domain. If you find one you like, buy it. They're only $8.99 for a year. Now you have that domain ready and waiting for when your store is ready to go. When it's time to renew it in a year, make sure you do so or it'll be placed back in the general population where anyone can purchase it.

That's about it for now. If you've put a project out to bid, wait for the results to come in. I'll discuss what you can do to help make yourself more visible to searchers in my next post.

When you're a webmaster, SEO, or both, you need a dependable arsenal to assess the competition and track your own progress. Here are 5 tools that you have to have to make your life easier. I couldn't imagine working without them.

1.) Mozilla Developer's Toolbar - This is the most obvious on the list. If you're a web developer you have to have a way to easily view source code, measure things, or see the javascript on a page for example. This tool is also quite helpful for CSS, but not as helpful as my next tool.

2.) Firefly - By far the best CSS debugging tool out there. Don't be confused after installing - you did actually install it. Look to the botton right corner of your browser window and you'll see a little green arrow. Once you get in firefly you'll understand why it's so helpful.

3.) SEOpen - This is the best SEO toolbar out there right now. Track backlinks at all the major search engines, get WHOIS information on any site you're considering linking to, or see which of your pages the search engines have indexed.

4.) Rank Checker - An awesome tool if you don't want to sit around and perform searches on your own keywords. Simply type in a domain and a keyword or phrase and sit back while rank checker grabs that term's current standing in every major search engine. Also save queries that are important to your business to be able to run them at the click of a button. Warning: This tool easily leads to obsessive compulsive rank checking. I'm currently easing myself off the medicine.

Lastly, I wanted to touch on Google's toolbar and the obsession some webmasters have with it. I'll start by saying this: I have google toolbar, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't glance at a site's page rank once in a while. However, it's important to understand what exactly you're looking at when you do that because depending on when you do, you could be looking at data that's up to three months old. It's common knowledge that Google assigns a Page Rank to every page it visits based on Larry Page's treatise. What's less known is what some Googlers have been quoted as saying about PR. Matt Cutts, head of Google's Spam team, was once quoted as saying that page rank was a fun thing Google assigned to keep themselves entertained. So the next time you consider linking to a site, consider this: The data you're seeing isn't current, Page Rank does not consider other important factors like Trust Rank and domain age, and the best way to evaluate a site's worthiness for linking is by browsing it a little bit and determining if it offers valuable content, performing a search to see where it ranks for the keywords it's attempting to target, and seeing if other reputable sources are linking to it. In the end, assessing those features will be much more beneficial to your linking strategy.

Recently Dodge announced a promotional offer that caught many retailers' eyes. The auto giant is promising buyers who purchase a vehicle within the designated period will only pay $2.99 a gallon for their gasoline for 3 years or 12,000 miles. The offer comes at a time when most drivers are paying around 4 dollars a gallon for gas, and many are now paying up around $4.40. Auto sales have slowed as gas prices have soared, so it was only a matter of time before manufacturers began to incentivize purchases more. Aside from their customer base, Dodge's message has been resonating with store owners and larger retailers who see their sales slowing and consumers' budgets contracting, despite recent reports that many areas of retail have remained stronger than anticipated during the slowdown. This begs the question: How can store owners effectively incentivize buyers during a slowdown without jeopardizing their profitability? Dodge is clearly seeing the big picture here: customers are customers. Granted, I'm sure they have some pretty verifiable evidence that gas prices will dip below $3.00 before long. Following Dodge's example, start to ask yourself these questions: What calls to action can you make to help you increase conversion rates? What sense of urgency can you instill in your customers? More customers means more sales - Does it make sense to step up my advertising efforts, rather than tighten up my budget during a slowdown?

RICH LTD. has moved it's U.S. Headquarters! After more than 5 years in our Carlsbad, CA location, we have moved to a brand new 47,000 square foot building in Oceanside, CA. Our new facility features a state-of-the-art distribution center with 12 docks and 26 ft. clearance for maximum storage and shipping efficiency, a larger office space to accommodate our growing design and customer service teams, a dedicated show room, and a product development workshop. We are located just minutes from the 5 Freeway and just about 30 minutes north of downtown San Diego. Please visit our contact page for our up to date contact information.

