New York SBDC Research Network

For our fashion industry clients, other than, or in addition to, building their own bricks and mortar or online shop, another approach is often to get their designs into larger retailers. Here are a few guidelines and sources to help that process along. Getting your goods in the department stores. Katherine Gray Los Angeles Business Journal August 1 2005 Get into stores Nov. 3, 2003 Mary Stewart Center for Entrepreneurship Ask an Expert Apparently very useful for listings of US and international fashion events: Fashion Calendar Glam Central A blog worth checking out for profiles of fashion editors, coverage of fashion week and to locate other fashion blogs: I know you get WWD , but maybe you should run through if you haven’t already and scan articles for the names of buyers at stores that you might market to. As an example, this is a recent one that mentions quite a few people. By the same token, you can check the magazines for the names of fashion editors to see if you can send them a

Women buy stuff. And marketers are paying attention. With increasing incomes and more purchasing power within the family, even traditionally male dominated fields are re-examining their approach to female buyers. Just how? Check out this New York Times article from October 2006 . A variety of online resources are popping up to assist the female consumer. Here are two mentioned in the above article: AskPatty.com http://askpatty.com/ According to this site, “Women purchase half of the vehicles sold in the United States each year, spending billions of dollars a year in new car purchases. Yet, shopping for and buying a car can be a challenge for women who are first time car buyers or for women who had a bad experience in the past with a car salesman or dealership. The Ask Patty.com, Inc. web site is a safe place for women to get advice on car purchases, maintenance and other automotive related topics.” BeJane.com http://www.bejane.com The NYT article cites a study from the National Associ

In the midst of this cold snap many of us are enduring, think back to the balmy days of December 2006. That unusually mild month may have put the year into the record books. About.com has an article describing the process of determining the temperature, which is over two degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 20th Century mean, which may suggest evidence of global warming . I note this, in part, because of the fact that there is apparently more than one way to measure these things, and that 1998 may instead be the "winner". Something for clients, advisors, and especially librarians to remember when they look for, or receive, information is that there may be more than one way to parse the data, about global warming , the number of small businesses, or anything else. (I do believe, BTW, that there IS global warming, and that humans have contributed to it; it's the different methodologies that I wished to comment on.) And speaking of heat, here's a list of individuals curre

Last year, I wrote a posting about our experiences with a scam artist in Canada. We also get lots of inquiries on behalf of clients who are cautious about their dealings with certain companies. On the heels of this, here's a brief article from the National Consumers League, discussing its recently-released lists of the top telemarketing and Internet scams for 2006. (If you click on the link in its first paragraph, click on the "Telemarketing Fraud" or the "Internet Fraud" icons to read the lists.) In both cases, the NCL is concerned about the rise of fake check scams. Read the lists, and pass them on to your clients as a warning to the "increasing sophistication" of scam artists' methods.

Here are a sampling of points of view on mass mailings: BusinessWeekOnline Five Good Reasons to Do a Mass Mailing From AllBusiness.com * Mass E-Mailings: How To, and How Not To “Getting folks to your web site may take some “push” and bulk e-mail could be the answer. Here are some cheap and easy ways to get started.” By Bob Weibel Found on eFuse “The friendly place to learn to build a better web site." also in Guerrilla Marketing Articles: What Guerrillas Know About Email by Jay Conrad Levinson Gail Goodman: E-Mail Marketing Building Your E-mail List By Gail Goodman www.entrepreneur.com March 06, 2006 "Got a pocket full of business cards from that last networking event? Don't forget to ask permission before adding those names to your e-mail marketing list."

It's hard to keep track of who owns U.S. newspapers, publishing firms, tv stations, radio stations and the like on any given day. Luckily, the Columbia Journalism Review will manage that information for you. Their " Who Owns What " page features major media-owning corporations, listing their outlets in a variety of forms. The site also presents corporate timelines for several of the largest companies, and has links to media ownership news items as well. Useful if exploring bias in the media, or if you just want to keep tabs on what's happening to your favorite media conglomerate.

I read an interesting story last month: "How Pepsi Opened Door to Diversity; A 1940s All-Black Team Targeted a New Market And Broke a Barrier" by Stephanie Capparell, in the Wall Street Journal: January 9, 2007. pg. B.1., adapted from her new book, The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business . Here's the article abstract: Their jobs turned most of the men into Pepsi fanatics. Said team member [Jean Emmons]: "All of my friends had to buy Pepsi. I kept stockpiles of Pepsi in my house. All the places I went had to have Pepsi. If I was out with someone and they ordered Coke, I might have thrown a glass of water in their face. . . . My wife would say, 'I think you're going crazy -- Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi!'" He launched three major press campaigns from 1948 to 1951. For the first, he found accomplished African-Americans to profile for a "Leaders in Their Fields" series -- about 20 names in all