FROM THE EDITOR: Niche Retail

Hey everyone!

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking to hundreds of bird – yes bird – retailers. It was so fun to both research this niche retail market and even more fun to spend time with the 300 or so attendees at the Wild Bird Expo, which took place in Mexico, Missouri. This little town about 90 minutes outside of St. Louis is home to Gold Crest Distribution, who hosts this annual event. I had such a great time chatting with retailers, meeting vendors and learning more about the retail-bird biz! While I was there, I was also fortunate enough to speak about customer experiences and how to maximize your success with them. Ultimately, my goal was to share enough insight with the attendees that they could both learn a lot and bring the information back to their unique stores and teams. In no particular order, here are a few of the pointers I shared:

1. Use all your senses when trying to engage consumers.

2. Encourage conversation – just not about yourself.

3. Provide demo and special event opportunities.

We discussed a lot more than these three points, but you get the idea. As always, it was fun for me to work with retailers face to face and I loved visiting the small town of Mexico, Missouri… a place 10K or so call home and a place I may not have been to otherwise if I had not spoken at the Wild Bird Expo. It’s communities like Mexico, Missouri and niche retail groups like the Wild Bird Expo folks that fuels me to work so hard to support independent businesses. I was inspired by this trip to work even harder to help indies thrive and for whatever it may be worth, I hope you may be a little bit inspired by this, as well.

Whatever your niche retail market is, I hope you gain retail success, have a tremendous 4th quarter and reach all your goals in the near months (and always)!  And thank you. You being indie keeps me inspired!

Nicole Leinbach

Founder & Publisher

Retail Minded