Recently, in a an article I read in Time magazine, the company touched on how the continued development of self-service technology will eventually lead to customer service representatives becoming obsolete. Self service technologies are of particular interest to retailers because they have been shown to cut costs, improve conversion rates, and make in-store service more efficient. In my mind then, there are two questions. 1.) Why isn't everyone going to self-service and 2.) What options are really avaliable?

The answer to the first question can't be lack of awareness. Everyone has encountered self-service at one point in their lives, and many of us see it on a daily or weekly basis. When I lived on the east coast it was hard to find a grocery store without at least a couple aisles of self-service checkouts. Whether or not I used it was another case, but I found that when the store was especially busy I would much rather use it than wait. If you travel, you're probably quite familiar with the self-service check-ins at every major airport. So if retailers know it's successful and see other companies doing it, why aren't they getting onboard? The answer has to be cost.

But as these methodologies become more mainstream, it will be hard to ignore the obvious potential of this growing field. Self-checkouts are just the tip of the iceberg for a market with unlimited potential. Walking the halls of the 2008 self-service expo at Mandalay Bay a couple weeks ago, I couldn't help but be impressed with what's avaliable. Among the most impressive were touch screen technologies used both at the point of purchase and within the store, dynamically loaded digital signage content for in-store promotions, and self-service gift card creators. As someone who loves technology I found all this stuff fascinating, but I can't help but wonder if any of our readers find it objectionable. I like interacting with flesh and blood as much as the next guy, but if it's less efficient can we really expect businesses to continue employing customer service employees? We'd love to hear your comments.

One of the most popular questions in web forums is how to create an e-mail form. Since I feel like this is one area of development that is under-represented online, and also because many of our customers are small business owners that hold operations/webmaster/sales/customer service positions all day every day, I decided to do something about it.

This script allows you to create a customized e-mail form that you or your web designer can use immediately and more importantly, for free. It generates the html of the form, the php script you'll use to send the form input to yourself or someone else, and the javascript needed to validate the form so users are required to fill out certain fields. It's okay if what I just said sounds like complete jibberish to you - all you have to do is copy + paste the generated code in the right places. We swear, we tried it! The breakdown on the next page will explain in more detail how you will use this information to get your form up and running. Simply get started below. *Note: We do not collect e-mail addresses.

First let's iron out your e-mail information: (This is where the form information will be sent after someone fills it out)

E-mail address where you want the form contents sent:

What should the subject of the e-mail to be when you receive it?

Now select the fields that you want to include in the form itself. (This is what types of information you want to collect from your visitors. For example, if I want to create a form that asks for my visitors name, e-mail address, and a message, I would check the first three options.)

E-mail

Right On.

Name

Comments/Message

How do you want to label your comments field? (Ex. "Message To The Webmaster", or "Site Feedback")

Label other than "submit" on the submit button?

Spell it out for us.

There's no arguging that one of the best ways to separate yourself as a retailer is by having more attractive displays than the competition. More often than not the most stimulating displays are custom designs, which means they are designed specifically for a customers product, budget, and brand. There will always be a market for custom designs for the aforementioned reasons, but one of the things customers are beginning to expect is that products look custom despite being stock. Creating a stock display with the intangibles of a custom rack can be a pretty daunting task for a designer. This is because when you stylize something too much, you can turn off a huge portion of your potential clientele. The converse is also true; if something is too boring, it'll never get the attention it needs to be successful. Take a look at a couple of the racks we've designed over the years that I believe walk the fine line between custom and stock. Each of these displays become a custom display the second you slap any type of graphic on them, which is something we can very easily accomplish for our customers.

There's no telling what the future holds for the retail world, but one thing is for sure: Consumers always respond better to a display that appears to relate to the product, and that's something that retailers will continually expect to see more of as time goes on. As for why it's important that customers have a choice, there are a number of reasons customers would prefer stock displays to custom, which Dan touches on in this post, so I won't get into it here.

Everyone at Rich Limited works long hours, and as web director I'm no exception. As a result I have to get creative if I want to find time to work on personal projects. Since early last month I've found that the only way to make real progress is by getting up early and working on freelance or personal websites for an hour or two before I start getting ready for work. On monday, I decided it was time to start paying some attention to an e-commerce site I started developing in college called eFuncion, which sells event tickets to spanish speakers. The site has been pretty successful in converting orders, but I never spent any time on link-building so the traffic is pretty mediocre. I decided it was time to do so, and was ready to invest a little money in it since I think it's a promising idea.

