A speciality food store in Brisbane Australia, recently made the headlines by announcing that they were charging $5 for customers to come into their store and browse.

I’m not sure whether it was it was a publicity stunt, or a genuine protest against the number of people who were coming into the shop to check out products before ordering from someone else online, but it raises an interesting question – could you charge customers in a different way? 

With more purchases being made online, is it impossible that ‘shops’ become showrooms that you pay to enter in the future? And that’s just one alternative source of revenue for retail businesses aside from product sales.

For example, we recently featured a coffee shop where the coffee was free, but you paid for the time you spent in there – perhaps a reaction to the number of people taking an hour over a filter coffee while taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi. Given the number of people ‘browsing’ magazines in places like WH Smiths, how long before they provide seating and become a paid-for library? 

If you can come up with an innovative way to charge for what you do, it could separate your business from the crowd and generate valuable free publicity. Something to think about.

Brown Toilet Paper 

I’m not sure whether it’s a colour issue, or the fact that people are sensitive about what they apply to their more delicate areas, but recycled toilet paper isn’t as popular as you might expect.

Cascades Tissue Group in the US hope to change that with a toilet paper called Moka that is made from recycled cardboard boxes. People are accustomed to brown napkins and paper towels, but how receptive they’ll be to brown toilet paper is unclear. Without going into detail, there may be issues.

This is further proof though, that thinking outside of what is traditionally accepted is worth a try. Is your product always a certain size, shape or colour and are there good reasons for that?

A little critical thinking might lead you to the conclusion that there is no logical reason why you can’t do something very different, and doing that will help you stand out from the crowd.

Today’s National Day  

NATIONAL GET OUT OF THE DOG HOUSE DAY!

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

   Dear Streetwise Customer, 

  I hope you’re keeping safe and well. 

  This offer is limited, so we are only make it available to our most valued Streetwise customers at the moment. 

  Back in the autumn, we alerted a few of our customers to a course, created by a guy making what seemed at the time to be an outrageous prediction. 

  He predicted the world would soon be gripped by a unprecedented crisis which would create a huge financial opportunity. Crazy eh? 

  Anyway the course revolved around a strategy which would enable anyone to make £2,803 a month to ‘tick over’ in normal times, but would then transform into a massive fortune maker once the implications of the predicted crisis hit. 

  Not many people (including me!) believed the prediction, but £2,800 a month is certainly worth having and a number of our customers got on the bandwagon and started doing well with it…and then the crisis came…sooner than anyone thought. 

   The big opportunity he planned for is about to hit, and I want as many of our customers as possible to benefit…but there’s a hitch. 

   For reasons explained when you take a look at the details here, I can only help NINE people at the moment. But those nine people are going to get something nobody else has been able to get up until today…

       The full programme in one package and at a huge discount! 

   For full details take a look here.

        www.streetwisenews.com/secret  

     
    Very Best Wishes,

John Harrison