Welcome to 2009! This past year has been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. Innovative business practices and the continued rise of technology in retail have allowed shop owners to reach out and serve their customers like never before. Unfortunately, these exciting trends have been underscored by economic catastrophe and a nose dive in consumer confidence. Through it all, I can say without a doubt that there was no difficulty finding subject matter for this blog. As is becoming tradition, I present to you my favorite posts for 2008.

You Still Have a Store? (February 4th) Evangelizing the importance of the web for a retailer’s overall strategy continued to be a common theme for this blog as noted in this post.

Addicted to Text (April 24th) Taking a cue from the Obama Campaign (or was it the other way around?), retailers harnessed the power of the text message as an alternative method of keeping in touch with their customers.

Is Your Store Your Customers’ Favorite? (June 4th) A long time mantra of mine, this ideal became even more important as the competition for customers heated up throughout the later part of 2008.

Go Green to Stay Out of the Red (September 9th) I’m incredibly pleased that this trend continued to gain steam throughout the year as retailers recognized both the environmental and financial benefits to going green.

The Many Ways to Get Into Retail (October 6th) Times of economic hardship can be windows of opportunity, and this post reminded me that the clever and the resilient can find themselves better off as a result of it.

The writing is pretty much on the wall that at least the first half of the coming year will be a difficult period for retailers both large and small. For better or worse, I’ll continue to keep you up to date on what you can do to make sure you come out the other end of this rough spot in one piece. Here’s wishing you a happy and prosperous new year – you deserve it!