I think that Natural Products Expo West should have its own word to describe itself. I humbly submit the word "NPEW."

I am working through a pile of things getting ready to head to Anaheim for Natural Products Expo West tomorrow morning.  To add more details to my calendar, I went to the show website and was, once again, amazed at the amount of things going on at the show!

Via the news and conversations with some indepedent retailers, I've come across some positives about the state of retailing natural products.  Could we have turned the corner?

This is a continuation of the thoughts floated in my post here yesterday - customer service is a key to successful retailing, but the definition that customers have of service is changing.

A very thought provoking article came out yesterday.  It ranks retailers on the basis of Customer Service – and half of the top stores don’t have “stores”!

Dealing with present needs - while preparing for the future opportunities - keeps us all busy in life.  Some thoughts about the need for that in your store follow.  I've spoken about this for several industry groups in the past six month or so.  There seems to be a lot of focus on dealing with the present (which is current quite a challenge) and planning for the future (when things will hopefully be better, but assuredly will be different).

Earlier this week, two very interesting – and at least partially conflicting – studies about the retail marketplace came out. How these bits of data potentially affect natural products retailers is quite interesting!

I’ve seen this slogan at several tourist shops over the past few years. Part of me chuckles due to the insane nature of that statement while part of me grieves as I recall how often I’ve seen that philosophy in action.

Which is better – doing the “right thing wrong” or doing the "wrong thing right”?  AND – we aren’t playing word games here, there is some solid thought about activities and priorities in your store in this question!

In recognition of this being Halloween Eve, I thought I’d visit with you a bit about a real retail horror story – the dangers of ghost demand!!

I was privileged to spend a fair bit of my day on Wednesday, the 23rd, in and as a part of the Retail Education Workshop at Expo East.  Here are my thoughts and observations.

Yup – this post has its origins in a conversation overhead in a men’s room.  However, I do think that you won’t find the thought base or vulgar – but quite simple and useful!

I am not a student of swans – I know little about them and have enjoyed their gracefulness only on occasion.  I, in fact, would have thought that black swans were a normal part of that species existence if someone were to have insisted of it!  I was exposed to the “Black Swan Theory” a week or so ago – and have found that it, and its application in the natural products world, has stayed in my thinking since.

Thirteen days from today, we have the closing on the sale of the house that we have lived in since 1995.  Getting ready for this move and this sale has brought up some interesting thoughts about how much things have changed over these past 14 years.

There is kind of a running joke among many of us in the natural products world - after you’ve been in our industry for a while, you are not allowed to leave. Is there really a law to this end? Once you have a career in the natural products world, are you going to be here forever?