Forecasting is Efficient Planning

Most companies must-haves are good planning and inventory management, this not only applies to retailers, but is also being highly implemented all across different corporate and small business spectrum.  Since overstocking or understocking let say, tissue papers for the company's restrooms, can mean either additional monthly cost above budget if the purchaser overbought these tissues that can be good for 6 months stocks, or lets say for understocking, immediate needs that would require having to purchase to fill in the vacuum of insufficient stocks and this can also arise another additional cost of buying retail to fill the immediate needs rather than buying it on a wholesale price.

Today, I wanna discuss the importance of forecasting, Different companies call the process of forecasting the need for future goods or services different things, demand-forecast, sales forecasting, product forecasting, business planning. No matter what terms are used, market demand, market potential and sales forecasting are inextricably tied together by virtue of the end result - knowing what, how much and when consumers want to purchase goods or services., the ultimate aim is to have cost-savings for the company and result in a more fluid, cost-effective and if not appropriate budgeting.

Market Demand

Demand reflects the willingness of a consumer to purchase a good or service. Market demand reflects the willingness of all consumers within a given market to purchase a good or service. Companies spend millions of dollars on software and experts to help them predict or forecast market demand. Companies forecast market demand because it fluctuates and has an unstable nature. If every company knew exactly how many people would buy a given product or service, the need to forecast market demand would evaporate.

Market Potential

One company selling widgets in a certain market has a certain percentage of that market’s total sales volume. The maximum number of widgets sold by every company that sells widgets in that same market comprises the market potential for widgets in that market. Market potential refers to the maximum sales volume of any given product or service in a given market before the product or service reaches market saturation.

Sales Forecasting

Sales forecasting refers to the process by which a company attempts to predict future market demand of a product or service. Companies typically use historical sales data to predict future market demand. Problems can occur with blindly using historical sales data as a forecast input because at times it does not parallel actual market demand.

Demand vs. Sales

For example, a furniture company makes a very popular dining room set but has constant production issues in manufacturing. Because of these issues, it cannot keep up with demand for the product. At the end of the year, the historical sales data show the company sold 5,000 of the dining room sets between September and December, but the historical sales data misses a vital piece of the demand equation: It doesn’t show the 2,500 dining room sets people came into the store to buy but couldn’t because the company could not produce the goods in time. The additional 2,500 potential sales make the actual market demand 7,500 units (5,000 sold + 2,500 missed sales). If the dining room continued to sell at its current rate and the company only used the 5,000 units as an input to forecast the future market demand, the forecast would fall short during the same time period next year because it does not reflect the actual market demand of 7,500 units. The result leads to loss sales and revenue.

Considerations

Despite being called "sales forecasting," the goal remains forecasting future market demand. This becomes more difficult when trying to forecast new goods or services and the market potential for these new products. Many different forecast methods exist for determining market potential, but as with all forecasts the result is inherently wrong. Whether forecasting market demand or market potential, using clean, accurate and relevant data--human and system-generated--gets the forecasting process off to a good start.

Category Management Strategies

Traditional category management is an old concept in a brave new world. Retailers need a new solution as they enable the level of differentiation necessary to attract consumers with an ever-grow­ing number of shopping alternatives.

Merchants need a better way to create differenti­ated customer experiences, build solid category strategies, design compelling assortments, plan productive planograms, and efficiently price and promote to the market—and they need it now. Enabling all this will, in most of today’s retailers, require changes to processes tools and organiza­tional structures. It also means better connecting existing processes, and bringing together disparate parts of an organization like never before to deliver a seamless customer experience.

Today, successful category management encom­passes a broader set of capabilities than in the past, including: category role and strategy, macro space allocation, financial budgeting, assortment plan­ning, planogramming, price optimization, private brand development, promotion and event plan­ning, and joint business planning with vendors. 

In addition to an expanded functional footprint, the beginning and end of the processes a category manager needs to manage have expanded. Many are now defining this work as spanning from the initial development of the category strategy and role, through to the completed reset of the store shelf and online assortment. This is a much wider view of the world than what category management traditionally included, and creates a big part of the challenge.

Leading retailers are already planning for the changes and tools needed to integrate these capabilities and define new ways of planning and managing categories, and these efforts are paying dividends. Retailers such as Target, Kroger and Walmart have seen impressive results from re­vamping category management, including a 2% to 4% increase in sales, a 2% to 3% increase in margin and a 10% to 15% increase in inventory productivity.

