Best Retailing Quotes & Sayings

No one in my family had a retail or marketing background. They were professionals. They didn't understand just what I was doing by going into retailing. After I started, though, it got into my blood. I knew this was what I wanted. — Andrea Jung

That books, a commodity little changed since Caxton's day, should have turned out to be the trailblazers of retailing on the internet is one of the stranger cultural ironies of our time. If you've bought one thing on the net, the newest and most prodigiously high-tech communications system imaginable, then it is almost certain to be a book, the oldest and simplest. — Bryan Appleyard

At its zenith Sears accounted for more than 2 percent of all retail sales in the United States. It pioneered several innovations critical to the success of today's most admired retailers: for example, supply chain management, store brands, catalogue retailing, and credit card sales. The esteem in which Sears' management was held shows in this 1964 excerpt from Fortune: "How did Sears do it? In a way, the most arresting aspect of its story is that there was no gimmick. Sears opened no big bag of tricks, shot off no skyrockets. Instead, it looked as though everybody in its organization simply did the right thing, easily and naturally. And their cumulative effect was to create an extraordinary powerhouse of a company. — Clayton M Christensen

I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself. — Sam Walton

I got into retailing because I wanted a real job. — Sam Walton

Local differences in the prices of commodities whose natures are technologically identical are to be explained on the one hand by differences in the cost of preparing them for consumption (expenses of transport, cost of retailing etc.) and on the other hand by the physical and legal obstacles that restrict the mobility of commodities and human beings. — Ludwig Von Mises

For my whole career in retail, I have stuck by one guiding principle. It's a simple one, and I have repeated it over and over and over in this book until I'm sure you're sick to death of it. But I'm going to say it again anyway: the secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. — Sam Walton

90 percent of all Gillette shavers are bought by women for the men in their lives — Martin Lindstrom

Retailing has gone from an information-scarce to an information-rich environment. — Erik Brynjolfsson

We have a company, Geometric Software, which is into engineering services software. We have a company called Nature's Basket, which is into gourmet retailing. Both are specialized companies. — Adi Godrej

Sex doesn't sell anything other than itself — Martin Lindstrom

Windows are as essential to office prestige as Christmas is to retailing. — Enid Nemy

In retailing, the formula happens to be a basic liking for human beings, plus integrity, plus industry, plus the ability to see the other fellow's point of view. — James Cash Penney

Retailing is a unique destination. What you need is stronger critical mass. — John Simon

Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public. — George Santayana

As an old-time small-town merchant, I can tell you that nobody has more love for the heyday of the smalltown retailing era than I do. That's one of the reasons we chose to put our little Wal-Mart museum on the square in Bentonville. It's in the old Walton's Five and Dime building, and it tries to capture a little bit of the old dime store feel. But I can also tell you this: if we had gotten smug about our early success, and said, "Well, we're the best merchant in town," and just kept doing everything exactly the way we were doing it, somebody else would have come along and given our customers what they wanted, and we would be out of business today. — Sam Walton

People are fretful about lifestyle retailing because the idea that anyone's immortal soul and deepest longings can be quite so readily anticipated and consolidated with several hundred thousand other like-minded types is worrying. — Peter York

The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really, if you think about it from the point of view of the customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of good quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free parking; a pleasant shopping experience. — Sam Walton

One of the people who most influenced me was Ben Shapiro, a marketing professor at the business school. He used to rant and rave and pound his fist: 'It's all about the customers!' And he was right. He was also right that, at that time, retailing was devoid of really talented people; he urged me to go in that direction. — Thomas G. Stemberg

In today's retail environment, competition comes from every conceivable retail format. To succeed, we have to operate more efficiently and compete more effectively against players at all levels of the retail demographic. There is no question that this is a bold and exciting move, and one I believe will have a positive impact on competitive retailing for American consumers in the longer term. — Bill Vaughan

Retailing, it's always true that there is some items that I wish we had a lot more of like the iPod and there is some items I wish we had a lot less of. — Lee Scott

Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True.
One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common
morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her
accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously,
for the prices are absurdly cheap,
a prayer for a ticket to heaven,
a diploma for an honorable citizenship.Hide yourself under a bushel
quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would
soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. — Okakura Kakuzo

The general culture of investment banking has deteriorated over the years. We did a $6 million deal years ago for Diversified Retailing and we were rigorously and intelligently screened. They bankers cared and wanted to protect their clients. The culture now is that anything that can be sold for a profit will be. 'Can you sell it?' is the moral test, and that's not an adequate test. — Charlie Munger

My brethren, when God first began to love you, He gave you all that He ever meant to give you in the lump, and eternity of time is that in which He is retailing of it out. — Thomas Goodwin