The retail business you run is no longer the same as it was 10 years back. Business is now driven by three paradigms:

* Competitive advantage

* After-sales service and

* Marketing.

If you sell a quality product at a reasonable price (which most of us do) and give good customer care or technical support, you will cover the first two paradigms. But, what makes the difference between profitable retailing and the not-so-profitable one is how you market your retail store. Your marketing strategy in the most decisive point in your retail business and a number of retailers pay a fortune for it.

People say marketing is a one-way outlet that drains out your revenue – perhaps they are right! Even if you keep aside the salary of your well-spoken, neatly dressed marketing people, you have a fat bill to pay for your ad campaigns alone. Recently I had a discussion with a retailer friend based in California on ad-expenses of retailers in general. Frankly, I didn’t believe him when he told me the figures and I went ahead to check it out with an outdoor advertising agency. What I found was astonishing (being a retailer, this may be normal to you) – the cost of a normal billboard in shopping malls or in the highways in the California bay area would cost you anywhere between $600 to $2,500! Multiply it by 5 for display in five different areas – the cost is a whopping $10,000 per month. Even those innocent looking and hardly noticeable angular ads on shopping mall stairways and escalators may cost you anything from $200 to $500 a month!