But despite these positive efforts, most retailers remain stuck in the past, partially due to fatigue from traditional category management. And even those who have addressed parts of the issue would benefit from a more sophisticated approach. Leading retailers will invest in holistic changes to their processes, tools, organization and culture to enable a necessary shift in the way they plan and manage categories.

Tackling these historical inefficiencies and problems requires addressing seven key facets.

1. Real customer centricity—walk a mile in your customer’s shoes

Today, many retail organizations are far less customer-centric than they claim to be. But in the modern retailer-customer relationship, the customer holds all the cards, and the retailer can’t afford to be anything but hyper-attentive to her expectations. As a result, everyone throughout the organiza­tion—including everyone involved in the category management process—needs to have a laser focus on the consumer and her needs and wants at all times. Creating truly compelling products and customer experiences should be the common thread linking all parts of the organization and category management process.

Leading organizations are going about this in several ways. Some, like Hy-Vee and Lowe’s, are creating the position of chief customer officer to drive customer-focused improvements across channels and functional groups. Others are taking a closer look at loyalty and social media data to understand how their core customers shop their stores and identify opportunities to capture share by satisfying unmet needs. For example, consider a retailer who found that a key customer segment shopped only 20% of their basket with that retailer across four categories. By taking a customer-centric approach, the retailer was able to identify catego­ries in which the needs of that customer were going unmet and exploit that gap to increase basket ownership to 40% across 10 categories.

2. True integration—you’re probably not as integrated as you think

Highly siloed organizations—within functional groups and across channels—have led to processes choked by a series of handoffs and put category management, and ultimately the customer experi­ence, at risk of falling victim to a game of telephone. Given the breadth of processes that need to be successfully orchestrated to improve category management, handoffs must be effective and efficient. In other words, integration is key. This means removing handoffs wherever possible, and when not possible, ensuring everything is done to make them as smooth as possible. Process and organizational design can provide some relief here by carefully considering what can be lost in translation.

However, integrated systems are providing the biggest benefits in tackling these challenges. Software plat­forms have made significant gains in the past 10 years to expand the functionality required to span the gaps between planning, execution and functional areas. Traditional supply chain solutions now offer tools to plan space, assortments and financials, and conversely, planning suites are expanding into supply manage­ment. These tools have fundamentally changed how processes are executed and have made syncing data, timing and weighing tradeoffs much simpler. But they’re big, expensive and can stress organizations ill-equipped to manage this magnitude of change. Adoption is picking up, but slowly.

3. Strong category strategies—if it’s not strategic, it’s not a strategy

Today, many category strategies are lacking neces­sary consumer insights and are ultimately not linked back into the category management process in an efficient way. Developing a strong category strategy takes a well-crafted process in which a wide array of data inputs drive unique insights, which narrow in on a set of opportunities and thereby define required initiatives and potential benefits. The process should culmi­nate in a game plan for the category that defines the steps, required investments, and expected finan­cial or operational benefits. As category manage­ment has grown in breadth and sophistication, it has driven up the need for a robust go-to-market strategy the team can rally around and cascade across support teams. Successfully cascading category strategies starts with defining each category’s role within the portfo­lio. It’s also important to coordinate strategies and tactics related to assortment, pricing, promotions and placement across channels, and categories and functions and financial plans should be tied to category-level targets, providing a means for measuring success.

Throughout this wide array of processes—from financial budgeting to planogramming, in-store execution and marketing—it’s critical that the consumer can identify the strategy as it was intend­ed. For example, the value presented in a pricing strategy—competitiveness, brand consistency and value—needs to be aligned with the products that make up that product line—good, better, best. If these are disjointed, the value proposition is muddled, the customer will be confused, and the experience falls flat.

4. Clean, accurate data—it’s true what they say about garbage in

Retailers are awash in an ever-growing flood of data and information, but many are not positioned to use it to its fullest. For example, while most organizations have a data quality strategy in place, 94% suspect the data is inaccurate in some way, according to Experian. Accuracy is clearly a signifi­cant hurdle to many organizations’ abilities to harness analytics to drive decision making and improve the customer experience.

Getting the most out of all this data also means integrating it across the business, providing one version of the truth across integrated planning processes and connecting the dots across channels, categories and competitors to develop a true picture of the consumer’s needs and behavior. This includes a better understanding of past perfor­mance and consumer needs than currently exists for most retailers. Retailers who can achieve this soon will hold a tremendous competitive advantage, as only 37% of retailers currently have a contact data quality strategy in place that supports a single view of the customer, according to Experian.

