J.C. Penney Defers Its RFID Dreams

Six months after its CEO announced plans to use RFID tags for 100 percent of its goods by February 2013, the retailer now says that it will restrict tagging to only a few merchandise categories, in order to reduce costs.

By Claire Swedberg

Jan. 30, 2013—J.C. Penney has reduced its commitment to radio frequency identification tagging this month, to a fraction of its original rollout plans. The retailer issued a letter to its suppliers on Jan. 21, indicating that only shoes, bras and some denim products would require item-level RFID tags. However, the firm indicated to RFID Journal that the tagged items would also include fashion jewelry.

Six months ago, at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference—held in July 2012, in Aspen, Colo.—Ron Johnson, the company's CEO, had announced that all merchandise sold by J.C. Penney would be tagged by February 2013, and that every store would be equipped with the hardware and software necessary to read the tags and use the culled data to improve supply chain and inventory visibility (see J.C. Penney CEO Predicts RFID Will Help Create a Transformational Shopping Experience). What's more, the retailer would begin using RFID to enable customer self-checkout, Johnson announced, explaining that operating the company's cash registers would be a big expense. "About 10 percent of all the money we spend—half a billion dollars a year—goes to transactions," he had stated. By using RFID, in conjunction with other technologies, to enable self-checkout, the firm would save money that it could then redirect to providing a new level of customer service.

In order to reap all of the money-saving benefits of such a huge RFID deployment, however, the retailer would first need to spend a great deal of money on the technology's purchase and installation. Ultimately, the price tag for such an ambitious program proved to be too high for the national retailer at this time.

"The company recently postponed the implementation of RFID as part of a cost-saving initiative," says Joey Thomas, J.C. Penney's media relations manager, "but will continue to roll out tagging in bras, footwear, fashion jewelry, and men's and women's denim. We see the value and benefits of RFID, and will continue exploring the opportunity to further deploy the technology at a later date."

Several factors may have led to the RFID postponement, among them the company's own financial problems throughout the past two years. "J.C. Penney's shortfall in sales can't be understated," says Paula Rosenblum, an RSR Research analyst with more than 20 years' experience as a retail technology executive and CIO. "The impact of its shortfall on other decision-making is real."

Although many retailers—including Macy's, Lord & Taylor and even J.C. Penney—say they are achieving big benefits by deploying RFID within just a few departments, Rosenblum believes that there may be a more fundamental problem inhibiting the technology's deployment at department stores. If, based on RFID read data, a cycle count within one department reveals that items are missing from the store front, she explains, the challenge becomes how to interpret that information and how to reconcile it with the expected inventory count. She surmises that auditors—even internal auditors—would be reluctant to accept those results without a full count of goods throughout the entire store if RFID counts differed from expected inventory levels.

For example, 10 pairs of jeans may not appear on the RFID-based count because those items may be located in a non-RFID-enabled dressing room or department, and might turn up on another count two weeks later. When only a few of a store's departments are utilizing radio frequency identification, Rosenblum says, it can be challenging for auditors to figure out why RFID data does not match the expected count. "My feeling is until you can get to a point where you have full RFID coverage [of the entire store]," she states, "the RFID counts are interesting, but I can't imagine an auditor who would sign off on that."

Implementing RFID technology throughout an entire store, including dressing rooms and every department, could initially be a costly proposition, Rosenblum notes. For that reason, she predicts that RFID will currently be a greater benefit to smaller or specialty stores, rather than to large department stores. The stumbling block for RFID installations, she contends, is not so much tag cost as the cost of readers, which would need to be in use within every part of a large store, rather than a few handhelds used periodically by personnel within a few departments.
In its letter to its merchandize vendors, J.C. Penney included a list of the various shoe, bra and denim products that would still need to be tagged, noting that merchandise not included on the list would no longer require an RFID tag. The letter also indicated that the retailer plans to reduce the amount it pays to suppliers for any goods no longer tagged. Since the list of 41 product areas did not include jewelry, Penney's fashion jewelry vendors are most likely not supplying goods with RFID tags already attached. Instead, the retailer's employees are likely attaching RFID tags to jewelry items after receiving them at its distribution centers or stores. 

