Education

Learn about educational events, informative webinars and special reports, designed and prepared to help members stay up-to- date on current business topics, trends and issues!

Stats: Time Facebook Posts for Impact

For many smaller retailers, Facebook pages are a key marketing tool. Retailers post cooking school schedules, holiday sales, as well as daily promotions to the social media network and many keep a more personal log about their stores, as a way to underscore their community presence with local customers. But few track just when they post to Facebook with any regularity.…

Retail Profile: Compleat Lifestyles

Retailer: Compleat Lifestyles Owner: Connie Stevinson Location: Centennial, Colorado Founded: 1984 (changed hands in 2011) Square footage: 5,000 sq. ft. (kitchenware store) The full name of her business says much about the way owner Connie Stevinson views the gourmet market: Compleat Lifestyles/Gourmet & Gifts and Home Accents. This umbrella concept is where shoppers…

Cooking Up Atmosphere

In Hayden, Idaho, residents don’t have many options for fancy restaurant food. But they do have Tiffani Roesler and her store, Gourmet Way, which hosts cooking classes in the retailer’s big commercial kitchen. “You can’t just go and get Moroccan food here,” Roesler notes. “There aren’t that many places to eat out. So if you offer a Moroccan cooking clas,s you get a lot of…

Trends: More Men Shop for Groceries

Though women remain the primary influence on how family consumer dollars are spent, more and more men are taking on responsibility for food shopping for their households. Chicago-based Midan Marketing surveyed men across the country to find out what their shopping habits were like, coming up with a group profile called “Manfluencer.” A manfluencer steps up to help with…

Stats: Grilling Fires up Year Round

A survey from the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association reported 2016 could be a banner year for gilling. The move to cook outdoors is fueled by the same passion consumers have to cook indoors, according to HPBA president and CEO Jack Goldman, “We think this trend owes a lot of peoples’ continued passion for culinary adventure and bringing out the flavor of their…

Retail Profile: Gourmet Way

Retailer: Gourmet Way Location: Hayden, Idaho Founded: 1998 Square footage: 2,800 sq. ft. Tiffani Roesler went shopping for a commercial kitchen and ended up with a kitchenware store. A personal trainer and avid cook and caterer, Roesler found her store, Gourmet Way, when a catering client tipped her off to the store’s kitchen space. “I was looking for a big kitchen and…

Grilling When the Snow Flies

Consumers’ passion for grilling is boosting sales of grills and grilling tools all year round. And that was is expected to continue in 2016, according to the latest State of the Barbecue Industry Report from the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, which was released in late 2015. The report shows that even though half of grill owners already have basic grilling…

The Retail Happiness Quotient

By Perry Reynolds Vice President, Global Trade Development, IHA What makes independent stores tick? Why do the small business owners on Main Street USA continue to work to stay open even as they face stiff competition from retail behemoths on-line and big-box stores lining the malls? Perhaps it is because their stores make them happy. Independent retailers like listening to…

Retail Profile – Someone’s In The Kitchen

Retailer: Someone’s In The Kitchen Location: Rapid City, S.D. Owner: Ashley Berry Square feet: 5,000 sq. ft. Founded: 1998 When Ashley Berry bought Someone’s In The Kitchen in April 2012, the store had already been a mainstay of the area for 15 years. Located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Berry’s customers travel from miles around to visit the store, and Berry…