5. Actionable insights—in the end, you have to do something

Ensuring the data is accurate and integrated is only half the battle—retailers are also challenged to derive actionable insights from that data and use it to drive smart decision making. Many organi­zations don’t devote enough time to this important exercise. As a rule of thumb, category manage­ment teams spend 80% of their time gathering and organizing data and only 20% of their time using it to develop actionable insights. Plus, insights are often supplier focused—as they provide much of the data—at the expense of the retailer’s customer experience and loyalty.

To really unlock value from their data, retailers first need to create a centralized analytics team that can identify and develop core insights for category teams. Secondly, these insights should be organized into three key categories—customers, clusters and channel; we call these lenses. The first lens, customers, prioritizes using data to figure out how to influence key customer segments. The second lens, clusters, focuses on harnessing demographic and consumer data to develop store clusters that require similar go-to-market strategies. Finally, the channel lens helps address the growing omnichannel challenge as click-and-collect and delivery models expand.

The key is to derive insights with an eye toward decision making and action. Organizing, funneling and interpreting data requires the correct structure and people to make it work efficiently.

6. Localization and personalization—how will you manage expanding complexity?

One of the industry’s biggest mandates is develop­ing personalized and pervasive relationships with customers across channels—one-to-one retailing. Consumers expect to be recognized and treated as individuals, and those expectations are spurring significant changes to all aspects of retail opera­tions. Modern category management is tasked with “assorting to the individual,” whether that’s an individual consumer or an individual store. Localized and customized pricing is the first push for many retailers, including Target, Kroger and Staples, which recently made news with its sophisticated pricing system that changes online pricing based on a customer’s proximity to competitors’ stores.

But this focus on granularity will also drive other changes. In assortment planning it will mean a continued evolution from national to regional to store-level, and finally, to individually curated assortments and experiences across channels. In space management, retailers will need to switch from a “one-size-fits-all” standardized approach to a store-level approach that’s flexible enough to allow localized adjacencies and shelf and product arrangements. And of course, marketing, promo­tions and pricing will change as well, as all move from a market-based approach to one that’s highly dynamic and individualized. These shifts will mean an exponential increase in complexity as increas­ingly granular decisions need to be made across more and more stores, customers, channels, func­tional areas and processes. While tools and systems will relieve the burden of computational work and coordinating decisions, this increasing granularity will require a significant redesign of key processes and organizations.

7. Clear roadmap—manage and measure progress

Of course, fixing so many problems won’t be a cinch, and benefits require investment. 

The neces­sary changes span many processes and organiza­tional silos—and we’ve seen that one cannot be optimized without making improvements to another. Additionally, modern category management can add operational complexity that will need to be supported by enablers such as new process, tools and organizational structures.

Organizations that are able to successfully trans­form their category management processes will start with a clear vision, multiyear roadmap, and consensus and commitment among key leaders across functions. The new approach to category management will also require new tools—with considerable data needs—and new processes and organizational change, both of which come with significant cultural implications. Starting small will help prove out the value opportunities, while a focus on change management will ensure that new ways of thinking take root. Finally, focusing on set­ting and measuring key metrics helps demonstrate benefits and build accountability and ownership.

Although it’s not easy, transforming category man­agement is quickly becoming necessary. As more and more retailers start to address bits and pieces of the issue—78% of retailers plan to revamp their category management processes, according to RSR— those who pull it off now will be well positioned for what the future holds. Meanwhile, those who stand still run the risk of watching their customers jump ship for retailers who are proactively improving their category management capabilities to be more cus­tomer-focused, integrated and analytically driven.

CASE STUDY: HOLISTIC CATEGORY MANAGEMENT

Issue: A large, multiregional North American grocer struggled with flat or declining sales for several years—the result of a hypercompetitive market, rising supply chain costs and intense margin pressure from a heavy reliance on discounts and promotions.

Solution: The grocer built customer-centric clusters based on key demographic data to inform localized assortments and implemented leading assortment planning capabilities to build these assortments. They also established a robust and easily repeatable category strategy development process supported by robust analytics. Finally, a new space planning organization and tools helped the retailer build better planograms optimized to inventory turns.

Result: Sales increased 2% to 4% for pilot categories across stores, and that was with only 10% to 15% of each cluster’s assortment differentiated from the core assortment.

Economic Importance of Bio-Fuel

The constant oil prices increase in the world market is something that has been affecting many world economies as well as local products and services.  Rising cost has been a deterrent to economic growth and tempers the business communities especially manufacturing sectors from ever expanding progressively.

Oil prices are being dictated upon by a few oil producing countries and thus everyone else in the world that primarily depends on imported oil are bound by the mercy of oil producing countries.

