MacKayNet

I continue to be amazed at the suddenness of the economic slowdown. Watching business screech to a halt in literally a few days time is probably the most shocking event in the 24 years I've been in the consumer products business. I read this statement on someone's Facebook status this morning, and I think it perfectly sums up the consumer mindset right now:

"I have to admit my gas guzzling SUV went from [$]80 a tank to 40. That is helping the Christmas present cause...I just hope I have a job seven months from now."

Nice entry at Six Pixels of Separation (via Chris Brogan on Twitter) regarding the way big retailers' stores are often disconnected from their online operations and merchandising.

I explained that none of this would have happened had the website been correct, to which he replied, "it's the website... that's not our problem... we're the store."

He wasn't being rude. He wasn't treating me poorly. He simply said what we all know (but don't want to admit): "the Website is not the same as the store, it's always different from the store, and even I don't know who to call when something like this happens."

No, he didn't say that line exactly, but I'm paraphrasing the overall sentiment of the dialogue.

The writer makes some great points and is absolutely correct that a retailer needs to treat its web site as part of what it does, not something separate. Many retailers have made tremendous improvements at this over the past few years. For example, look no further that Wal-Mart's colossal Site-to-Store program. Wal-Mart has managed to harness its greatest strength (i.e., the scale of nearly 4,000 stores) to attract more consumers to its web site.

The real issue here is that legacy policies and systems prevent retailers from being able to fully tie their online and offline worlds together. Keeping inventory information accurate in real time is excruciatingly difficult and a struggle for virtually every retailer. Pricing is another problem. Margin requirements and competition vary from one channel to the next, and retailers face a significant challenge in deciding whether or not they can honor online prices in their stores.

One thing is certain. Retailers need to understand that their customers are asking new questions these days, and they need to equip their store employees with the right answers.

Richard Gottlieb, a blogger at Playthings magazine, posted on Monday about the Scrabulous situation. In short, a couple guys from India created a Facebook app that's a game remarkably similar to Scrabble. It's no surprise that Hasbro, owner of Scrabble, was a little upset about the blatant infringement of their intellectual property rights. Hasbro recently took legal action that led Scrabulous' owners to change the product significantly. The fans don't like the changes and are quite irritated with Hasbro.

Gottlieb starts by saying that "Hasbro has managed the Scrabulous challenge about as well as can be expected." Well, I agree that Hasbro has every legal right to protect their IP, but to say that they handled this as well as can be expected is a bit dubious. I am not suggesting that Hasbro handled this poorly, but the reality is that their actions created a risk for their brand. As one commenter noted:

I no longer play any version of Scrabble online and I also eliminated a planned purchase of the traditional board game as I was going to introduce the game to my kids. My friends have done the same. They took a million fans of the game and thew [sic] them in the trash, hopefully it's just the beginning of more failure for this poorly managed company.

To say that Scrabulous fans will "get over it" is short sighted. Time will tell if Hasbro's attempt to "take pee out of the swimming pool" is positive or negative for their brand.

The second half of Gottlieb's post is terrific. He's absolutely right. Toy companies need to be much more in tune with the increasing number of Gen X and Gen Y moms and dads who live their lives online in ways that much of upper management just just doesn't understand.

Just think... what if Hasbro had reacted to Scrabulous by immediately introducing an official and better Scrabble Facebook app of their own? They could have trumped the imposter or at least slowed them down enough to make Scrabble appear genuine and Scrabulous as a cheap knockoff. We'll never know if the thought even crossed their minds. In fact, I wonder how long it took someone in a position of authority to even notice what was going on.

Seth Godin has a great post today about how he was treated by an Amazon merchant. He's right, the Web really is the great equalizer. Small businesses have an opportunity to shine online, but sometimes they still rest on their weaknesses. It's impossible to beat the big guys on price, so when someone gives you a shot, give them a reason to come back. It may be the only chance you'll get to create a long-term customer.

I just received my new JR Cigar catalog. These guys really know how to entertain customers. Selling cigars is pretty unromantic, and most of other cigar catalogs take a somewhat "Crazy Eddy" approach with lots of hyperbole, obnoxious sales gimmicks and cluttered catalogs.

JR Cigar's new catalog is hugeJR really stands out from the crowd. First of all, the new catalog is huge. It measures 10.5" by 12". This giant, almost square catalog must have cost a fortune to mail. It's as if they are flouting the ever-increasing postage rates on flats. While other catalogers are crying in their beer and sending slim jims to keep costs down, JR is
Click to enlargedifferentiating themselves with a catalog that demands to be read. It also probably creates a handling challenge for the post office, JR's way of sticking it to the man.

JR also writes hysterical copy. It's sarcastic as heck and very entertaining. This paragraph had me busting a gut and is typical of their style.

The cigar business can't be what it was during the boom of the 90's, but JR seems to be doing just fine. They are very consistent in their message, and every now and then they surprise me with something really out of the ordinary like they did this week.

Our new blog went live about a week ago. It's called CreativePlayPlus.com, and it includes all kinds of information about the importance of play in child development. It's written to be an easy-to-read resource for parents, grandparents and child care professionals.

There are many sites that talk about toys and products for children, and there are even more that cover the joys and travails of parenting. Creative Play Plus takes a different approach by focusing on the benefits of play in general. It provides a wealth of practical information and links to articles that give insight into how play shapes children's lives and helps them grow their gray matter.

Much of the content is provided by some terrific people at the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University. Believe it or not, right in our own backyard, the folks at the Schubert Center are among the elite when it comes to studying play. We learned about them from Optiem, our interactive agency, and we spent several months drawing up plans for the blog.

Sure, we hope to sell more toys as a result of this new site, but that's secondary. There's really a dearth of good information on play, and parents need to connect the dots between the products they buy and how their children learn. If we are able to help them make better choices for their children, then everyone wins. That's doing it right for the community, and that's part of our purpose at Step2.

Our local NBC affiliate ran a great segment about the new blog. Education reporter Kim Wheeler provided a good overview of the project.

Wow, June's auto sales really sucked. GM was down 19%, Toyota was down 21% and Ford plummeted 28%. It can't get much worse. That's simply awful. Honda managed to eke out a 1% increase, which is just amazing considering how bad everyone else did. (Makes me glad I own two Hondas.)

These kinds of sales decreases are monstrous. With such huge supplier networks and thousands of employees, the ripples in the economy have to be felt at some point.