Big-Box Backlash: The Rebirth of Mom-and-Pop Shops

Posted by Diana Ransom | January 28, 2013

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225604

Call it a retail revival.
After getting crushed by big-box stores during the 1980s and 1990s, mom-and-pop shops are enjoying something of a rebirth among U.S. consumers.
Thanks to a little thing called the internet and the ubiquity of computing devices, consumers don't have to settle for more commoditized versions of their groceries, clothing or housewares. Between the corner coffee shop selling its dark roast across the U.S. and cheesemongers detailing the delights of Rogue River Blue to out-of-state shoppers, consumers can access the neighborhood store even if they move.
"Being online gives shops the opportunity to reach the world rather than just the tourist trade and local shoppers," says Marshal Cohen, a retail analyst at the Port Washington, N.Y., market researcher NPD Group. "Mom-and-pops have reached out and are using online in a real way that works."
While the internet has long promised to serve as a vehicle for democratizing industries like retail, that appraisal is only now starting to add up.
Online sales accounted for 5.2 percent of total retail sales in the third quarter of 2012, according to the latest reading from the U.S. Department of Commerce, which tracks the category. That was up 17.3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. By contrast, total retail sales over the period rose by only 4.6 percent.

"You have a whole generation of people brought up on the internet," says Richard Sylla, an economics and entrepreneurship professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. "I remember I had students saying you should check out Amazon."
So while the days of being able to walk to the local butcher shop for your meat, the produce guy for veggies and the bakery for a loaf of rye may be over forever, that relationship -- along with the kind of customized service prized by smaller shops -- is still available today. And as consumers' appetites for small-store goods grows, so too are the companies' footprints.
Not only did Etsy recently give more than 100 online shop owners an opportunity to showcase their wares in real life at the store's holiday pop-up shop in New York City, six-year-old online men's clothier Bonobos announced in April that it would sell its line to retail-powerhouse Nordstrom.
Similarly, the once online-only glasses-maker Warby Parker this year expects to open up its first wholly-owned retail location in Manhattan. The three-year-old outfit has experimented with other physical-retail concepts including: pop-up shops, showrooms in select cities and even a mobile-sales vehicle, fashioned out of a yellow school bus.
So why the shift to offline? "We expect that online sales to take share overtime," says Warby Parker co-founder David Gilboa. "But if the vast majority of people who buy glasses do so through brick-and-mortar stores, it makes sense for us to cater to them."

Just last year, Murray’s Cheese underwent a major redesign of its website. Owner Rob Kaufelt calls the shift "vital."

In essence, going online when you're offline and offline if you're online is a hedging strategy. "It's like having a portfolio of stocks and bonds," says Murray's Cheese store owner Rob Kaufelt, who just last year ushered in a major redesign of the company's site. "You're never sure if anything is going to tank. . . Some things might do better one year, relatively speaking to the others."
Kaufelt adds that another reason to beef up a company's website is social media and overall online communication. "It's both about ecommerce and marketing your brand. As we expand, we spend more and more time with the fun stuff -- more videos, blogs, entertaining things become increasingly vital," says the entrepreneur who purchased the Greenwich Village cheese shop in 1991.
Meanwhile, giant retailers are feeling the pangs of progress. Between same-day delivery and "showrooming," internet businesses with lower-overhead expenses are cutting into their larger counterparts' margins and, in some cases, pushing companies out of business.
Among other examples, the once mighty bookseller Borders Group filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011, while Sears Holdings Corp., the parent of Sears, Roebuck and Co., in April moved to sell off properties and business units under the weight of declining sales. Also in April, Best Buy announced that it would shutter 50 stores, as customers flock to lower-priced online competitors.

To stave off a similar fate, traditional retailers have been experimenting with pricing strategies and even opening their doors on holidays once viewed as sacrosanct. In addition to opening on Thanksgiving to receive early Black Friday shoppers, retailers including Target Corp. and Best Buy also offered to match competitors' prices during the overheated holiday-shopping season. In January, Target announced its plan to implement a year-round price matching program.
"Capitalism is creative destruction," says Sylla. "Old models get outmoded, and new models come in and take over."
While the jury is still out as to whether smaller shops like Murray's Cheese and Warby Parker could one day pose a larger threat to their giant counterparts, one thing's for certain: Catering to consumers wherever they are -- and in a robust, customized way -- is a key growth strategy.
"Online a decade ago didn't even represent 4 percent of [total retail] sales," says Cohen. In most categories today, he notes that online represents 16 percent of retail sales or more. "Think what will happen with smartphones in two years. . . You have to shoot it at where the target will be, not where it is now."
Warby Parker's Gilboa agrees: "The future of our business and the future of all retail will have some online component and offline component." Plus, he adds, "We'll look nothing like a LensCrafters."

