Tag Archives: retail

Pittsburgh Summer Event Opportunities

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For those just getting in to the open air markets for extra cash and experimentation of retailing products, or are fully fledged seasonal caravans of scaled product lines and banking wholesale accounts; between May and December you’re getting busy or booked.

Pittsburgh has seen a surge of outdoor markets expand and new venues come to life.

PGHretail has been blessed enough with the opportunity to assist in developing markets and connecting commerce players: consumers + makers.  Cedar Arts Market began as an assistance to the flea market that had been slowly picking back up through volunteer organization in the Allegheny Commons East Park.

Through CAM, we joined the Deutschtown Music Festival for their annual July show full of free music provided by 150+ bands, street vendors, beer gardens, and community engagement for the last two years in the same park.  Now in their fourth year, the festival organizers are calling all artists to join them this year.

http://deutschtownmusicfestival.org/vendor-booth-request/

Last August, CAM sponsored the Pittsburgh VegFest in their first-ever event in Allegheny Commons. With their loyal and eager audience, the all-vegan experience has expanded with twice as many vendors and is also in July for 2016. Vendor spaces are strictly for vegan friendly products and

https://pittsburghvegfest.org/vegfest-2016/

Having moved to organizing a new workshop series after the 2015 CAM outdoor market season closed, PGHretail helped to connect I Made It! Market to the Northside at the new Nova Place (Allegheny Center).  With their partnership, the annual IMI! for the Holidays was held for the first time on the Northside. The breadth of artists that Carrie Nardini, owner and organizer, works with is inspiring and central to how IMI! (and Neighborhood Flea) is able to expand and be part of almost every neighborhood in Pittsburgh.

New markets for IMI! this year are: Wholey’s on the weekends, Open Streets,  and Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank Feed More Festival.

http://imadeitmarket.com/events/

Specific to the Northside and not a regular selling opportunity; the Block Party Pgh hosts a once of month outdoor block party! The organizers are looking for hyper-local artists and crafters interested in holding a table with kids and/or adult art and/or craft projects.  These interactions can be viewed as practice talking about your art, using member participation to build your art, or providing a canvas for public art for the community.

http://blockpartypgh.com/

Interested artists can contact: ben@blockpartypgh.com

If you’ve made it through to this sentence, you may have ascertained that Cedar Arts Market has been placed on hold for 2016 as we make room to work on other projects and allow our partners to expand on the collective networks built to support communities, in common interest and on common ground.

Stay tuned for the next announcement!

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Historic Deutschtown Business District

Recent developments in the Northside for retail are growing with new urban mall re-branding, lofts, hotels, breweries, and more. Local groups collectively developed a marketing video to highlight one of the most prominent business districts in the Northside community, East Ohio Street, which is part of Historic Deutschtown.

Learn more about the neighborhood and business opportunities from the links highlighted at the end of the video:

deutschtown.org/

pittsburghnorthside.com/

nscdfund.org/

northsidechamberofcommerce.com/

This video was also sponsored by The Buhl Foundation‘s #onenorthside campaign and The Sprout Fund.

Crowdfunding For Free Skill Sharing Events

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As of today, we need just $96 more dollars…

to unlock our matching funds and reach our ultimate goal. Each donation, no matter how large or small, will receive an emailed report on all events in the series that you get whether you can attend the workshop(s) or not. Support this programming by donating a small investment of your own at:
https://www.ioby.org/project/cam-growing-micro-entrepreneurs

NEW! CAM: Growing Micro-Entrepreneurs
Register for the first workshop here: http://goo.gl/forms/wuCWnFRlMG

growing-micro-entrepreneurs(5)

Pittsburgh Retail worked with community groups on the Northside of Pittsburgh to bring another year of Cedar Arts Market to Allegheny Commons East Park.  With the help of a supporting grant we were able to sponsor and introduce the first Pittsburgh VegFest this past August.

When offered the opportunity to raise funds for an extension of the program, it was a great time to begin a different series of events that offered skill-sharing for organization and fundamental bookkeeping by using the best available mobile and tech applications out there.

Micro-entrepreneurs aren’t a new thing, what is different though, is the latest technology.  Now more than ever are individuals easily able to make a quick investment with rewarding outcomes.  Software companies are releasing new partnerships daily that overlap functions to streamline user access, time, and return value on often free programs.

That is where CAM’s new series, Growing Micro-Entrepreneurs, is focusing on and highlighting specific applications, benefits, and tips to streamline the back-end of your retail business.  Hey Baby! Boutique owner, Karyn Pope, who creates, markets, and sells her wares throughout Western Pennsylvania has set up a system based on her knowledge and past experience as an accountant.

These workshops are open and free to the public, are intended for beginners and seasoned retailers.  If you are new to, or interested in learning more about, mobile POS systems,  preparing business taxes, utilizing applications and updated features of favorite office tools like, Google and Excel, then this workshop series is for you.

Summer Sponsored Markets 2015

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PGHRetail has been organizing and sponsoring community events and markets since 2011.  It’s gratifying to be a resource for opportunities and networking to grow our local economy in a multitude of ways.  When groups of people come together for a similar mission, great things happen and attract future prosperity by nurturing those endeavors. Your support means the most to each individual involved, and for that I’d like to thank anyone and everyone who’s been part of this five year journey.  To many more moments together for our mutual dreams that no amount of money can buy.