So I made a few research onto how the US was able to have lesser impact by the unstable oil price and demand factors and its due to the alternative fuel called Ethanol.

ETHANOL BUBBLE

This is what I learned from the history of how the US became an advocate of alternative fuel.

In 1974, as the United States was reeling from the oil embargo imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Congress took the first of many legislative steps to promote ethanol made from corn as an alternative fuel.   The gradual phase out of lead in the 1970s and 1980s provided an additional boost to the fledgling ethanol industry. (Lead, a toxic substance, is a performance enhancer when added to gasoline, and it was partly replaced by ethanol.) A series of tax breaks and subsidies also helped. In spite of these measures, with each passing year the United States became more dependent on imported petroleum, and ethanol remained marginal at best.

Now, thanks to a combination of high oil prices and even more generous government subsidies, corn-based ethanol has become the rage. There were 110 ethanol refineries in operation in the United States at the end of 2006, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Many were being expanded, and another 73 were under construction. When these projects are completed, by the end of 2008, the United States' ethanol production capacity will reach an estimated 11.4 billion gallons per year.

Ethanol is a renewable fuel made from corn and other plant materials. The use of ethanol is widespread, and approximately 97% of gasoline in the U.S. contains some ethanol. The most common blend of ethanol is E10 (10% ethanol, 90% gasoline). Ethanol is also available as E85 (or flex fuel)—a high-level ethanol blend containing 51%-83% ethanol depending on season and geography—for use in flexible fuel vehicles. E15 is defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as a blend of 10.5%-15% ethanol with gasoline. It is an approved ethanol blend for use in model year 2001 and newer light-duty conventional vehicles.

Ethanol Benefits and Considerations

Ethanol is a renewable, domestically produced transportation fuel. Whether used in low-level blends, such as E10 (10% ethanol, 90% gasoline), or in E85 (a gasoline-ethanol blend containing 51% to 83% ethanol, depending on geography and season), ethanol helps reduce petroleum use in transportation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Like any alternative fuel, there are some considerations to take into account when contemplating the use of ethanol.

Energy Security

Depending heavily on foreign petroleum supplies puts the United States at risk for trade deficits and supply disruption. In 2014, 27% of petroleum products were imported. That number has declined during the past 10 years because of increased domestic crude supplies and ethanol production.

Fuel Economy and Performance

A gallon of ethanol contains less energy than a gallon of gasoline. The result is lower fuel economy than a gallon of gasoline. The amount of energy difference varies depending on the blend. For example, E85, with 83% ethanol content, has about 27% less energy per gallon than gasoline (the impact to fuel economy lessens as ethanol content decreases). Gasoline vehicles, including flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs), are optimized for gasoline. If they were optimized to run on higher ethanol blends, the fuel economy penalty would likely be less.

Job Impacts

Ethanol production creates jobs in rural areas where employment opportunities are needed. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, ethanol production in 2014 led to the addition of nearly 84,000 direct jobs across the country, $53 billion to the gross domestic product, and $27 billion in household income.

Lower Emissions

The carbon dioxide released when ethanol is burned is balanced by the carbon dioxide captured when the crops are grown to make ethanol. This differs from petroleum, which is made from plants that grew millions of years ago. On a life cycle analysis basis, GHG emissions are reduced on average by 40% with corn-based ethanol produced from dry mills, and up to 108% if cellulosic feedstocks are used, compared with gasoline production and use.

Equipment and Availability

Low-level blends of E10 or less require no special fueling equipment, and they can be used in any conventional gasoline vehicle.

It is also possible to accommodate blends above E10 in existing fueling equipment, however, some equipment needs to be upgraded to comply with federal code. See the Codes, Standards, and Safety page and the Handbook for Handling, Storing, and Dispensing E85 and Other Ethanol-Gasoline Blends (PDF) for detailed information on compatible equipment.

FFVs (which can operate on E85, gasoline, or any blend of the two) are available nationwide as standard equipment with no incremental cost, making them an affordable alternative fuel vehicle option. Fueling stations offering E85 are predominately located in the Midwest. Find E85 fueling stations in your area.

Ethanol is a renewable fuel made from various plant materials collectively known as "biomass." Nearly 97% of U.S. gasoline contains ethanol, typically E10 (10% ethanol, 90% gasoline), to oxygenate the fuel and reduce air pollution.

Ethanol is also available as E85 (or flex fuel), which can be used in flexible fuel vehicles, designed to operate on any blend of gasoline and ethanol up to 83%. Another blend, E15, has been approved for use in newer vehicles, and is slowly becoming available.

