For independent grocers and the wholesalers that serve them

October 2010 Blog Posts (7)

From Day One, Progressive Grocer Covered the Independent Grocer

Hi All -

Here's a bit of nostalgia for you.... I found an electronic version of Progressive Grocer's first issue (dated January 1922) on Google books. While it was fascinating to explore PG's roots, what I found especially interesting was the topic of the first story in the first issue of PG.

But rather than tell you about it, let me just show you an image of the page:…

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Added by Joseph Tarnowski on October 30, 2010 at 11:56pm — 4 Comments

Price Chopper Halloween Pet Costume Contest

Find more photos like this on Independent Grocer… Continue

Added by Joseph Tarnowski on October 30, 2010 at 9:54pm — No Comments

Perhaps this is how Progressive Grocer editors should do product write-ups (More Dilbert)

This comic ran during the Dot-Com boom, when Red Herring published a 620-page issue and Internet-technology vendors were so desperate for ink (and had massive marketing budgets in the hands of twenty-somethings) that some publications may have taken advantage of it a bit.....

PG advertisers, aren't you glad our editors are an ethical bunch?

Retailers: Have local papers ever tried to strong-arm you this… Continue

Added by Joseph Tarnowski on October 23, 2010 at 12:50am — No Comments

Let's Socialize

It wasn't that long ago when we all had to sneak onto Facebook at the office — keeping the browser window small and ready to hide — as it was against most company policies to access social networks at the office. Indeed, many companies went so far as to block any access to these websites.

Now, spending time on these sites is part of my job. In fact, it's even in my official job description. In other words, now I'm expected to be on Facebook at work, as well as LinkedIn, Twitter,… Continue

Added by Joseph Tarnowski on October 22, 2010 at 6:30pm — No Comments

You're not the only one trying to figure out social media... (More Dilbert)

Added by Joseph Tarnowski on October 16, 2010 at 12:06am — No Comments

Promotion and Offer Effectiveness

Predicting the customer response from promotions and advertising continues to be a major headache for most retailers, making promotions much less effective than they should be. The increasing diversity of promotions be they BOGO's, price discounts, coupons, meal deals, loyalty points, staggered or tiered discounts, blind offers etc., makes the task of the Category/ Manager/ Buyer in predicting sales/profits much…

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Added by J Miguel Ganose on October 7, 2010 at 11:58am — No Comments

We're talking high tech here

Stay with me on this one: my thoughts will take an even more circuitous route than usual today.

In the high tech consumer goods industry, returns and restocks have been a major sore point for manufacturers and retailers alike, having a tremendous negative impact on margins. Consumers would purchase a product and not realize exactly what the product does, or not realize that in order to use this product they need to already have other hardware or software. What happens in these…

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Added by Eric Le Blanc on October 6, 2010 at 12:46pm — 1 Comment