1. The article of the month on the Profits Plus website: What's wrong with this picture?
2. e-ret@iler advisory of the month: A new type of Y2K problem for businesses
3. Our Power Promoting Idea of the Month: Smells and tastes delicious!
4. Your free subscription to the e-ret@iler
5. Contacting Profits Plus Seminars and Tom Shay

Print this month's e-retailer so you can use it as a plan of action in your business

1. Doing Your Market Homework
Our October article on the Profits Plus website is entitled, "The Walls of Fame"

"The Walls of Fame"

The building that one of our family businesses occupied was blessed (or was it cursed?) by having very high ceilings. What do you do when the walls are twice as high as your fixtures? Here is an idea you may want to try in your business.

Check here if you plan to use this in your business

2. October 2002 e-ret@iler advisory: A new type of Y2K problem for businesses

Just when you thought Y2K had gone away. In about two years, retailers will face a deadline that promises technological challenges akin to the year 2000 computer problem. At the beginning of 2005, the 12 digit bar code retailers use to identify everything from cars to candy bars will go to 13 digits. The extra number is enough to perplex checkout scanners and crash computers. Many retailers have yet to focus on the problem that will require significant investments of time and money.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

If you buy a fix, think about where the extra digit is added - to the left or right. From personal experiences, this can be a problem. With math, we are often adding a new digit on the right - 100 becomes 1000. Some computer systems will add a new digit on the left. To make 100 into 1000, the space on the left becomes the 1 and the previous 1 becomes a 0. This affects two digits and most definitely is not as easy as what we all did in school.

Check here if you plan to use this in your business

3. Our Power Promoting Idea of the month: Smells and tastes delicious!
You never know what inspires a person to make a purchase, but you can count on one of the five senses triggering it. It may be sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, or a combination of these five. When someone is selling their home, the real estate agent will tell the home owner to open windows, bake a cake, start a fire in the fire place, light candles, etc.

This same strategy can work on your sales floor, and an excellent tool for hitting 4 of the senses (smell, taste, touch, sight) can be achieved by adding something like Otis Spunkmeyer cookies. In our family business we added one of their cookie shops that included a display rack and an oven that uses household current. We found there was a minimal investment and after having given away a few cookies, many customers asked to purchase more. You can find these tasteful (and profitable) cookies by calling 1-888-ASK-OTIS.

Check here if you plan to use this idea in your business

4. Your free subscription to the e-ret@iler
If you have received this edition of the e-ret@iler by way of someone passing it onto you, you can get a free subscription list by clicking on the contact us link.

5. Contacting Profits Plus Seminars and Tom Shay
We are nearing the completion of our 3rd year of sending you the e-retailer each month. And with each month, we do sincerely thank you for taking time from your busy work day to read the e-retailer. We work hard to write this newsletter, always looking to find more information that can help you make your business more profitable.

And for those who have asked where they can participate in another Tom Shay seminar, we have a page on the site giving you the dates and cities of Tom's presentations. You can view that page by clicking on this link that will take you to the "Where's Tom?" page.
Where's Tom?

Make an effort to locate and do business with other small businesses! Let's keep our money "in the family".

God Bless America!

Get Your Profits Plus,

Tom Shay