There are several steps involved in making ethanol available as a vehicle fuel:

Biomass feedstocks are grown, collected and transported to an ethanol production facility

Feedstocks are converted to ethanol at a production facility and then transported to a fuel terminal or end-user by rail, truck, or barge

Ethanol is mixed with gasoline at the fuel terminal to make E10, E15, or E85, and then distributed by truck to fueling stations.

Fuel Properties

Ethanol (CH3CH2OH) is a clear, colorless liquid. It is also known as ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, and EtOH (see Fuel Properties search.) Ethanol has the same chemical formula regardless of whether it is produced from starch- and sugar-based feedstocks, such as corn grain (as it primarily is in the United States), sugar cane (as it primarily is in Brazil), or from cellulosic feedstocks (such as wood chips or crop residues).

Ethanol has a higher octane number than gasoline, providing premium blending properties. Minimum octane number requirements prevent engine knocking and ensure drivability. Low-octane gasoline is blended with 10% ethanol to attain the standard 87 octane requirement.

Ethanol contains less energy per gallon than gasoline, to varying degrees, depending on the volume percentage of ethanol in the blend. Denatured ethanol (98% ethanol) contains about 30% less energy than gasoline per gallon. Ethanol’s impact on fuel economy is dependent on the ethanol content in the fuel.

Ethanol Energy Balance

In the United States, ethanol is primarily produced from the starch in corn grain. Ethanol produced from corn demonstrates a positive energy balance, meaning that the feedstock and fuel production does not require more energy than the amount of energy contained in the fuel.

Cellulosic ethanol improves the energy balance of ethanol, because cellulosic feedstocks are anticipated to require less fossil fuel energy to produce ethanol. Biomass used to power the process of converting non-food-based feedstocks into cellulosic ethanol also reduces the amount of fossil fuel energy used in production. Another benefit of cellulosic ethanol is that it results in lower levels of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions. (Find out more about emissions related to ethanol.)

PHILIPPINES Joins the Bandwagon of Alternative Fuel

Although the Philippine came in far too late in joining the alternative fuel bandwagon, it was only in 2006 that the Philippines Biofuels Act was enacted that requires oil companies to use biofuels in all liquid fuels for motors and engines sold in the Philippines. All gasoline sold in the country must contain at least 5 percent ethanol by February 2009, and by 2011, the mandated blend can go up to 10 percent. The new law is expected to bring a number of benefits to the country:

"Commercial production of ethanol from sugarcane, cassava or sorghum will help the island nation diversify its fuel portfolio and help to ensure its energy security. It could also generate employment, particularly in rural regions, as investors put up biofuel crop plantations and processing plants. Also, the shift to these plant-based fuels for transportation will help reduce pollution."

Four feedstocks—sugarcane, corn, cassava and sweet sorghum—were initially identified for ethanol production, but sugarcane is expected to be the predominant source of ethanol. The Philippines is a sugar-producing country, and sugarcane is grown mainly in the islands of Negros, Luzon, Panay and Mindanao. Despite growing demand for sugar, there are still an estimated 90,750 hectares (224,000 acres) of sugarcane available that can be used for ethanol production, and high-yielding varieties of sugarcane are available.

This is a good start especially for farmers and small communities that are mostly in agricultural reliance, with the unstable prices of commodities, there is a new source for which agricultural products are process and use as a means of fueling the Philippine economy, though still a far cry from dependence on the oil producing countries, it’s a good start in reducing a percentage of our previous absolute dependence on imported fuel.

Welcome Wellcome

Wellcome Supermarket is one of the two leading supermarket chain in Hongkong established in 1945 and was integrated into the Jardine Matheson Group in 1964 through its subsidiary the Dairy Farm International Group.

It is one of the favorite shopping destination for most Hongkonger's as it offers a no frills and a wide selection of basic and imported grocery assortments.

Now in the Philippines through Dairy Farm International's part ownership of the Rustan's Supercenter Inc. Wellcome is one of the supermarket banner platform of Rustans Supercenter, having converted all the previous Rustan's Expresslane brand into the Wellcome brand banner.

Today Wellcome has more than 18 stores and is being positioned towards the community market of households offering wide selection of local and imported grocery products, dairy products, fresh fruits and vegetables, condiments.

It offers the same selections as Rustans Supercenters two other banner brands such as Shopwise and Rustans Supermarket but offers between 10%-25% more affordable prices with the same quality service and friendly staffs to assist shoppers.