Disneyland menu icon ID's healthier children's items

By SARAH TULLY

2013-01-03 13:45:08

ANAHEIM – Parents now can easily see when they are ordering healthier fast food for their children at Disney parks.
Disneyland and Disney California Adventure have added a symbol next to children's menu items that meet certain nutritional guidelines at quick-service restaurants. Table-service restaurants at the Anaheim parks will start using the symbol, called Mickey Check, this month.
The Mickey Check symbol is the latest in an effort, called Magic of Healthy Living, that began in 2006. While the food hasn't changed, Disney is making it easier for parents to spot the healthier options.
"The Mickey Check icon is the latest step in our efforts to make nutritious eating simple and more fun," said Janice Sindoni, a Disneyland Resort spokesman.
For full meals, the guidelines include a maximum of 600 calories and limits on sugar and saturated fat. Meals automatically come with water-based beverages, low-fat milk or 100 percent juice.
Visitors can request substitutes, such as soda and fries.
Some examples of healthier meals: a chicken quesadilla with rice and a fruit cup at Cocina Cucamonga in Disney California Adventure; and penne pasta with marinara sauce along with apples and carrots at Plaza Inn at Disneyland. The meals are $6.99.
Jason Cram and his wife bring their two boys, ages 6 and 8, to Disney parks weekly and are aware of the nutritious options.
"My wife and I are of the opinion that Disneyland makes a strong effort to provide healthy options for kids and even (for) adult meals," Cram said in an email. "The Mickey Check is something we have heard about and noticed, but we have not used it as a method for meal planning."
The Mickey Check symbol is also used at Walt Disney World in Florida.

Eight Retailers That Will Close the Most Stores

It is the time of year again, when America’s largest retailers release those critical holiday season figures and disclose their annual sales. A review of these numbers tells us a great deal about how most of the companies will do in the upcoming year. And while successful retailers in 2012 may add stores this year, those that have performed very poorly may have to cut locations during 2013 to improve margins or reverse losses.

For many retailers, the sales situation is so bad that it is not a question of whether they will cut stores, but when and how many. Most recently, Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) decided it had too many stores to maintain profits. Its CEO recently said he plans to close as many as a third of the company’s locations.
Several of America’s largest retailers have been battered for years. Most have been undermined by a combination of e-commerce competition, often from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and more successful retailers in the same areas. Borders and Circuit City are two of the best examples of retailers that were destroyed by larger bricks-and-mortar competition and consumers transitioning to online shopping. These large, badly damaged retailers could not possibly keep their stores open.
Currently, the best example of a struggling retailer is J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP). The department store chain’s third-quarter revenue dropped more than 26% year-over-year, and its same-store sales fell by about the same. With J.C. Penney’s e-commerce sales slipping by an ever greater amount, it was left with nowhere to go for bottom line improvement other than deep cost cuts.
Store closings can bring a retailer some relief and may not always portend its demise. Gap (NYSE: GPS) announced in 2011 it would shutter 21% of its U.S. store base. It has since transformed itself into a much more successful clothing retailer. As the retailer completes the process of downsizing, its store operations likely will become even more efficient and its margins greater.
Very few retailers get into sudden trouble. Chains like Kmart and RadioShack Corp. (NYSE: RSH) have struggled for years just to stay in place. Their brands have lost much of their luster. Their stores have become old and their locations no longer attractive. The consumer’s perception is that the products they sell can be found elsewhere, usually at a cheaper price, and at retailers with better customers service and wider selections of products.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the weakest large U.S. retailers and picked those that likely will not be profitable next year if they keep their current location counts. 24/7 analyzed the retailers’ store counts, recent financial data, online presences, prospects against direct competitors and precedents set by other large retailers that have downsized by shuttering locations. We then forecast how many stores each retailer will have to close this year to sharply increase its prospects financially, even if some of those location closings do not occur for several years. These forecasts were based on drops in same-store sales, drops in revenue, a review of direct competitors, Internet sales and the size of cuts at retailers in the same sector, if those were available.
These are the eight retailers that will close the most stores in 2013.
1. Best Buy
> Forecast store closings: 200 to 250
> Number of U.S. stores:1,056
> One-year stock performance: -36.8%
The holiday season was rough for Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY). Same-store sales declined by 1.4% year-over-year, with international stores posting a 6.4% decline while U.S. same-store sales were flat. Companywide, the electronics retailer reported that holiday revenue had declined to $12.8 billion from $12.9 billion the year before. In the most recent completed quarter, during which same-store sales declined 4.3%, the company reported a loss of $0.04 per share. Best Buy has been plagued by customers “showrooming” — looking at products in the store and then purchasing them online — in recent years. Speculation persists that former chairman and founder Richard Schulze may buy out the company.
2. Barnes & Noble
> Forecast store closings: 190 to 240, per company comments
> Number of U.S. stores: 689
> One-year stock performance: 8.95%
The move by customers away from print books toward digital books has hurt Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS). Same-store sales during the nine-week holiday season fell by 8.2% year-over-year. The bookseller has tried to offset the declines in physical book sales with its Nook e-book reader device, but sales of that device fell 13% compared to the previous year. The company already has begun cutting down the number of its stores in the past several years. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the head of the retail group at Barnes & Noble said he expected the company to have just 450 to 500 retail stores in 10 years.

