Training

SUNDAY

Retail Academy

8:00 am - 2:00 pm

If you want to increase your sales and profits, create a superior experience for your customers and experience A LOT less business related stress you don’t want to miss this year’s Retail Academy. For six exciting hours you’ll immerse yourself in practical, to the point information created specifically for you, an independent retailer. You won’t learn pie in the sky theory. You’ll learn exactly what today’s most successful independents are doing and how to put these strategies, tactics and techniques to work in your business!

TUESDAY

Common Mission: Building Church Relationships for Local Impact

8:30 am - 9:30 am

Christian churches are facing challenges as the culture shifts and church funding and attendance declines. But there are Christian retailers who are partnering with churches in new ways to support each other, build up the church, evangelize, and impact the local community with service and outreach. Experienced retailers will show you how to create positive church relationships and improve the ones you have to fulfill your Great Commission mandate.

E-books: Handselling E-Books
8:30 am - 9:30 am

Christians love their Christian stores and want to patronize them, but e-books and e-book delivery are changing how they buy books and how booksellers sell them. How do brick-and-mortar retailers combine the online digital sale with the overall store experience? How does the retailer’s ability to curate and recommend printed books transfer to e-book sales? Merchandising e-books is a work in process, but learn what forward-thinking retailers are doing now to stay connected with their book-loving customers.

Retail Trends: What Do Your Customers Say?
10:00 am - 11:00 am

Today’s customers are more empowered than ever before. They can pull out a smartphone in your store to browse social networks or shopping applications to find product information, read customer reviews, compare prices, or buy products. How do you continue to be in their shopping loop and make your store their preferred choice? What do your customers want from you today so you remain relevant to their shopping experience?

Fair Trade: Impacting Lives Beyond the Products
10:00 am - 11:00 am

Consumers increasingly make buying decisions based on what their retailers believe and support, and how they serve. How can Christian retailers maximize their ministry potential through the products they sell? How can they merchandize fair trade products or partner with ministries to address ministry needs and service - and still make a profit to keep the business running? Learn from those whose good retailing benefits impoverished, abused, and enslaved people.

WEDNESDAY

The Write Way: Retailers Partnering with Authors  
8:30 am - 9:30 am

Christian authors and retailers have common missions to reach readers’ hearts and souls and are finding new ways of working together to accomplish that. With retailers needing to create compelling experiences through the store and building community around the store’s mission and purpose, this session lays the groundwork for building successful author/retailer partnerships that drive traffic and increase book sales.

Online Showrooms: Blending Technology with In-Store Experience  
8:30 am - 9:30 am

How can Christian retailers use new technologies to keep their stores from just being showrooms for Internet-only retailers? How are chains and indies using new technologies to stay engaged with their customers through the entire shopping experience? Hear how Web, social media, mobile applications, and in-store technologies are changing traditional marketing and the overall store experience.

New Markets: Expanding the Christian Store Lifestyle Model
10:00 am - 11:00 am

Retailers in all markets are going beyond their core product categories to better connect with their customers. How does today’s Christian-store retailer expand offerings to connect with how their customers live while also improving sales and profitability? What is the role of a Christian store in providing health foods, gourmet foods, healthy living, specialized gift products, or other categories and still be able to connect with Christians to build their faith?

Tough Competition: How to Develop a Team to Serve Today's Customer
10:00 am - 11:00 am

Consumers are expecting more personalized experience and service in your store, and you and your frontliners are the first line of engagement to make that happen. Frontliners must be more than a POS operator, just help with a product selection, or only have specialized product knowledge. They need to be technology savvy and passionate about your store and what they sell to connect with your customers. How do you build such a team that creates community and uncommon customer engagement that makes your store so distinctive that customers just have to be there?

Watch for other training opportunities throughout the Show!

Note: for links to the audio recordings of ICRS 2011 workshops, please contact CBA at info@cbaonline.org.