Growing towards making Wellcome brand catapult a major share of the supermarket pie in the Philippines, it is aimed to have more branches open in various community locations.

Philippine Retailers going Global

Recent global report by CBRE Research entitled "How Active Are Retailers Globally?",  China is the leading most sought-after market among many global retailers with China garnering 58% among those polled, followed by Vietnam (48%), Malaysia (42%), Indonesia (39%), and Singapore (35%). 

The Philippines for one is a major player considering we have home-grown brands expanding their market overseas, including the US, Europe and Middle East.  We can be proud of our own retail brands capability to set its foot on the growing demands for quality brands abroad not just limited towards targeting our overseas Filipino market but is being recognize by foreign consumers as well.

Global Retailers' Targets

The report found that retailers globally are predominantly targeting countries with mature retail sectors, although a number of emerging markets in Asia Pacific also feature strongly. Retailers originating from Europe have shown a strong bias towards their own region with less than 15 per cent of retailers targeting markets outside the region. Retailers from the Americas are biased towards the US, but are also targeting European markets, and in particular Germany.

China leads the way for Asia Pacific, ranking as the fifth most popular destination for global retailers, with 22 per cent of surveyed retailers targeting the market in 2014. The importance of China globally cannot be underestimated, in part because of the impact having a presence there has on sales in other regions.

In Vietnam, middle class consumers with rising incomes and a hunger for style continue to draw retailers' interest. Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi were both ranked in the top 10 cities of most new retailer entrants in 2012 and 2013, according to CBRE's Retail Hotspots in Asia Pacific report. The liberation of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on wholly-owned retail businesses from 2015 is expected to further stimulate this trend.

Retail spending has also been boosted by the growth in international tourists, especially affluent ones, following the opening of major new visitor attractions. Singapore has since become one of the gateway cities for brands new to Asia. Of some concern though for retailers in Singapore is the availability of qualified sales floor staff.

The Philippines will definitely be a major player overseas, we see many local retailers bringing in international endorsers in most of their advertisements, magazine and print ads, billboards across the Metro.  Its their way of internationalizing their brands and be recognizable overseas in the market they sought to expand.  Most notable home grown brands we can truly be proud of are Bench(Suyen Corp), Penshoppe(Golden ABC) are just few of the retail brands we can be proud of that has long set their presence in the US, Middle East markets and slowly penetrating the European markets.

We surely would see more local brands expanding abroad soon.

Shopping Mall vs Online Retail

The growing number of consumers who are turning towards buying online has significantly decrease the customer traffic flow amongst all brick and mortar retailers.  Sales momentum is perceptibly slowing in most retail stores. These tepid numbers reflect consumer apathy and general economic concerns.

Shopping malls still hold sway among many shoppers but not as before except during back to school, summer time, christmas and 3 day sale events. Reports indicate that the Internet is making up for some of the lost store traffic. It is increasingly evident that the shift from shopping in stores to shopping online is permanent and still rising.

In the past year more and more people felt comfortable with Internet shopping.  Special values and free shipping incentivized them to fulfill their need for basics and their family fashion apparel online.  One wonders what will happen in the future as even more sales shift to online.  

In the Philippines, there is still positive growth in the retail sector but these are being competed by Divisoria and Baclaran marketplace where people tend to look for great bargains and have their money felt like having more peso power.  The positive year in year sales is  not as significant as a few years back where most earns double digit growth, these days most retailers are striving to go beyond a positive 6-8% growth.

The recent surge in online shopping has even attracted international investors such as german-incubator Rocket Internet GMBH that set up across Europe, Asia and Africa online retailers such as Lazada, Zalora which in some way reduced the traditional mall retailers customer flow.   Though most online shoppers require payment through credit cards, these innovative online retailers have come up with ways to target non-credit card holders by offering Cash on delivery payments or deposit payments for the items the buyers are getting from these new retail concepts.

Retailers may still sell the same quantity of many items and goods, but the sales will occur outside brick and mortar stores.

Content Marketing

I came across reading about new technologies marketer and author Arnie Kuenn, about content publishing on social networking site and how your content marketing can reached countless audience through this platform.

I thought to myself, the world of marketing, sales has level up to new heights, every marketer, corporate advertising has moved several notches upward to reach more and more target audience.  Unlike in the regular brick and mortar store concept, everyone who is onto the social networking sites are potential target market.

In the traditional business of trading, marketing, retailing, its a face to face transaction, one customer at a time, then the surge of internet changes everything, we have boundless reach, a world without border and this plays well especially to the big league companies who have jumped into the online bandwagon earlier since they have seen the future of marketing.

