Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Navigating gift card taxation

Gift cards can provide many great benefits for retailers. They not only serve as a way to promote the retail store and bring in new customers, but also provide an increase to the store's cash flow, often well before the gift card is redeemed. One challenge that many retailers encounter is determining how to properly treat the sale of the gift cards on their income tax returns.

The following article shows some of these challenges and how to handle them.

http://www.pizzamarketplace.com/blog/4825/Navigating-gift-card-taxation

If you have any question on how Microsoft Dynamics RMS can help you to handle these challenges, please feel free to contact us at EZB Solutions.

Ricardo Bezerra
EZB Solutions
ricardo@ezbsolutions.com
http://www.ezbsolutions.com

How to Build Customer Loyalty

According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of retail sales come from 20% of customers. This means to keep customers returning, retailers need to help them remain loyal to their stores.

The following article shows 4 ways to build customer loyalty.

http://retail.about.com/od/customerservice/a/customer-loyalty.htm

A customer reward program is one of the several ways mentioned on this article.

If you want to know how Microsoft Dynamics RMS can help you to implement a customer reward program, please contact us.

Ricardo Bezerra
EZB Solutions
ricardo@ezbsolutions.com

Monday, June 21, 2010

Reduce Your Rent

In the current economy, many retail chains are negotiating rent reductions. In many areas, the vacancy rates have doubled making rent negotiations easier. According to the Los Angeles Times, some tenants are getting their rents cut by as much as 50%.

How do you negotiate a lower rent?

The first thing you need to do is ask. If you don't ask for a lower rent, you won't get it. Most retail store owners never ask. After all, you already negotiated your rent. You are a person of your word. We tend to be embarrassed to ask for that rent reduction.

Let your landlord know that business is down and store traffic is down. You don't need to plead poverty. You can offer your landlord some facts.

Even if you can't negotiate an immediate rent reduction, you can ask your landlord to help in other areas. For example, your landlord may be able to give you some extra perks such as free trash removal (or reduced removal costs if you actually tote the trash to the trash bin). Your discussion with the landlord could lead to increased signage. Prior to having a discussion with your landlord, think of some items that you can negotiate that won't actually cost your landlord more money.

Here are two articles that can help you with rent negotiations:
- Lease Negotiating Strategies & Tactics

- 9 Ways to Negotiate a Rent Reduction

About 700 shopping center owners and managers across the United States recently received form letters from a major big-box retail tenant. "Since times are tough, we've decided to unilaterally reduce our rent by 25 percent," the letter read. Enclosed in the envelopes were checks to the landlords for the newly decreased amounts. In all, that 25 percent slashing of rent translates into a $30,000 annual reduction per lease and total annual savings of $21 million for the retailer in question. Read the complete article from Retail Traffic magazine.

And you, have you already tried to negotiate your rent?


Ricardo Bezerra
EZB Solutions
ricardo@ezbsolutions.com
http://www.ezbsolutions.com

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Welcome

Hi,

Welcome to EZB Solutions retailer blog. I want to use this media to communicate with you about how to improve your business. I hope you like it and send me some information too.

Thank you for your support,

Ricardo Bezerra