Our organized events will be held in the North Side of Pittsburgh in Allegheny Commons Park.  Check out the Events Page for more details about the Cedar Arts Markets.

For more local on-going summer events around the city, there are a few resources PGHretail has worked with in the past below. Many other resources are out there if you’re not seeing events in your neighborhood. Check with your businesses and community groups for their events and opportunities to partner.

Second Shift Crafters
I Made It! Market
Neighborhood Flea
CitiParks Farmer’s Markets

Augmented Reality for Retail Advertising

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Featuring Layar, a scanning app for print media, adding more digital layers to your shopping and reading experience.

layar logo v2

We were excited to try out our print advertising for Designer Deals Downtown in the November and December editions in the first local magazine in Pittsburgh, and nationally, to use this new technology in their printed media.

Find NightWire every month at a local distributor and download the app to view more to the ads: videos, websites, and deals!

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Want to know more about how to use this new technology for your retail business? Email pghretail [at] gmail.com for your first free consulting meeting.

Connect Card Rewards

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ConnectCard

The Port Authority of Pittsburgh has made leaps and bounds by activating the Connect Card program to make bus fare more efficient and data collection to adjust routes.

PGHretail was able to sit down with Port Authority directors to discuss retail marketing initiatives, primarily, the rebranding of their Riders Rewards.

The Port Authority is moving as quickly as they can to meet demands of public transit riders and partner with local businesses to add value to users of the Connect Card.

You can see a list of current participants of Connect Rewards here.

What deals would you like to see on there? Any local businesses you frequent often on your bus routes you’d enjoy additional rewards at? Go ahead and let us know right here in the comments or by email at pghretail [@] gmail dot com.

Raising Awareness in Local Offices

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Back in October 2013, PGHretail sat down with County Executive, Rich Fitzgerald, and proposed a wide array of alternative transportation ideas.  We’ve been able to sit down with key players from the county, city, and Port Authority of Pittsburgh.

In addition to public transportation projects, which directly impact our local retail economy, we addressed the lack of information and support for the Creative Class and Creative Economy.  Entrepreneurs, innovators, grassroots organizations, artisans, and skilled craftsman have a huge impact on development in micro-economies within communities. The City of Philadelphia is a great example of how local government can gather information for that demographic, businesses that serve those folks, and non-profit organizations looking to cater funding initiatives.  Check out their site: http://creativephl.org/ and particularly, the CultureBlock site that maps resources: http://www.cultureblocks.com/wordpress/

Now, Pittsburgh organizations are trying.  Our professional critique is that passively crowd-sourcing, with little marketing efforts, to gather data is a very slow process to obtain information from very busy, focused individuals working hard to build their businesses and projects.  We hope that the URA is able to provide funding for a position that actively obtains and updates their latest project: http://launchpgh.com/

If you or someone you know, needs the resources from LAUNCHpgh, suggest their involvement to help establish the important information our growing economic developments need.

Future of Retail, Pt 6

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For decades the mystery shopper was the main way retailers assessed operations from a customer’s point of view. By sending in a fake shopper, typically once a month, an individual store essentially was buying a dozen performance snapshots per year. Then telephone surveys began to supplement mystery shopping. Today, digital technologies are supplanting both, with online customer surveys providing an exponentially greater number of performance snapshots per day.

A well-managed loop that links customer experience feedback with recommendations on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp, can boost service quality and operational performance, increase traffic and create more happy customers — people who crow about a retailer online for free, turning their friends into new customers too.

A new mini-industry has emerged using these techniques, known as “customer experience management,” or CEM. Our company, Empathica — as well as a number of competitors — are providing customer feedback to operations, while partnering with “web-scraping” companies to listen to random chatter online.

 

Read the full article here —>

Future of Retail, Pt 5

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A person with a smart phone can scan a bar code in Best Buy or Macy’s, check the price, and order from Amazon or Target on the spot. So Amazon could receive an order from a customer that was stimulated to buy while in Best Buy.

This may revolutionize retailing and cause considerable consternation and ultimately dislocation for several players.

Remember when the Internet arrived and customer who was savvy gained the power to check prices of all the options. Especially for durables, that power led to sensitivity to prices and resulting price pressures.

 

Read the full article here —>

Future of Retail, Pt 4

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“Like many men, I’ve never been very enthusiastic about shopping.

That’s partly because I’m frugal, and don’t enjoy spending money. It’s partly due to the hassles I associate with visiting retail stores — a series of inconveniences that begins in the parking lot (hunting for spaces), continues in the aisles (where I can never find what I need), and ends at the cash registers (where I have little patience for long lines).

Much of the problem, though, lies in psychology. While I can be confident of my decision-making skills in other areas of life, my shopping decisions are often plagued by second-guessing, paralysis, and buyer’s remorse. Even when I recognize the need for a product — I’ve been looking for a good pair of lace-up black shoes for three months — I often put it off, afraid of making a decision I’ll regret.

In the last year, however, I’ve noticed these problems are ebbing. I don’t dread shopping as much as I used to. At times, I’m even starting to enjoy it. Upon reflection, I attribute this attitude adjustment to a simple phenomenon: I’m becoming armed with better information.”

Read the full article here —>