Harris Teeter at Friendly

The Harris Teeter at the Friendly Center is the grocery store that I frequent most in Greensboro. I believe it falls under the lifestyle center category as the ambience of Friendly center tries to create a main street atmosphere where you have the opportunity to sit around and eat ice cream at Ben and Jerry's or stop into the Apple Store to look at a new iPod for yourself or eat at PF Chang's or get your grocery shopping done at Harris Teeter. There is a little bit of everything for everyone that comes to this lifestyle center.

Advantages for this location is that there is a great amount of parking, so they can handle a great amount of customers at any one time. Since it is located in a lifestyle center, they are able to handle a greater amount of pedestrian traffic, as customers have a greater freedom to walk around and browse the area, so Harris Teeter would greatly benefit from it. The Harris Teeter is also seen as a destination store within this lifestyle center because it is so vast. It even has the nickname of the 'Taj Ma-Teeter' so it has everything you could ever want, so people will go out of their way to come here. They also get a steady stream of vehicular traffic running by it, so that's another advantage of this location. Disadvantages would include how far the store sits from the road. It's not especially convenient to the road like most stores are for customers when they want to make a quick trip to the grocery store. You have to make the effort to go through the shops to get to Harris Teeter. It isn't in a type of shopping center that you would normally find a grocery store in, i.e. Neighborhood strip center, so it may seem out of place to some consumers.

I think that it's an extremely good location, because it's very close to such a large college as UNC-G and it's conveniently close to many neighborhoods nearby on Friendly Dr., so the size of the target market they're able to attract is extremely vast. The uniqueness of their offering with many of the fresh foods cooked in front of the customers is something that draws customers to their store. This also includes their vast assortment and depth of merchandise they are able to offer which makes this particular Harris Teeter unique to other grocery stores in the area. There are also very few grocery stores in this area, so the Harris Teeter on Friendly tends to monopolize the grocery store market in this area. Even though it may not seem the most convenient, I know that personally I will always make the extra effort to go to this particular Harris Teeter when I can, which I think it says something about its uniqueness and the particular location its placed itself in in a lifestyle center. The only improvement upon its location I can think of is if it could be placed closer to the vehicular traffic on Friendly Dr. in Friendly Center to make it more convenient for customers.

Claire's, a childhood love that's gone under. - Blog 4

Claire's growing up was every little girl's fantasy. It was full of pink, glitter, accessories, items to go along with some of our favorite movies, and so on and so forth. What also made this store oh so wonderful was it's cheap items, so we could spend all of our spare cash in this store, especially when they would have their 10 items for $5 sales, in which you could find so many treasures. As the years have passes, Claire's Store Inc. has found them greatly endangered in the retailing world, which caused them to be bought out by Apollo Management LP in 2007

for $3.1 billion and had $245 million in cash on hand when the deal was announced. As of Nov. 1, it had long term debt of $2.3 billion. They also had to worry about how their sales in the third quarter had continued to fall. (Verdon)

How could this have happened? One factor is the global retail environment we've found ourself in this current economic recession, no one's wanting to buy. People are wanting to spend money on the essentials, which is why superfluous stores such as Claire's are the first to close, which would make sense as we see stores that have catered to this young teen/tween market, i.e. Club Libby Lu, are filing for bankruptcy as well. (Lynch) Another factor I believe that attributed to this loss was its inability to handle the financial aspects as well as they created a market for cheap fashionable finds. They found themselves in a corner with being so focused on creating the best deal for its customer they lost sight of being able to properly handle the operations of a company. (Verdon) One major thing that also lead to this occurring was when the company was bought out, it went from being a private company to a public company, meaning that a lot of debt was acquired in the transition. Normally you can count on sales to make up the difference in this situation, yet the market is having one of the worst periods in years, so Claire's continued to find itself asunder. (Verdon) It seems to me that ultimately Claire's lack of organization was the beginning of their downfall to their bankruptcy. Without a properly organized structure, they weren't able to adequately deal with all of its problems, which was seen in its good retail strategy and specific market they targeted that failed in its financial strategy. My 11 year old self at heart hopes they are able to turn this around, because this store has created many memories for people such as myself for getting my ears pierced there and finding earrings for the dance and so on, but the outlook isn't good at all.

Lynch, M. (2008, Dec. 5) Claire's loss Deepens on Comp Softness. Women's Wear Daily, 196(118), p. 17, 1p. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.

iStockAnalyst. (2009). White Elephant; Linens 'N Things Failure an Example of Private Equity's Bad Bet on Retail. Retrieved Mar. 5, 2009, from http:///www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/2986138

VALS Segments - Blog 3

I found this survey incredibly interesting as the various questions obviously ranged for people in the spectrum of those who are specifically very hands on and love to make to those on the opposite end who appreciate fashion and other expressions of art. I agreed with my results as primarily an 'Experiencer' and secondary 'Innovator', I do spend a lot of money on entertainment and fashion because that's what I enjoy and want to be up to date in everything that's currently happening. With the 'Innovator' I found that was accurate as well because I want people to get a good impression of me at face value even if they never see me again. I want them to see that I have a decent sense of style and try to dress well, which is why it's a rarity for most to not see me dress down. It was rather scary how accurate I found this survey to be. 

My results definitely did not correspond with the Target Person my group presented on Thursday from Eddie Bauer, as the target market that shops there tends to be from the Baby Boomer Generation or early Generation X. They're not looking for style when they shop there, they're searching for durability and comfort. These terms are in complete contrast to what I'm looking for personally when I shop, I don't care about comfort nearly as much and I'm wanting to highlight my attributes which isn't the easiest to do at a store like Eddie Bauer with its more muted colors and atmosphere. The Eddie Bauer consumer would most likely be lumped into the Maker, Survivor, or Believer categories as they tend to stick with the basics and durability which is reflected in the products they offer.

 Not so much me.

Barnes and Noble - A little bit of History

Barnes and Noble actually originated many many years ago, in 1873 to be exact in Wheaton, IL. Charles Barnes operated it initially as a bookprinting business giving the roots for which this company would be founded upon. The first bookstore was opened in New York City by his son William in partnership with G. Clifford Noble in 1917 and a soon to be booming business was born. This store has lasted through many changes such as creating a flagship store in New York during the Great Depression on Fifth Avenue that still exists today.

It has gone through many innovations to separate itself from your average retailer, such as in 1974 it became the first bookstore to advertise on television and also became the first book retailer to offer discounts on books in 1975, with offering 40% off books on the New York Times Best seller list. The company began to refine its concept of their store as they acquired B. Dalton and Bookstop in the 1980's and in the 1990's eventually began to tinker with their superstore concept into what we know as Barnes & Noble today with it's vast assortment and depth of merchandise and making a smart decision in an exclusive partnership with Starbucks to sell their coffee in its stores and creating 600 Barnes & Noble college bookstores to expand its market. Barnes & Noble also prints many of the books they sell, further increasing their profit. From it's one store in New York in the early 1900's, there are now 798 stores in the U.S. The man who has made much of this possible was Leonard Riggio, who was the chairman for almost 40 years. His brother Steve Riggio is now CEO as of 2002. He began working with Barnes & Noble in the 1970's and continued to move upwards as he worked in the buying and merchandising programs to general manager of the direct mail division and so on until he came to the place he is today. As you see, Barnes and Noble has a rich history that continues to draw more shoppers like myself into its warm atmosphere.

 Bliss.

Barnes and Noble - My favorite Retailer

While it may seem that few continue to share a love and passion for reading in this day and age of Ipods and Redbox, I find myself in this minority. That's why I constantly find myself at Barnes and Noble and consequently as my favorite retailer. In comparison to most other book stores I've visited, it has the greatest assortment of books I've seen in any by far. They have every genre and many different authors, that I can explore. What I'm repeatedly impressed by is their vast assortment of plays in their drama section, as a theatre major I constantly find myself at odds with this section at most stores, since they will typically only carry the bare minimum of Shakespeare and Arthur Miller. In contrast, Barnes and Noble typically has 2-3 shelving areas full of just plays written both recently and from the ancient past. This depth of assortment keeps me coming back for more.

Another reason I greatly enjoy Barnes & Noble is because they offer other products such as selling coffee, something I drink almost daily. It definitely enriches my visit because often after I make my purchase in the main store, I will stop by the coffee section of the store and buy a cup to read my book leisurely for the next few hours. With the additional service offered it often almost always entices me to make a purchase and consequently stay there for an extended period of time. Instead of just running in and out, like I do in some stores, the coffee convinces me to explore and find new books or dvds that I might like to purchase.

The service is almost always exceptional at your local Barnes & Noble. They have helped me often on more than one occasion find a book I couldn't remember the author or title of. Even more than that, they also have read a great amount of books, so they can make suggestions of what I might also like to read. This lets me know that I'm truly getting what I'm paying for when I get to Barnes and Noble and know what they're talking about as well. Most every worker I've seen has some form of a smile on their face and are conversationable, I've even had a conversation with a worker about Cook-out as I was purchasing my books. It's service like that makes me come back often.

The atmosphere that Barnes and Noble creates is extremely relaxing as soon as you step foot into the store. The hunter green color that's covered on the walls let's you know that it's not a frantic place, they want you to enjoy your visit. I love that in many sections of the store they have couches so you can browse through a book you may want to purchase in comfort. The books are arranged in a logical manner so that you won't get lost in the large amount of books and the genres are displayed boldly so you can go exactly to what you're searching for. Creating such a simple inviting atmosphere helps me think of this retailer so fondly.

One of my most favorite reasons as to why Barnes & Noble is my favorite retailer is that the service often lets you be, because often I'll get lost into a book I'm looking at deciding whether or not to purchase it. At many bookstores or other stores they won't let you do this, but Barnes & Noble does not thankfully. Allowing me to truly debate and look through my potential purchase makes me much more likely to buy the book I'm buying. Without them pushing me, it allows me to accidentally find things I may have never heard of before and of course spend a great deal of money as I tend to do when I go there. I know I'll be there for hours and plan ahead for it when I can spend a day at Barnes and Noble. Many say that it makes me nerdy, but I don't care.