So where did I go? That's right, I went to business.com and started considering a directory listing. I hunted down a category that I thought was relevant to my buyer's interests which ended up being Directory > Media & Entertainment > Music > Tickets. As anchor text, I used the term "boletos", the spanish word for tickets. I also entered a sentence long description of the site's services. About 8 hours later, business.com sent me an e-mail informing me that my submission had been rejected because my listing's anchor text wasn't relevant enough to the category in which it had been submitted.

Since I'm stubborn, I logged back in and started considering a new submission when I noticed something that looked different than it had the day before. To the right of the first field, I saw the following:

Just in case you're saying "It's been at that price for a while now", I logged into my bank account to see the charge they had levied on my account for my submission the day before, and saw this.

So basically, one of three things happened. a.) Business.com had decided overnight that they weren't charging enough for such a relevant backlink. b.) They sat down and decided they were worth the same amount as Yahoo's Directory. or c.)They realized that although the economy is slow right now, their customers will still pay the $300 required to get a listing

I'm guessing all three are true, and they'd be right in assuming each of those points. I doubt very much that business.com will lose many customers over this slight bump in price because they're one of only two directories that google has given the proverbial "nod". I should be angry because I basically lost $100 (assuming I do resubmit), but instead I feel more amused than anything. The only other question I have for business.com is "What took you so long?".

Today as I was browsing the sunglass display area of our site, I came across a display that I've been meaning to write a post about for a long time. Every time I come across it, I'm reminded of the same thing: Appearance is everything in retail. Put simply, a retail display is a representation of the product it carries. The most attractive product being displayed on a home-made, or ill-constructed rack will always sell less than an average product on a custom design. An eye grabbing display demands more attention, makes your product look better, and greatly increases your conversion rates. Additionally, when you consider the fact that a well made display offers more longevity and durability, you start to see why it's a sound business decision. Like any other investment you make in your business, it never makes sense to buy a lesser product to save a few dollars in the short term. Below is the display I am referring to, my favorite sunglass display, our 120 Link. It's a great example of a display that has proven it's value at every level of retail and always leaves a great impression on the customer.

Here’s a glorifier design we did for a Dr. Scholl’s foot spa. The purpose of this product glorifier is to allow customers to interact with the product directly. Sacrificing one unit and a little extra dough on a glorifier fixture is almost always an excellent investment. The materials specified were plastic and MDF.

Ever since the currency peg was removed in mid-2005, the Chinese RMB has been steadily depreciating against the US Dollar. This is making goods bought in China in RMB more expensive for us in the USA because the US Dollar is worth less in China. China’s foreign trade is growing rapidly every year. In 2006, China's exports to America had a total value of USD 203.47 billion, up 24.9% year-on-year. As prices in China rise due to the currency deflation, prices in the USA increase as well. This leads to price inflation in every industry that is supplied by Chinese imported goods. Further depreciation of the RMB is expected and forecasted due to an influx of exchange traded funds (ETFs) that are being created to hedge against further currency profit on the RMBs appreciation.

If you are working at a company reliant on Chinese imports, what efforts are you making to hedge against this downwards trend?

Morgan Stanley Launches Chinese And Indian Currency Exchange - Traded Notes

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080317/20080317005907.html

Projected 1yr return 8% (this implies a depreciation of the USD of 8%)

The below graphs have been generated by Google Finance.

Working as a retail webmaster is one of the most difficult jobs a web programmer encounters. Particularly within a smaller company, all eyes are on you to convert more sales and boost traffic. For many small companies a web presence can either be a make or break situation, which can make a webmaster's job particuarly stressful. Since its impossible to please everyone, there are a couple of rules you should follow to make your transition into the retail world a little smoother and help guarantee you longevity wherever you are. I've listed them in order of importance, but try to keep them in the back of your mind as time goes on.

