pcAmerica Newsletter #338 October 13, 2009

 

 

 

*** To see previous pcAmerica Newsletters, go to:

 

http://www.pcamerica.com/pos_newsletter_archive.html

 

Blue Christmas May Be Retail's Second Straight

Latest pcAmerica Blog Posting

Windows Vista Has an 18.62% Share of the Market

Restaurants Dangle Cheaper Drinks but Risk Watering Down Their Profits

Contacting pcAmerica

 

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• Blue Christmas May Be Retail's Second Straight

The two-month holiday season represents anywhere from 25% to 40% of the retail industry's annual sales.

 

Holiday sales in November and December are expected to be 1% down from last year which compares to a 3.4% drop from the previous year.

 

The good news is that although sales will be down, they will not be down as much as they were the previous year.

 

Many retailers are slashing their inventory by as much as 11%.

 

In the past 10 years, holiday sales have been up by 3.4% on average.

 

Read the entire Market Watch article at:

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/holiday-retail-wish-avert-2nd-straight-sales-dip-2009-10-06

 

 

 

 

•  Latest pcAmerica Blog Posting

How To Use Your POS System To Market To Customers

 

While most restaurant and retail store owners use a point of sale system to more effectively manage their daily operations, savvy business owners utilize a variety of features from their point of sale system to market to customers in new and innovative ways. The most popular POS system marketing trends are:

 

1. Dual display - some point of sale systems come equipped with a customer facing pole display or dual display capability in which advertising messages can be displayed to customers as they check out.

 

2. Advertising on receipts - one of the more popular recent trends is to place a discount or promotional ad at the bottom of a receipt given to a customer to entice them to return.

 

3. Loyalty programs - Want your good customers to return? A good point of sale system should have a loyalty program that will help you create and deliver attractive promotions to keep customer’s coming back.

 

4. Gift programs - The sale of gift cards is a great way to promote your store or restaurant.

 

5. Direct Mail and Email Marketing- Analyze and extract accurate customer data including buying preferences and purchasing history.

 

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•  Windows Vista Has an 18.62% Share of the Market

Many computer owners have avoided upgrading to Vista. Many small business owners and corporations have avoided it. I think Vista has gotten a bad rap (see Newsletter #337).

The latest statistics show that Vista is now used by 18.62% of all computer owners. XP is used by 71.51% of all computer owners.

A year ago, Vista had 12.77% of the market compared to 78.55% using XP.

Vista is a failure in that in the three plus years that it has been out, the majority of users have decided to stick with the older XP operating system.

Windows 7, the successor to Windows XP is being released on October 22, 2009. I am forecasting a much faster acceptance of the new operating system. Windows 7 is a faster, more efficient and polished version of Windows that has gotten superlative reviews. It's going to be a winner.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer currently has 65.71% of the market. Firefox is second with a 23.75% market share. Safari is third with a 4.24% market share (which includes both PC and Apple computers). Google Chrome has a 3.17% market share.

To see market share statistics for operating systems and browsers, go to:

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10#

• Restaurants Dangle Cheaper Drinks But Risk Watering Down Their Profits

Restaurants, hit hard by the downturn, are offering customers cheaper alcoholic drinks in the hopes of attracting more customers who will be tempted into buying more appetizers.

Chile's Grill and Bar and Morton's Steakhouse are offering discounted cocktails and extended happy hours.

Casual dining chains typically derive 10% to 15% of their sales from alcoholic drinks while upscale restaurants collect between 20% and 30% of sales from alcoholic drinks.

Restaurants that rely on alcoholic beverages have been devastated by the recession. Chile's reported a 9.4% sales decrease and Morton's reported a 26% sales decrease in same store sales in their last quarters.

Liquor sales in restaurants during the past year are estimated to be down 10%.

Read the entire article at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125418209246147855.html?mod=dist_smartbrief