2. Sears Holding Corp.
> Forecast store closings: Kmart 175 to 225, Sears 100 to 125
> Number of U.S. stores: 2,118
> One-year stock performance: 8.8%
Both Sears and Kmart have been going down the tubes for a long-time, steadily losing their middle-income shoppers to retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT). Sears Holdings Corp.’s (NASDAQ: SHLD) same-store sales have declined for six years. In the most recent year, same-store sales at the namesake franchise fell by 1.6% and at Kmart by 3.7%, compared to the year-ago period. The company is already in the process of downsizing its brick-and-mortar presence. In 2012, Sears announced it was shutting 172 stores. CEO Lou D’Ambrosio is leaving the company in February, to be replaced by chairman and hedge-fund manager Edward Lampert. Lampert has minimal operating experience in retail management.
4. J.C. Penney
> Forecast store closings: 300 to 350
> Number of U.S. stores: 1,100
> One-year stock performance: -53.6%
J.C. Penney has gone through a rough stretch recently. In the most recent quarter, same-store sales fell by 26.1% compared to the year-ago period. Even Internet sales, which are increasing significantly across the retail sector, have taken a turn for the worst, falling 37.3% in the third quarter, compared to the prior year. J.C. Penney sales have taken a turn for the worst since former Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) retail chief Ron Johnson took the helm at the company. Johnson’s plan, among others, has been to wean customers off of heavy discounting and simply give customers low prices. However, retail strategists and analysts have argued that Johnson’s plans have created confusion among customers and has been a further setback to any potential turnaround.
5. Office Depot
> Forecast store closings: 125 to 150
> Number of U.S. stores: 1,114
> One-year stock performance: 50.7%
Office Depot Inc.’s (NYSE: ODP) troubles date back to years of competition against OfficeMax Inc. (NYSE: OMX) and Staples Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLS), as well as big-box retailers like Walmart. All three stores were dealt a blow from reduced business activity during the recession, as well as increased popularity of online retailers such as Amazon. The company’s North American division reported an operating loss of $21 million in the third quarter of 2012. Office Depot plans to relocate or downsize as many as 500 locations and close at least 20 stores. In the third quarter of 2012, the company closed four stores in the United States, and same-store sales were down by 4% year-over-year.

6. Gamestop
> Forecast store closings: 500 to 600
> Number of U.S. stores: 4,471
> One-year stock performance: -2.2%
In November, just as the holiday season was in full swing, GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) announced it would close 200 stores in 2013. The video game retailer, hurt by growth in mobile gaming at the expense of console gaming platforms, had a 4.6% year-over-year decrease in revenue, as well as a 4.4% decline in comparable-store sales over the nine-week holiday period. For the third quarter of 2012, the most recent quarterly release, gross profits fell at GameStop’s three core product segments: new hardware, new software and used products.
7. OfficeMax
> Forecast store closings: 150 to 175
> Number of U.S. stores: 872
> One-year stock performance: 80.8%
OfficeMax, like rival office-supply stores such as Staples and Office Depot, has been hit hard by both online competition and lower sales for technology products such as personal computers. In the third quarter of 2012, OfficeMax reported that same-store sales in the U.S. fell by 2.6%. Midway through the fourth-quarter of 2011, the company announced that it would seek to close 15 to 20 stores every year for the next five years. In addition, the company has been in the process of downsizing its square-footage presence by moving into smaller locations.

8. RadioShack
> Forecast store closings: 450 to 550
> Number of U.S. stores: 4,412
> One-year stock performance: -68.1%
Earlier this month, RadioShack’s long-term prospects as a viable company took another hit when its partnership with Target ended after neither side could come up with a mutually beneficial deal. The company had operated mobile kiosks at 1,500 Target locations across the country. Shares of the consumer electronics company are down by roughly 68% over the past year. The company recorded an operating loss of nearly $60 million in the third quarter of 2012. Same-store sales in the quarter dropped by 1.6% year-over-year. Revenue in the quarter fell by 3.8% year-over-year. Between 2010 and 2011, the company closed 2.2% of its existing locations — more than 120 locations in all.

