By Kostas Panagias, on July 27th, 2010%
You can use it to do amazing things and get a sound competitive advantage in sales and marketing
You spent several hundreds of Euros (or dollars) in the latest Smartphone model; perhaps an iPhone, a Blackberry, a HTC (like me!), etc. You have huge touch screens, lots of apps, fancy graphics and interfaces and you showoff. Admit it! One of the reasons of that purchase was just for showing off.
But you can certainly use your latest gadget to help you with your work. I mean REAL help. It’s way more than sending emails and having your contacts organized. Those are for kids. You can do great things and perhaps the most important application installed in your Smartphone is excel (for Windows Mobile or similar products for other platforms).
I will concentrate mainly in sales administration and help, but certainly you can use it for other things too (such as marketing functions, production functions, etc.). After all, we are all salesmen!
Let’s start!
Continue reading You and your Smartphone!
By Kostas Panagias, on July 13th, 2010%
It’s very frustrating to interact with people “dangerously” inappropriate to conduct any sort of business activity. Unfortunately, there are lots of them in the retail sector. People are hired only on the criteria of low salary demands and are completely uneducated on selling or managing. It’s very sad and drives . . . → Read More: N00bs in retail!
By Kostas Panagias, on June 22nd, 2010%
This article concerns wholesalers due to some distinct characteristics of wholesaling such as repeated sales orders, selling to clients (retailers) and not to end-user customers and clients buying from many vendors at the same period of time. The latter is very important because the game is about who gets the bigger portion of your clients’ buying . . . → Read More: Wholesaling
By Kostas Panagias, on May 20th, 2010%
The following case is very common in many consumer electronics retailers in Greece:
There are products that are outdated and still remain in the store’s shelves. These products, have been purchased expensively by the retailer and usually have high retail prices as well. As a consequence, people won’t buy them (because they are old, expensive and new . . . → Read More: Mind the Opportunity Cost…
By Kostas Panagias, on May 17th, 2010%
Average Price Index (API) is a very simple, easy to use yet powerful and very useful business tool. In an enterprise which produces only one product, the API is of course the price of that product. API is thus used when we have more than one product, particularly a range of products (for example one brand’s range of products). It is calculated by dividing the total revenue or value of those products by the number of items sold or produced. For example: 140.000 Euros in LCD TVs / 250 items = 560 (API), that means that the average price of a TV set is 560 Euros.
How is this metric used in businesses?
Continue reading Average Price Index
By Kostas Panagias, on April 29th, 2010%
FPTV (Flat Panel TV) market is getting saturated in Greek economy. Retailers are continuously lowering their street prices to handle stiff competition. There are more than few examples of retailers selling goods below their costs just to sound attractive and earn customers’ trust and thus loyalty. On the top of that, economic crisis is worsening things . . . → Read More: FPTV Market in Greece
By Kostas Panagias, on February 9th, 2009%
A great sales tool for wholesalers is to watch your clients’ stock. That way you can instantly find what products are missing from his/her warehouse and get an order on those barcodes. That way you can also reverse your clients’ refusal to give you an order sometimes. That tool gets even better when you have a . . . → Read More: Sales Tools: Clients’ Stock
By Kostas Panagias, on April 20th, 2008%
Selling is the most important business function because it brings ”home the bacon”! Without sales there cannot be revenue and without revenue there cannot be business; that’s for sure!
On the contrary, I think sales are not considered as much important by the average consumer and people tend to look down on salespeople. Selling is considered as . . . → Read More: The importance of Sales
By Kostas Panagias, on April 9th, 2008%
The Greek consumer does not make any sophisticated purchases: He/she doesn’t look for prices in many different retail stores, he doesn’t do any research on what he is going to buy, nor does he browse the web / e-shops for special offers and as a result he ends up, many times, with an outdated but overpriced . . . → Read More: Greek consumers & bad purchases
By Kostas Panagias, on March 12th, 2008%
In retailing there surely are (many) more than meets the eye. I think retailing is a great practical “school” and I consider myself quite fortunate to be able to “study” in it. As a consumer (and a brand advocate & loyal customer in many brands) I couldn’t even get close to all that complexity and deals . . . → Read More: Retailing