I would have to say that digital marketing has been a great equalizer, as the possibility of a total unknown brand that cannot compete spending so much as against the advertising budget of multinationals can become instant household name if only they have the right content in their marketing.

Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.

Though much can be told, the real winners are the consumers, they don't have to go queue long lines to pay for products they want to buy, or getting inside a shop to browse through thousands of SKU's and learn about why they have to buy those stuffs.  Nowadays, even at the comfort of their own home, workplace, even in public places they can use their tablets, smartphones, laptaps to check and even compare prices.

The challenge of every company that digitally markets online is to have quality content, thus content marketing is one of the most essential factor that will make your products, services stand out among the millions of gadgets, services, merchandise, goods.  This requires a well thought out plan, organized and targeted towards your expected target market. Its a battle of good, relevant content information that will in the end benefit both the brands, retailers, consumers alike.

Thought leaders and marketing experts from around the world, including the likes of Seth Godin and hundreds of the leading thinkers in marketing have concluded that content marketing isn’t just the future, it’s the present.

Video Blogging

Recently I came across this video of Jun Sisa as I have been browsing through countless Youtube videos and wanting to listen about this phenomenal Disney movie song, as I watched him sing his own version of "Let it go", I was amazed by the nice voice he has and his rendition of such song.  I can say, prior to me accidentally seeing his singing solo video, I have no idea whatsoever who he is, now what he does but surely he got my attention through Youtube video or shall I shall his video blog.

I remember a friend, who for the love of making imaginative story video of his day to day travails be it at home or outside of home and even creating funny scripted skits together with his friend, got people so amused that he began an online following that there were even total strangers who contacted him and sent him a Macbook and a videocamera cause they love the comical relief he brings and after a few years was discovered to be now part of a TV networks morning show as a host.  Who knows how it will alter your way of life for the better, the same way it did for my friend.

In a world where people are more and more interactive, people do share stories through creating videos on youtube.  Whether be it music videos, a video about peoples stories, travel, foodporn, someone has something to say and there are those who got the world attention by posting videos of their causes, how and what they see around them, showing how their friends, family, kids or even themselves would sing a certain song or dance for fun sake.

People are placing their personal videos, companies are showing their product/service on your own YouTube channel to reach a broader stream of audience whether for their own or their friends pleasures or to promote something thats unusually fun and exciting to share to the whole community.  Many of these blogger videos are connecting them through other social media platforms such as  a status on Facebook, LinkedIn, Slideshare, Twitter accounts.

So you see video blogging or creating videos on Youtube or posting it on your social networking sites has its own viral mechanism to bring across various thematic or non-thematic gestures, causes, beliefs and even marketing products and services for personal or corporate.  So how effective is it? That really depends on viewership and target audiences.

So when one has to incorporate video into your social marketing strategy or bridge across the fun-filled sharing of your own experience, product and services or you just simple want people to take notice, why not create videos and start posting it on Youtube, afterall there are great examples of people who shot their way to fame using this platform, some even got it as far as Hollywood, taken notice by American TV hosts such as Oprah Winfrey, Ellen de Generes and who knows who may be watching your video. 

Just keep in mind these few success tips:

1.    Keep it simple and short (3-5 minutes).

2.    Talk about the value to the viewer…not you.

3.    Make it fun and be comical to view.

4.    Be happy on camera.

5.    What’s in the background (make sure your background does not distract your audience from your message).

6.    How’s the lighting (shot to fame needs good lighting).

7.    How’s the sound (must be audible and clear).

8.    Prepare, prepare, prepare (know what you want to say and when).

9.    Practice, practice, practice (constant practice makes perfect).

10.  Always have your video devices with you you never know when an opportunity to record will arise.

So why not start your own video, you'll never know if its going to reach which audience so long as the message is clear and you know it will delight your unanimous world viewers.  Who knows what this can do to change the course of your life, it might even shot your way to world fame.

AT THE TOSS OF A COIN, A US$5M DEAL WAS DONE

THE YEAR WAS 1988...

John Gokongwei and Henry Sy are tough competitors in terms of retail space building and mall propagation all across the Philippines. When the Ortigas prime property where Robinsons Galleria now stands, was up for sale by Don Paco Ortigas, These two business tycoons were keen on having this choicest among the Prime Ortigas properties. 

