Pollo Campero teams up with retail giant Wal-Mart to expand its reach to the nation's growing Hispanic population. Wal-Mart already customizes some aisles to sell culturally attuned products to its large Hispanic customer base. The retail giant hopes that the addition of Pollo Campero will be another reason for customers to keep coming back to Wal-Mart.

Pollo Campero hopes to have more than 20 Wal-Mart locations across the country by the end of 2009.

While many retailers are cutting back on store openings and closing down underperforming stores, Steve & Barry’s is on an expansion roll. How do they do it?

No advertising
Steve & Barry's does not advertise. They also don't sell anything through the internet or catalog.

Keep costs and price tags low while maintaining quality
Steve & Barry's started an $8.98 price tag promotion during the holidays and has continued on with the promotion because of the slow economy.

Keep corporate expenses at a bare minimum
Steve & Barry's says office chairs cost about $20 each at their corporate headquarters

For more information, read this article Cheap and chic fuels Steve & Barry

Studies conducted by J.D. Power and Associates, mentioned in Marketing Daily, show that overall customer satisfaction with the wireless retail sales experiences has steadily decreased since 2006 and has reached its lowest level since 2005. Power’s measured overall customer satisfaction based on four factors: sales staff, store display, store facility, and price/promotion. Approximately 51% of those surveyed said sales staff was the most important factor of overall customer satisfaction. Those surveyed felt that sales associates did not posses enough knowledge about the products being offered.

With highly technical products, customers look to sales associates for guidance and recommendations therefore it is extremely important in the wireless retail industry for sales associates to stay up to date with product offerings.

A recent study by Mindset Media and Nielsen Online found that organic buyers are 153% more open to new experiences such as trying new foreign foods. The study also found out that affluence was not a major factor when it came to buying organic. It seems that buying organic is more a state of mind, not a “state of wallet”. Read more about this study here.

As mentioned in the WSJ article, The War on Returns, the U.S. electronics industry spent $13.8 billion to re-box, restock, and resell returned products in 2007. Only 5% of returns were due to defective products. The remaining 95% of products returned were due to reasons such as buyer’s remorse or not understanding how the product worked. With the economy slowing down, retailers and manufacturers are paying closer attention to decrease customer returns.

How are retailers decreasing returns?

Simple Instruction Booklets: Rather than providing lengthy information packets, manufacturers are offering simpler guides which help consumers get up and running faster with less hassle and confusion.

Personalize Products: Manufacturers such as Sony offer engraving services which makes it harder for consumers to bring back the product.

Extra Service: Retailers such as Best Buy’s Geek Squad offer in-home technical service. Rather than customers returning a product due to installation frustration, they can utilize a service such as Geek Squad.

Returns & Customer Lifetime Value

Studies show that a quarter of people who return an item do not buy that same brand again. Moreover, 14% of such people will unlikely buy from the retailer again. With the current economic state, manufacturers & retailers need to pay closer attention to returns as reducing product returns will help improve the bottom line; however, studies show that returns do impact future sales as well. Reducing return rates now can have long term positive effects as well.