2007: Colorado Springs retail goes tech, faces recalls

Retailers saw a spike in technological advances, adjusting marketing strategies to meet customer demands. Do-it-yourself, mobile marketing, affiliate marketing and word of mouth took center stage.

Even as the minimum wage was increased, employers continued to struggle to find trained workers. As customer's habits change, family entertainment centers shifted focus and thrift stores and online bookstores proved to be popular shopping destinations. Teleconferencing and the vanity oxygen industry experienced growth, and the toy industry faced pitfalls.

Colorado Springs saw a shift in retail shops, as landlords looked to make their shopping centers a popular destination -- mostly by using entertainment to bring in the crowds.

Technology

Retail and grocery chains have embraced the do-it-yourself mentality. Invented in 1984 by David R. Humble, automated self- checkouts are an increasingly common option for hurried consumers.

Wal-Mart and Home Depot are leading the charge, but not everyone is sold on the technology.

"At this time, we don't have any self check-out lanes in any of our stores and we do not currently have any plans to implement self check-out lanes at Target," said Brie Heath, a Target spokeswoman.

Ready or not, more companies will be forced to implement some form of mobile communication as part of their marketing campaigns. Mobile users are accepting free MP3s, ringtones, coupons and videos via text messages.

According to a December 2006 survey by Pew Internet Project, one- third of all adult Internet users in the United States have used the Web from a laptop computer, a handheld personal digital assistant or a cell phone. A quarter of users said they have a cell phone that connects to the Internet with a wireless connection.

Affiliate marketing involves revenue sharing between advertisers/ merchants and publishers/salespeople. Compensation is based on performance measures such as sales, clicks and registrations.

And although fraud has been a problem, companies like LinkConnector are working to make the process more reliable.

"We are kind of like the underground community," said Ernie St. Gelais, who started the company with Choots Humphries during 2004. "We are making the Internet run from a retail perspective. The affiliate is promoting a product on behalf of a merchant. We are kind of a broker between the affiliate and the merchant."

Link Connector is what is referred to as an affiliate network, which tracks user visits to merchant sites from initial click to the completed sale, allowing merchants to determine what affiliates are more effective.

As more marketing is done in-house to reduce costs, the do-it- yourself realm of the Internet is luring business owners by promising time savings and cost efficiency -- or so it seems. But the caveat of "buyer beware" still applies.

"There are a lot of those kinds of sites out there for helping businesses out," said Meg Thams, a professor of marketing for Regis University's MBA program. "I have mixed feeling about it."

The sites can over-simplify what needs to be done, she said. Users might think they are saving money but often end up paying more to fix unforeseen problems.

Monitoring word of mouth, whether negative or positive, gives business owners valuable marketing feedback.

Many customer conversations take place on blogs, message boards and online forums. And there are companies that have carved out niche businesses compiling and collating what is being bantered about.

One of those businesses is Boulder-based Umbria, which uses technology to summarize what is being said in the blogosphere/ online realm and to determine who is saying what.

The company's founder, Howard Kaushansky, said that by reviewing multiple posts, his company can determine the demographics of the writers by analyzing grammar, emoticons, acronyms and other linguistics.

Minimum wage

Another big impact on retailers was the minimum wage increase.

The increase caught some business owners off guard and left them scrabbling to compensate for its effects. And with the continued debate about raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour during a two year span, it's forcing many to consider the implications.

"I didn't even check the elections because I thought for sure it would go down in flames. I was shocked," said Kim Bayles, owner of Kimball's Twin Peak theater and the Metropolitan Restaurant and Bar.

The issue causing the most uproar involves tipped employees. The base wage had been $2.12 per hour. Now it has risen to $3.83.

Retailers also struggled to find a trained work force.

Nearly half of retail employers who answered a CareerBuilder.com survey said it's more difficult to retain employees this year than it was last year, and 81 percent of employers said they plan to add employees this year. But 42 percent said the inability to find qualified workers is the biggest hurdle to hiring more people.

Emerging trends

Yesterday's family entertainment centers appear to have run their course.