Overcoming the Challenges of Retail Wi-Fi

It sounds like a simple proposition for retailers: provide Wi-Fi for customers and employees to use with their smartphones and tablets inside their stores.
Shoppers are coming to expect it: in a recent survey by SapientNitro and GfK Roper, 63% said free Wi-Fi would enhance their shopping experience. And even though some will use the service to compare prices online, more and more retail chains are offering Wi-Fi service to customers. In the 2012 holiday season JC Penney Inc Target Corp. and Saks Inc. joined the ranks of other chains that had offered Wi-Fi in previous years, including Macy’s Inc., Sam’s Club and Nordstrom Inc. Wi-Fi also offers opportunities to improve employee productivity and customer satisfaction–for example, by allowing a sales person to check the stockroom without leaving the floor, or even to complete a sales transaction in the aisles.
There are more than 80 million unique Wi-Fi networks in the US. How difficult could it be to put a few into stores?
Very difficult, it turns out. In fact, Bain & Company’s work with retailers finds that rolling out Wi-Fi to a network of stores is among the most capital intensive and complex projects IT departments will tackle this decade. That’s true in other industries as well, whether it’s a cruise line installing Wi-Fi in its ships or a large company rolling Wi-Fi out among a network of offices.
Much can go wrong. At one chain, IT managers planned for enough bandwidth to stream instructional videos, only to discover later that employees’ devices were too slow to run them. At another store, installers disrupted shopping when they dropped access points from 50-foot ceilings. One retailer had to convince its competitor at the other end of a mall to allow a network connection to pass through their store. Another was shocked to see its original planning estimate of a few million dollars balloon to more than $100 million over just a few months because its IT department lacked the experience to gauge the real costs, not only of hardware and connectivity, but of managing different building and electrical codes, varying regional labor laws and the full impact of business disruption in stores.
As that retailer learned, putting Wi-Fi into a large commercial environment involves a series of complex design decisions and requires more planning and coordination than many IT departments realize. Only by investing time early in the process to understand the requirements can CIOs and their companies avoid unpleasant surprises, long delays and costly overruns.
First among the big decisions: get a clear picture of what Wi-Fi will do for the business. This will require input from other departments beyond IT. What reward will a company reap for its efforts? Hotels and airports, which can charge customers for Wi-Fi access, have an easier time answering this question. It’s more challenging for retailers who typically provide the service for free and must accept the risk that customers will use their Wi-Fi to shop for and buy a product elsewhere. Executives must weigh the tradeoffs in higher levels of customer satisfaction and employee productivity.
Second, IT should approach the design of the Wi-Fi networks with a clear understanding of the ways that customers and employees will use it. Does the company intend to provide enough bandwidth to allow customers to stream video so that they could watch instructional or marketing videos – or will they find their networks bogged down when parents let their toddlers stream videos to distract them while they shop? Should they instead offer only enough bandwidth to allow them to look up information on products? Do they want the ability to locate employees or to track shopping patterns – a potentially rich source of data in planning future displays and store layouts?
CIOs also need to allow enough time to plan the project carefully. Wi-Fi projects require much coordination among departments. In addition to working with business and functional leaders, they may involve store operators, real-estate managers, data center personnel and a small army of vendors across the country who will actually install the equipment. Many of these projects require retrofitting buildings of various sizes, ages, and configurations to perform under 21^st -century expectations.
Store surveys also have to be undertaken, to understand the layout of the retail space as well as the underlying infrastructure of electrical and communication networks and barriers such as concrete or steel structures. Determining connections from the telecom operator to the store or through a mall can sometimes be more complex than expected.
Finally, pilot programs can help identify problems before they roll out to an entire chain. At one retail chain, for example, installers placed access points in locations that they decided were more convenient than those indicated on the plan – a shortcut that created gaping holes in coverage that were costly to fix later.
Retailers may believe they need to provide Wi-Fi for the time being – but that alone isn’t a sufficient reason to install it. Only with a clear plan of the benefits that Wi-Fi can deliver, and with a well thought-out plan, can retailers launch Wi-Fi rollouts that make sense.

Taco Bell pulls ad that mocked veggies

http://ispot.tv/a/7wLg

NEW YORK (AP) -- Taco Bell is pulling a TV ad after receiving complaints that it discouraged people from eating vegetables.
The ad by the fast-food chain was touting its variety 12-pack of tacos, with a voiceover saying that bringing a vegetable tray
to a party is "like punting on fourth and one." It said that people secretly hate guests who bring vegetables to parties.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy group, this weekend urged people to tweet their complaints
about the ad and the chain quickly made the decision to pull it.
"We didn't want anyone to misinterpret the intent of the ad," says Rob Poetsch, a Taco Bell spokesman.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest thanked Taco Bell for its speedy response.

10 Personal Branding Trends for 2013 (Part 2)

10 Personal Branding Trends for 2013 (Part 2)

by William Arruda  |  

January 24, 2013

In 10 Personal Branding Trends for 2013 (Part 1), I shared five important personal branding trends for the New Year. In this second installment, I present five more trends you should consider making use of in your personal branding strategy to help you stand out and achieve your career goals.

