Friday, November 30, 2007

Women are from Nordstrom's, men are from Sears

In this week's Wharton Knowledge newsletter there was a article on the shopping habits of men and women entitled Men Buy, Women Shop: The Sexes Have Different Priorities When Walking Down the Isle.

Based on research from a study titled, "Men Buy, Women Shop," the article shines light on not only the different shopping philosophies of men and women, but also the some of the challenges they face when "shopping".

One of the keys to successful shopping experience according to the study is the sales associate. However, men and women want different things from associates. One of the studies' authors notes:

"At the end of the day, a sales associate has to be multifaceted," she says. "They have to be an engager, an expediter and an educator. They must be authentic, but what this study tells us is those buttons have to be turned on and off -- or turned on more or less -- depending on whether you are dealing with a man or a woman."

Nothing here that we haven't heard before. But it is always good to hear it again, especially with the research behind it to back up.

The Wharton Knowledge newsletter always has some great articles- plus it's free. Sign up here.


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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

KJUS Women's Excel Accolades

In the December issue of Ski Magazine, on page 152, the Women's Excel was feature in the Women's Gear of the Year section.

Additionally, the Excel was written up in this week's issue of Boulder Weekly.

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No Need to Wait for an Invite to Join the Party!


Ah, college, the good old days. But remember those Friday nights when some house was having a party and you didn't have an invite to get in.

Well, there is a huge party going on on the web these days. It's social networking and some of us are certainly getting to the party later than others, but the key is to at least show up, and for no other reason than to see what it's all about.

Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace are just a few of these networks and they aren't just "for the kids". LinkedIn is a professional relationship network and is certainly the more grown up of the three. Facebook and MySpace are definitely skewed to younger crowd, however many brands, retailers, and businesses are using them to connect with their customers/ fans and grow their business.

There is soon to be a new snowsports focused social network hitting monitors later this week. Bode Miller is launching a social networking site for skiers, called SkiSpace.

We recently created a group on Facebook. Within a week of creating it we had a query from a potential KJUS customer interested in knowing what the highlight color on a jacket was so that she got the correct color pant to match.

How much would you pay to connect with your customers or better yet your competitors' customers? Well, you'll be happy to hear that these are all free. Yes, time is money, but is it worth a half an hour of your time to give your customers another point of contact?

We bet that our newest Facebook friend is now a KJUS Fan and will likely tell her friends about KJUS. And there you go, that's social networking and viral marketing rolled up together.

You've been invited-

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Friday, November 16, 2007

It's All in the Name

KJUS, like many other outdoor and ski related brands, has a name that is hard for people to pronounce. Well maybe not pronounce, but to extrapolate the correct pronunciation. The correct pronunciation is "shoos"- rhymes with juice. Here are some other companies in the industry that many of it's customers also find hard to pronounce correctly-
Some of the easier brand names out there no pronunciation key needed:
We are sure there are others in each category.

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

"That's So KJUS"

Last week I had the pleasure of traveling around the Rocky Mountain territory with our International Sales Manager Nico Serena and Rocky Mountain Sales Representative Bruce Mackenzie. We had a great trip visiting many of our dealers in Park City, Aspen, and Vail, including Cole Sport, Gorsuch, Aspen Sports, Hamilton Sports, Beaver Creek Sports, and Performance Sports to name a few.

While in Aspen we had an evening out with Casey Puckett, who joined the KJUS team this year and will be looking to add to his trophy case in skier cross. Casey is a force in the sport and is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. You can keep tabs on his progress on WCSN where he has a blog. In his most recent post, he discusses his most favorite new saying...

My agent, Lowell Taub, had such a good experience working with the company he replaced the phrase “that’s so awesome, great, wonderful, fantastic, etc.” with “that’s so Kjus,” and now I’ve adopted the phrase. So anytime you think something is awesome, you can just say “that’s so Kjus!” People may or may not know what in the world you’re talking about, but they will.

Puckett, you're so KJUS-

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Monday, November 12, 2007

Commwear Profiled on RSN Outdoors


Vermont's Finest, Doug Lewis and Drew Simmons, dishout some the coolest new gear for the season. They save the best for last and profile the KJUS Commwear jacket. With the limited time they can spend on a piece there is apt to be a couple of small details missed. One being that there were only 250 of these jackets produced, each individually numbered on the cuff, and it comes with a KJUS proprietary communications system that features MP3 and Bluetooth.

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