Stung by Worst Holiday Shopping Season in Decades, Retailers Forge Strategic Alliances
Statistics just released by the U.S. Census Bureau show that the 2008 holiday shopping season was among the grimmest ever for retailers. During the critical October - December selling period, overall sales plummeted 7.7 percent below 2008 figures. And to make it all worse, December 2008 represented the sixth consecutive month of declining sales. That's the worst retail slump on record. Yet faced with those stinging setbacks, retailers are doing something new.
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MANCHESTER, N.H. — Statistics just released by the U.S. Census Bureau show that the 2008 holiday shopping season was among the grimmest ever for retailers. During the critical October – December selling period, overall sales plummeted 7.7 percent below 2008 figures. And to make it all worse, December 2008 represented the sixth consecutive month of declining sales. That’s the worst retail slump on record.
Yet faced with those stinging setbacks, retailers are doing something new. “Instead of spending more and more advertising dollars to gain a competitive edge over their competitors, more retailers are forging strategic alliances and working together,” says Ben Carcio, Vice President of BizUnite, the business platform based in Manchester, New Hampshire.
“The advantages of working together are becoming increasingly clear to independent retailers, cooperatives, franchises, retail buying groups and other retail consortia,” Carcio states. “In growing numbers, they are discovering that by working together, they can cut costs on buying, training, insurance, shipping and other essential services. Just as importantly, they can come together to share their best practices.”
With today’s ease of information exchange, reasons for retailer collaboration are clear. A marketing idea that works for a lighting retailer could work just as well for a landscaper’s supply company. But those businesses will never find that out until they talk. The result of this new cooperation is a true win-win situation for many retailers who are wise enough to see it’s critical in gaining market share. “This is precisely why BizUnite was founded,” says Carcio, “to help independent retailers realize and succeed by harnessing their collective synergy.”
BizUnite, founded in 2007 by retail powerhouse CCA Global Partners, is on the cutting edge of these new cooperative groups. BizUnite enables organizations and their businesses to cut costs by sharing marketing and other resources. To learn more, visit BizUnite at http://www.bizunite.com/.
About BizUnite
BizUnite is the leading business platform delivering on demand services to organizations. BizUnite makes it easy for organizations to maximize revenue — and the revenue of their businesses — through cost saving programs, marketing resources, best practices and community. The BizUnite platform is completely customizable to fit an organization’s brand. Unlike other platforms, the organization is 100% in control of what services it offers to its affiliated businesses and how they are offered. Founded in 2007 by retail powerhouse CCA Global Partners, BizUnite is located in Manchester, New Hampshire.