6. QR Codes

I was in a neighborhood of Buenos Aires called Palermo SoHo recently and I noticed that every storefront had a QR code on it. QR codes are popping up all over, and it's not just in the hip neighborhoods of major cities. You can see them on billboards, print ads, coffee mugs—and, most recently, on resumes, business cards, and in all kinds of correspondence. You can even get a custom QR code printed on a T-shirt or wristband to help direct people you meet to your personal website.

According James Alexander and the cool folks at Vizibility.com, personal QR codes and Microsoft Tag barcodes are essential; they let you instantly share your mobile business card, and they send real-time text or email alerts whenever someone scans your code, including organization name, type, and location.

Soon, QR codes will be on our name badges at networking functions, allowing people we meet to instantly add us to their contact list or link to our online profiles to learn more about who we are.

If you start now, you can be ahead of the curve; you can use your QR code as a conversation starter and a way to stand out from the crowd at that next AMA meeting.

7. Timeline

When Facebook launched its Timeline about a year ago, it sparked a fury. Some loved it, and some thought it would mark the end Facebook's rule over the realm of social networking.

Facebook Timeline changed the default profile from a list of your most recent updates to a complete summary of your entire life since birth. We seem to have grown accustomed to that approach: Various resources are now using a similar technique to help you express your brand. ResumUp for example, takes your education and work experience, puts them in a timeline format, and adds other relevant information to create a compelling visual history of your work. Re.Vu allows you to import your LinkedIn profile and create an attractive timeline by incorporating images and infographics, augmenting the text-based content.

Thinking of your career in this way allows you to better communicate the value you delivered and the growth you achieved during your previous employment.

To build the ideal timeline, maintain a job journal so you have the content, images, and presentations that will best showcase your brand.

8. Teams

Personal branding has come a long way from when only five of us working in this field... but team branding is still relatively new. And it's hot. I am working with leaders who are interested in knowing how their team is perceived among their constituencies, and how each team member contributes to the overall perception. These leaders are using branding tools to find out where their organizations stand.

Thanks to advertising genius David Ogilvy, companies have been using branding to stand out and attract the attention of their ideal clients since the 1940s. Over the past decade, companies have been applying similar branding principles to their people, helping them unearth what makes them exceptional, and applying that knowledge to the company strategy.

In the world of branding, the team has been the missing link; it is the connective tissue between the personal brand and the company brand. Many of the Reach-certified Personal Branding Strategists are implementing team branding programs with their corporate clients, and they're sharing the results with me. Right now, the teams that seem most interested in understanding their brands are sales and consulting groups. In the future, team leaders in Accounting, IT, and Marketing will want to understand and manage their brand.

Are you aware of your marketing team's brand?

9. Validation

Unless you have completely gone off the grid, you have likely noticed a new feature of Linked In: Endorsements. In fact, you have likely received endorsements or you've been asked to provide them. Essentially, LinkedIn augmented its recommendations feature to allow others to identify the skills at which we excel.

LinkedIn knows that external feedback comes with credibility that is hard to build when the one talking about you is you. This recent change is part of a larger trend, in the form of feedback from others, that helps us validate and reinforce what we say about ourselves.

If you have used Yelp or TripAdvisor or other similar services, you understand the power of crowdsourcing, and you likely make decisions based on that collective feedback of others. Crowdsourcing, once the domain of products, hotels, and restaurants, is quickly coming to careerists.

Delivering on your brand promise every day helps others understand who you are and what makes you exceptional—and makes it easier for them to provide consistent, accurate feedback about you.

10. Video

I have been touting the importance of video as a personal branding tool nonstop for the last three years, and its time has truly come. Creating, posting, sharing, and promoting your videos has become extremely easy.

For example, until just a few weeks ago, getting video into your LinkedIn profile using SlideShare (owned by LinkedIn) or Behance was a challenge. Now, you can just click on the video symbol while editing your profile, provide the URL of your video... and presto: embedded video.

Every aspect of creating and using video has become much easier! There was always some roadblock to using video—whether it was real-time, ad-hoc, or studio-produced. That's no longer the case. Virtually every computer and tablet comes with a video camera. Google+ Hangouts makes real-time group video conferences a snap. Services from videoBIO allow you to quickly create, edit, and post professional videos from your home or office. They also offer a service that enables you to produce videos and embed them into email, allowing you to deliver a branded and differentiated message.

Video provides the opportunity to deliver a complete communication. It is, therefore, among the most powerful tools you have for building your brand.

