January 2009

Buxton's Retail Rankings

As the economy continues to evolve, retailers are focusing more on understanding who their best customers are, and transforming other customers into loyal shoppers. Retailers’ new strategies include optimizing existing store networks to improve performance of existing locations, getting more out of existing customers, reactivating customers and analyzing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Through customer analytics all of these strategies can easily be executed.

Buxton has developed a Strategic Resource Management Model that has ranked a sampling of publicly owned retailers based on historical data by their net margin return on inventory (NMROI) for year-over-year growth. The list shows how retailers rank based on total operating expense on inventory of their locations:

Contact Buxton if you would like to see the complete report.

Direct Marketing Division Expands With Industry Veteran

Armand Phillippi has joined Buxton as vice president of direct marketing services. He fills an important position in the growing Marketing Services division, assisting in marketing initiatives, primarily responsible for strategic thinking and consulting, with oversight responsibilities on all marketing projects executed.

“We are pleased to have found someone with the experience that Armand has,” said Charles Wetzel, president of Buxton. “He really understands what it takes for retailers to effectively market to their customers through direct mail and electronic marketing. A big part of Buxton’s future lies within our marketing and CRM services, and we’re looking to Armand to grow this part of our company.”

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We can all agree that the state of the economy is a tough one. Retailers have two options:

1) Keep doing what you’ve been doing in hopes that all of this will turn itself around
2) Do something different, take chances that will hopefully boost your business.

For all of the businesses that will survive the downturn in the economy, they are taking action and doing something different. Most of them are focusing on the most important aspect of their business – their customers. I have read several white paper studies recently on how retailers can thrive in the challenging economy. Every single one of them site customers as a retailers’ most important asset.

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