FEATURE PAPER

Retail Mission Statements and Global Retailers

This paper was written by Ismet Anitsal, from Tennessee Tech University, M. Meral Anitsal, from Tennessee Tech University, and Tulay Girard, from Penn State University - Altoona. This paper was presented at the 2012 Allied Academics Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Abstract

Mission statements are useful to communicate with customers, shareholders, employees, and general public regarding company vision, values and objectives. They also give insights on the processes companies use to achieve results. Top 100 global retailers' web sites were examined for their mission statements in this study. 7Ps of services marketing framework; namely product, place, promotion, price, people (participants), process, and physical evidence; was used to organize the information obtained from retailers. The content analysis results indicated important differences between US. Retailers and rest of the global retailers especially in the people, processes, price/value, and place categories.

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TIP OF THE WEEK

How Consumers Use Social Media

Before beginning to understand how to leverage social media for brand building, it is important to understand what consumers are using and how they are using it. Hoping to replicate some of Lady Gaga's social media success, many marketers are looking to get their message on the fastest-growing social media platform-Facebook. Facebook originated as a community for college students that opened to the general public as its popularity grew. It now has hundreds of millions of users: If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. Growth in new profiles is highest among baby boomers, who use Facebook as a way to connect with old friends and keep up with family. Other social networks, like Hi5 and Bebo, offer an alternative for other demographics. Hi5 offers a wide variety of social games, adding two or three each week. Bebo is popular with tweens and teens, though that age group is increasingly moving to Facebook.

Videos are one of the most popular tools by which marketers reach consumers, and YouTube is by far the largest online video repository-it has more content than any major television network. Due to its connection with Google, YouTube offers a powerful search tool as well. Flickr is a popular photo sharing site, where millions of people upload new photos daily. Twitter boast hundreds of millions of registered users who together post a daily average of billions of tweets. Technorati tracks hundreds of millions of blogs and indexes an estimated 2 million new blog posts per day. More than half of Technorati's active users have uploaded photos, and almost a quarter have uploaded videos. The bottom line, according to Universal McCann's Comparative Study on Social Media Trends, is that "if you are online, you are using social media.

Increased usage of alternative platforms like Smartphones and tablet computers has further contributed to the proliferation of social media usage. In the United States, 90 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds own mobile phones. Among this group, 95 percent have sent a text message, 65 percent have accessed the Internet, and at least 23 percent have accessed a social networking site using their phones. In April 2010, Apple released the much anticipated iPad tablet computer and has since been unable to keep up with demand, selling more than 9 million iPads in 2011. More than 8,500 native iPad apps (many of which connect to social networks) are available for download, and within the first two months of the tablet's release, 35 million downloads had already been recorded. The overall impact of tablet computing on social media (and thus the discipline of marketing) is yet to be seen, but given the incredible impact that the Smartphone has had in its short life span, tablets could prove to be game changing.

Social Commerce

A new area of growth in social media is social commerce, which combines social media with the basics of e-commerce. Social commerce is a subset of e-commerce that involves the interaction and user contribution aspects of social online media to assist online buying and selling of products and services. Basically, social commerce relies on user generated content on Web sites to assist consumers with purchases. On Polyvore.com, members create a fashionable look. Photographs come from various retailers and include accessories, clothes, shoes, and makeup. Once a look is complete, other members view the look and can click on the individual items to see prices and retailers. Social commerce sites often include ratings and recommendations (like Amazon) and social shopping tools (like Groupon). In fact, Groupon is one of the fastest-growing social media tools and continues to revolutionize the way that consumers access deals. In general, social commerce sites are designed to help consumers make more informed decisions on purchases or services.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

ICSB

The International Council for Small Business will be hosting their 2012 World Conference during June 10-13, 2012 in Washington, D.C. For more information,click here.

Allied Academy

Allied Academy will be hosting 2 upcoming conferences soon. The Summer International Internet Conference will be held during July 24-31, 2012. And the Fall International Conference will be held during October 10-12, 2012 in Las Vegas. For more information,click here.

New SBI Website

We are excited to inform you the new SBI website is Live and Ready!

Now that the website is up and running, there are a couple of housekeeping items that need to be addressed. Please read below:

Password: One of the key features of the new website is that it allows members to set up a personal password..Don't worry if you forget it you can also reset it. Please click the following link to reset your password: http://smallbusinessinstitute.biz/Sys/ForgottenPasswordRequest.

Profile: Another one of the key features is that you will now have access to update your profile information at any time. Please review your profile and make changes as needed.

E-mail: Due to the change of website providers the @smallbusinessinstitute.biz emails are no longer active. If you need to reach the board members or administrative staff you can find contact information on the CONTACT US tab orclick here.

As Mike Harris stated in his announcement earlier this week, we want to do a better job of promoting the success of our members. Please send us your recent accomplishments, articles or good news, so we can share it with all SBI members.

We invite you to visit the new and improved website http://smallbusinessinstitute.biz/, tell us what you think!

SBIJ Journal

The Small Business Institute® Journal has just published its latest issue at www.sbij.org. We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of interest.

International Journal of Business and Social Science

The International Journal of Business and Social Science is now taking manuscript submissions. All manuscripts must be submitted electronically through the e-mail to the editor at editor@ijbssnet.com, or editor.ijbss@hotmail.com. For more information,click here.

Call for Panelists

The Marketing Management Association is accepting panelists for the Fall Educators' Conference on Sept 19-21, 2012 by the Mall of America in Minneapolis. Panelists are needed in the following areas:

. Effectively Using Social Media to Enhance Student Learning
. Building Information Literacy in Classroom Instruction
. Mentoring Junior Faculty: Expectations and Outcomes
. Wiki Class Applications
. Productivity in a Small or One-Person Department
. Activities to Prepare Students for the Job Placement Process
. The Millennial Mindset: Constructive Faculty Responses
. Using LinkedIn as a Teaching Tool
. Interdisciplinary Instruction: Reaching Across Business Disciplines
. Active Learning Innovations
. Managing Millennial Expectations in Team Activities
. Assurance of Learning and Student Internships
. Class Apps with Twitter, Tumblr, StumbleUpon
. Using Teaching Evaluations Effectively
. Advances in Teaching with Simulations
. Innovations in Case Instruction
. Business Ethics: Classroom Exercises with Personal Application
. Teaching Sustainability Across the Business Curriculum
. Student Learning in Undergraduate Research
. Teaching Base of Pyramid Marketing: Global Perspectives on Developing Countries
For more information, you can e-mail Dr. Brian A. Vander Schee at bvanders@aurora.edu or click here.

ICSB 2012 Public Agencies Forum

How can government bodies - such as policy departments, advisory services, regulators and service agencies - develop the most effective means of engagement, communication and information sharing with small businesses?

CONFERENCES

CALLS FOR PAPERS