Three Retailing Rules

There are many useful rules we can gather from the experiences of this year's finalists in the Retailer Excellence Awards competition. Take our Store Design finalists, whose stories begin on page 102. All four are successful operations, with annual sales that range from $600,000 to more than $2 million. Ron Hoy of Chicago started attending trade shows as a child, accompanying his mother when she shopped for the family's five gift stores. Today, he has three galleries of his own — in his hometown, in Florida, and in California. A few hundred miles to the northeast of Chicago, the Zehnder family has been running a restaurant, a gourmet food shop, and a motel and golf course in Frankenmuth, Michigan, for many years. Last year, they opened an upscale holiday merchandise shop in this unusual tourist town. It would seem, then, that rule number one is: Come from a retailing family.

Next is Larry Bird, of Plymouth, Michigan, who purchased his shop, now called Gabriala's, in 1987. In 1992, he made the move to Main Street just when the town's business vacancies were at an all-time high. By serving his customer base with consistent, high-quality targeted marketing, Larry has built a strong business that has since gone through three expansions, the most recent one last year. Rule number two: Start small and build gradually, but continuously.

Then there's Dave and Lori Schroeder. With no retailing experience, they opened their stationery store, Parchment, near Orlando, Florida, in 1996. That same year, they moved to a better space in the same shopping center. By 2000, they were practically bursting at the seams and were once more in discussions with their landlord when construction started on a new mall across the street. The Schroeders liked what they saw, packed up, and moved over to a new 3,750-square-foot space in March 2001. Rule number three: Just go for it!

Next month, we present our finalists in Promotion, and the Visual Merchandising finalists will appear in the September issue. No doubt they'll introduce us to a few more rules.