John Gokongwei's bid was P1,900 ($95) per square meter while Henry Sy's bid was P2,000 ($100) per square meter. At first, Henry Sy was comfortably happy because he thought he won the right to build whatever he intends to build then on this property they were bidding for then. But with John Gokongwei's business sense said he would also take care of paying the five percent agents commission, or another P100 per square meter, in effect offering the same amount as Henry Sy gave. 

A discussion ensued that Henry Sy protested and he insisted before Don Francisco Ortigas that he won that bid because the agents commission was not part of the terms of bidding. John Gokongwei said he would go to court. Don Francisco Ortigas was naturally apprehensive about the prospect of a court case. Considering he was selling a property for the first time in a long time, he did not want even the slightest hint of negative publicity.

He also felt that the legal process would take 10 years. So he instead decided to throw in another property for sale and proposed that a toss of a coin would determine who would get the property. That way, everyone comes out a winner. So Mr. Ortigas tossed the coin and thats how Henry Sy ended up with the SM Megamall site w/c he got as a consolation from losing the Prime Ortigas corner lot,  He negotiated in joint partnership with the Alba group to come up with the much bigger floor area for the present Megamall site.  

And so as they say, the rest is history and comparing the two behemoth Malls in the Ortigas area, Henry Sy finally had the last laugh since his Megamall has outdone the money being raked in by the Robinson's Galleria Mall. 

TO HAVE $1M, IS IT ENOUGH FOR YOU TO RETIRE?

We have always been taught by our parents when we were young, to study well, get good grades in school, get a good education, graduate from college get a good paying job and save.  But what if we have done all we could to achieve their advice and yet in this fast-changing, corporate greed and wanton desire to spend more and more, we don't achieve the saving part of this heirarchial step by step advice from our parents.

Is it us who are wrong are are they remissed on their advice. The answer is neither, they gave us true, good and sound advice, and as dutiful children, we have obeyed yet as they say, life is full of uncertainties.  The daunting question is, Are we right to be working for others or should we be an entrepreneur, most likely all people would say, "They ought to be an entrepreneur... BUT".

Excuses, excuses, the most inexplicable of all human excuse, "Monetary, Financial, Lack of Capital, Funding concern, etc". All points to the blame of lack, absence of financial overflow, yet what is considered to be more than enough for us to say, we are on our own?

We have all sorts of excuses why we don't plunge ourselves into the arena of "being your own boss" and yet we always complain about how meager our income is going for us, or we do not have enough to get by"

My simple answer, "QUIT COMPLAINING, and Quit your job, it'll save you alot of emotional stress and unhappiness, and to add another note to that, it will save your boss, your company, your peers at work alot of trouble of all your unhappy rantings and complaints.

Start out on your own, as I have always lived by, its not about the money, its not about lack of capital, that prevents people from going into entrepreneurship. Its thei lack if initiative, its their fear of having to shoulder all the responsibilities of possible failure, well, if you have a "failure mentality" you will never be a success.

Money is not the problem, its not the money that makes the idea work. Its the idea that makes the money come your way, some business need not start out with a big capital investment, some can do the "buy and sell" trade, there are sites online you can post anything to sell without having to carry inventories, if you don't have the money to buy and to sell, once you get your first online buyer inquiring, require a 50% downpayment deposit and balance upon your delivery of the goods.  Or you can borrow from family or friends to start buying and selling.  There are countless of ways to start your way to entrepreneurship, the real question is, Are you willing to get out of your comfort zone.

UP DILIMAN

The 10th Philippine Blogging Summit 2014 will be held today at my favorite campus hang out, University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.  I haven't been to UP Diliman campus for quite a few months since December 2013 and this is another fresh breather to see once again the beacon of Philippines freedom flowing ideas and talents.

It began back during my college days when I had a girlfriend who studied BS Tourism that I first got a glimpse of this beacon of the brightest minds.  I've got to meet some very interesting folks, the liberality of their principles, that help me mold my own distinct principles in life as well. I got the fascination for books, opinions, arts even crafts that moving forward I have taken a short course in Photography and had an interesting immersion into the lifestyle of a UP student is like.

I love UP and all it holds dear including sports that I am fond of watching the afternoon games practice in the open field of the sunken garden or go to the UP gym just to watch friends have their Physical Education Class. Here did I also first saw my glimpse of a fencing class.  Oh How I have always fancy to be able to learn how to play fencing. But nah, I am just too lazy I guess or too spendthrift to spend enrolling to learn it. lol.
Anyways, I am excited to see the fresh greenery and breath the air of this campus today and tomorrow. Surely it will be a fun-filled socially knowing new people amongst the best of the best Philippine bloggers.