Retailing: Taking a Marketing Tip From Amazon

In the News: Publisher’s Weekly reports that Amazon will open its first staffed pick-up location on a college campus at Purdue University. They have co-branded with school stores like the University of California Davis and U Mass at Amherst in the past, but this is the first college “convenience spot.” I see this as a brilliant branding effort. As the concept continues to grow, it will give Amazon’s brand as a provider of books and other essentials to a massive book-reading audience, a young audience that will continue to be part of their clentele for a long, long time to come. What can we retailers learn from this marketing move? In terms of service? In terms of location? In terms of acquiring new customers from our most sought after demographic?

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it: