The smooth swivel steering on the AEG Nimble allows it to twist and turn around furniture with ease, reducing the times you need to move heavy items and is much easier on the wrist. The quick release handle and extra long 4.2m hose mean that you can clean a flight of stairs without having to carry the cleaner, and the extendable tube allows you to reach those high or awkward places with ease.

All independent retailers have customers who visit their stores to familiarize themselves with the products only to go online to buy them. However, potential internet customers give you an opportunity to make a sale, advises Christine Knott, MD of retail training and field marketing company, Beyond The Box.

In an increasingly competitive consumer market and ever changing economic climate. Freesat is pulling out all the stops in the run up to peak to ensure retailers are fully supported in delivering their best Freesat Christmas to date.

Selling accessories allows retailers to earn additional margins at a time when margins on CE products are thinning out, advises Chris Emerson, Alphason’s Chief Operating Officer.

Your shop is full of some of the sexiest and hottest products in the marketplace. Your sales staff are most probably bombarded with questions about digital switchover, 3D, SDTV, HDMI, 1080DP plus a lot more. So the opportunity for your staff to do some smart selling is second to none.

You may ask what smart selling is all about. Well, to put it into context let me take you to McDonalds and examine their ‘chips offer’.

If a customer comes into your store or contacts you they have expressed an interest in your products. They may choose not to purchase from you but a bit of persistence gives you a greater chance to get this sale. Persistence is often interpreted as ‘hounding’ a customer, however it is about being focused on helping the customer and being creative in your approach.

The most important asset of any business are its employees. It is also the one most difficult to manage and retain. Their loyalty (‘longevity’) to a great extent depends on their professional satisfaction – their ability to do their job well. In retail, this is mostly down to their sales skills which, although they can be mastered through years of practice, can also be taught and learnt – as with any other discipline.