1 - Establish Relationships

We all know that web guys are portrayed as the geeks that trip over their own shoelaces on the way to the water cooler. You can't be that guy. If you're new to the company you need to establish and maintain relationships that relate to your eventual goals, which are online success, increased revenue, and job stability. I'm always trying to keep my co-workers up to date with things that are going on in my area of the company, even if it means a little confusion at first. You'll find that trying to include people as much as possible will generate a more positive result than sitting in your cubicle and trying to save the world with every strike of a key. It also lets people know that you're a team player and that you're in this together for better or worse. This is crucial because results can sometimes be so hard to achieve on the web. If you have patient people behind you that are up to date with what you're doing and well versed in your action plan, you're much more likely to be given the time to produce the results you know you can.

2 - Always Generate Ideas, But Stay Involved In The Process

Ideas are great. They keep us motivated to make improvements and strive for continual growth. And while ideas are important and worth writing down in your notebook, you can never lose sight of your short and long-term goals. Every day when I get into the office I write down my three most important tasks for the day. They always relate to my eventual goal (unparalleled internet dominance), and at least one of them relates to a goal that I promised myself I would complete a couple of months ago. This might be adding a product to our website, or making a product description more clear, or keeping our meta tags fresh, etc. You have to stay involved with these things. Being a successful retail webmaster means finding that perfect harmony between idealistic goal-setting and nitty gritty process orientation.

3 - Leverage Yourself

If you're the only one working on your site, you have to learn to leverage yourself via technology. This means doing things that can make it easy for you to stay connected, propagate change, and move forward all at the same time. As it pertains to your site itself, whenever you can take 30 minutes to write a script that will save you 10 minutes every day, you're effectively leveraging yourself and your abilities. Also really consider the way you handle things like e-mail and inter-office chit chat. There's no reason you should be opening every e-mail as it arrives, especially if you're in javascript up to your ears. Taking the time to finish each task as it comes will a.) Make you more productive b.) Help elminate stress and c.) Allow you to make continual progress towards all your goals. Also, get yourself a pda, dude.

4 - Evaluate Yourself And Your Progress Every Month or Two:

I think it's crucial to be your own judge. Since I'm responsible for our SEO as well, I knew that I needed a way to check up on myself every month to make sure I was on track. As such, my second month on the job I created a uniquely named recurring report named the "Monthly SEO Report". Granted, you should be on top of your analytics every morning as you drink your coffee. Nevertheless, I've found that seeing all the information on a couple of pages really helped me evaluate where I stood in relation to my overall goals. On top of that, the reaction in the office was great. Everyone was happy to know where we stood, even if they didn't understand all the technical jargon. If you'd rather not give a powerpoint on your progress every 30 days, find a way to keep people connected with what you're doing even if they don't do the same for you.

5 - Be Active In Other Areas Of The Company

Just because you're the webmaster doesn't mean you can't offer your opinion on a sales process or operational decision. Letting the people around you know that your value extends past the cybersphere is important for your place in the company. Don't get me wrong - you shouldn't be peaking around every corner waiting for an opportunity to interject. But if you're asked, don't be afraid to give your honest opinion. Don't let yourself get pidgeon-holed as the web guy. Make yourself relevant.

6 - Work Your Butt Off, But Achieve Balance

We all read the stories last week about the string of bloggers who died from being too addicted to their own success. Many of us share their passion, but you have to be able to stop. Like any job, you could stay at work all day and night if you had to. But without balance, those long hours will be spent in vain. If you feel like you've been working too hard, make it a point to leave a at a certain time. If you have trouble doing that, make a date with a friend that you'd feel terrible dissapointing. You'll find that once you get out of the office you'll start to see things more clearly anyway, and you'll have a clearer plan of action to get back at it in the morning.

On March 7, the California Air Resources Board finalized a new production standard for formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products. This CARB regulation is the toughest production standard on formaldehyde emissions in the world. The wood products covered by this new standard include particleboard, MDF, and hardwood plywood. The first stage of its implementation is January 1, 2009

[ Any manufacturer, foreign or domestic, producing products for sale or use in California will be governed by the new rule. ]

Are you a business that will be affected by this new law? I am interested to know how your operations are going to change.

CARB Press Release

http://www.retailenvironments.org/images-newsletter/CARBpr.pdf

Quick reference Guide:

http://www.retailenvironments.org/images-newsletter/CARBGuide.pdf

Fact Sheet:

http://www.retailenvironments.org/images-newsletter/CPA_FactSheet.pdf

CARB’s website

http://www.arb.ca.gov