* * *

A few things to know about that $7 cuppa Joe

A few things to know about that $7 cuppa Joe

In this photo taken Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, James Freeman, founder of Blue Bottle Coffee poses after cupping samples of coffee at his roastery in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Still think a $5 latte at Starbucks is over the top? Hold on, because now there's an even pricier cuppa Joe to get buzzed about.

These days caffeine fiends are all atwitter about Geisha beans, a high-end coffee so rare and prized it's being sold for $7 a cup. That's a lot of dough for a straight up cup of Joe, but worth it say fans of the beans which come from low-producing plants that grow only in certain areas.

"It's got unique aromatics. It's just rich with tropical fruits. It's got tremendous brightness in the cup — sweet and just super interesting stuff," says Ric Rhinehart, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, based in Long Beach, Calif. "Coffee people are just in love with it."

The beans emerged on the market about seven years ago and quickly got the attention of high-end roasters and coffee connoisseurs. Now, the coffee has moved toward the mainstream, being offered at Starbucks and sold by the pound by major companies, including Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee, which recently introduced its Colombia Geisha Special Reserve coffee as part of its line of rare and premium beans.

Just don't expect this to become an everyday blend, says Lindsay Bolger, director of coffee for Green Mountain Coffee. "It can't because it's limited and obviously we're not going to be able to carry it year-round," she says. But when you "really are seeking a very singular, very unique, very rarefied experience with your coffee, this is such a wonderful and convenient way to bring that to coffee lovers.

Geisha beans originated in the Gesha (no "i'') district of Ethiopia, hence the name. There's no literal connection to the elegant Japanese hostesses, though Bolger sees a figurative affinity in that the coffee is "very delicate, pure, the flavor expression is refined, graceful, very lovely."

The plant was taken to Central America at some point and became a sensation during the last decade after a Panamanian farm, Hacienda La Esmeralda, offered the beans at auction.

James Freeman, founder of Blue Bottle Coffee, a small, upscale chain based in the San Francisco Bay area — it also has outlets in New York City — was among those who were impressed with Geisha coffee when it first emerged. The company now sells tins of beans as well as brewed coffee for around $7 a cup.

"We're getting a lot of great feedback about how distinctive it is," Freeman says. "A good Geisha is very much unlike any other coffee that you've ever had, so it's very memorable. It's not a subtle thing for connoisseurs only."

Why the high price tag? Not only does the Geisha plant produce relatively few beans, it's also very sensitive to soils and climate. Plant it in one spot and it's special, try another and it's just ordinary coffee, says Bolger. "It requires just the right conditions and it requires very careful handling."

At Green Mountain, the Columbia Geisha is being sold in 18-count boxes of K-cup packs at $31.99, which works out to about $1.80 per cup. Blue Bottle is selling 150-gram tins at $25, with each tin producing 8 to 10 servings.

The quest for super premium coffees mirrors what's been going on in other parts of the food world, such as the revival of heirloom tomatoes, says Rhinehart. "We're always looking for unique flavors or exceptional qualities."

What Freeman likes about the Geisha trend is that consumers are recognizing the name and getting interested in the concept of searching out different types of beans. "It's making people pay attention," he says. "It's not a 99-cent thing that comes out of a tap."

They're back: J. C. Penney adds sales

They're back: J. C. Penney adds sales

This image provided by J.C. Penney shows the company's new advertising campaign. Penney is still embracing its “fair and square” strategy as the cornerstone of its reinvention plan, and says the promotions will be targeted. But the latest tactic acknowledges that middle-income shoppers can't be weaned off sales. (AP Photo/J.C.Penney)

ANNE D'INNOCENZIO , The Associated Press

Posted: Monday, January 28, 2013, 1:50 PM

NEW YORK - J.C. Penney is bringing back sales.

The struggling department store chain this week will begin adding back some of the hundreds of sales it ditched last year in hopes of luring shoppers who were turned off when the discounts disappeared.

Penney also plans to add price tags or signs for more than half of its merchandise to show customers how much they're saving by shopping at the mid-priced chain , a strategy used by a few other retailers such as home decor chain Crate and Barrel and the company that owns TJ Maxx, HomeGoods and Marshalls. For store branded items such as Arizona, Penney will show comparison prices from competitors.

The moves are a departure for Penney on the eve of the one-year anniversary when it vowed to almost completely get rid of the sales that Americans covet but that cut into a store's profits. The idea was to offer everyday low prices that customers could count on rather than the nearly 600 fleeting discounts, coupons and sales it once offered.

The bold plan has been closely watched by others in the retail industry, which is notorious for offering deep discounts to draw shoppers. But so far the experiment has served as a cautionary tale of how difficult it is to change shoppers' habits: Penney next month is expected to report its fourth consecutive quarter of big sales drops and profit losses. After losing more than half of its value, Penney stock is trading at around $18. And the company's credit ratings are in junk status.

Bottom of Form

CEO Ron Johnson, who rolled out the pricing plan shortly after taking the top job in November 2011, told The Associated Press last week that the latest moves are not a "deviation" from his strategy but rather an "evolution."

"Our sales have gone backward a little more than we expected, but that doesn't change the vision or the strategy," says Johnson, who previously masterminded Apple Inc.'s retail stores and Target Corp.'s cheap chic fashion strategy. "We made changes and we learned an incredible amount. That is what's informing our tactics as we go forward."

But critics say that Johnson is backpedaling. Walter Loeb, a New York-based retail consultant, says Johnson "is now realizing that he has to be more promotional to attract shoppers."

The pricing strategy has been a key part of Johnson's plan to reinvent Penney from the ground up. The plan includes adding hip new brands such as Joe Fresh and replacing racks of clothing with small shops-within-stores by 2015. But this isn't the first time the pricing strategy has been tweaked.

When it was rolled out in February 2012, the plan entailed permanently slashing prices on everything in the store by 40 percent. Instead of the 600 or so sales and coupons it used to offer, Penney decided to have just 12 monthlong sales events on some merchandise. And there would be periodic clearance events throughout the year.

But the new pricing plan wasn't well received on Wall Street or Main Street, so six months after launching it, Johnson ditched the monthlong sales, saying that they were too confusing to shoppers. Johnson says Penney has learned that people don't shop on a monthly basis, but rather they buy when they need something for say, back-to-school or during the winter holidays. And during those times, he says, they're looking for even more value.

"I still believe that the customer knows the right price, but they want help," he says.

Penney declined to say how many sales events it will offer going forward, citing competitive reasons. But the company says the figure will be well below the nearly 600 that it used to offer. The company says the discounts will vary depending on the sale. From Feb. 1 through Feb. 14, for instance, shoppers will get 20 percent off some jewelry for Valentine's Day. One example: half carat diamond heart pendants on sale for $96, below Penny's everyday price of $120.

Penney says the decision to add tags or signs on much of its merchandise that shows the "manufacturer's suggested retail price" alongside Penney's "everyday" price was a result of his realization that shoppers want a reference price to consider. National brands were also asking Penney to show the suggested price to shoppers, he says. Penney began showing the suggested manufacturer's price on Izod men's merchandise last fall, and was encouraged by the response.

Burt Flickinger, a retail consultant, says the move could help Penney because manufacturers' suggested retail prices can be as much as 40 percent higher than what retailers wind up charging. The practice is common in the home appliance industry, but spotty in the department-store industry because stores generally hike prices up even more to give shoppers the illusion of a big discount, he says.

"The strategy will be helpful for shoppers to understand lower prices," Flickinger says. "At the same time, it will be tough to get consumers back in the store from competitors."

But Craig Johnson, another retail consultant, says adding the suggested manufacturer's price is just a gimmick. "The objective of this exercise is to maximize the perceived value for the purchase," he says.

Johnson says Penney will submit supporting data to its legal team for approval before it advertises its price on branded merchandise, using certain criteria. For example, they'll make sure the fabric used is of the same quality as its rivals. For jewelry, Penney is using the International Gemological Institute, a third-party appraiser.

"There are no makeup prices here," Johnson says. "It's all about trying to communicate what it's worth to the customer."

Penney will not show comparison prices for merchandise that is part of exclusive partnerships with brands such as Nicole Miller and Mango, however. The company says it's difficult to offer such references.

To promote the strategy, Penney on Wednesday will begin airing TV, print and digital ads. One TV ad compares a $9 polo shirt under its store brand Arizona with $19 "elsewhere." "Two polos, same color, same vibrant, same details, same swing, same swagger, different prices," the ad says.

Going forward, Johnson reiterated that he expects Penney to return to growth sometime in 2013. That would be a welcome change for Penney, which has had steep sales and profit losses since the new strategy was launched.

For the first nine months of its current fiscal year, Penney lost $433 million, or $1.98 per share compared with a loss of $65 million, or 30 cents per share in the year-ago period. Total sales dropped 23.1 percent to $9.1 billion.

Analysts expect Penney to post a loss of 17 cents on sales of $4.22 billion for the fourth quarter. They expect the company's annual sales to fall by 23 percent, or nearly $4 billion, to $13.3 billion for the latest year. Revenue at stores opened at least a year , a measure of a retailer's health , are expected to drop 25 percent, in line with the third quarter, according to analyst polled by research firm FactSet.

"A year ago, we were launching a major transformation and didn't know what to expect," he says. "Today, I know what happened. Our team has a year's worth of history. This is going to be a great year because the new JCP is coming to life for customers."