May 26, 2010

http://www.cbanews.org/news/#

CBA named Kingdom Retail Solutions (KRS) as a new service provider to help retailers manage their stores for growth. KRS’s experience with turn-around, localized product-mix strategies, marketing, customer-relationship management, and other strategies come together to promote healthy retail businesses and ministries. CBA members receive discounts for KRS services.

KRS works with retailers to assess business problems then cooperatively develops solution plans with managers and owners. President Robbie Halstead said he seeks solutions that reinvigorate productivity, create energy, and get retailers back on track.

Halstead has experience in urban- and suburban-store environments. He assists with store start-ups and creates operation plans to manage efficiently and profitably. He understands inventory management is critical to that because it helps retailers understand who customers are and what they’re buying. An expert in Bookstore Manager POS software, Halstead is able to help retailers use POS systems and other technologies to improve performance. He also helps struggling retailers close their doors with grace.

KRS replaces Strata Consulting LLC which is focusing in a different business direction, including supplier new-product launches, consumer test-marketing, and other areas.

Robbie is optimistic about Christian retail’s future. “Christian stores have a service-orientated mission to provide the people of God with resources needed to enable personal and corporate transformation for advancing the reign of God,” he said. “I’ve never been more excited about Christian retail than I am today. It’s not all gloom and doom. There is hope, God is at work. There are things retailers can do today to make things better. Our marketplace is changing and so must we.

“No longer can we think that pricing is what brings people to stores,” he said. “It’s the atmosphere and what happens in the store. People come to find resources that help renew their vision of the kingdom. They come to learn more about God. They come because they need an infusion of hope, and we have an opportunity to create an atmosphere of encouragement and support for them. Retailers don’t always see the correlation between the experience and sales performance.”

Halstead will use CBA’s Customer Inventory Accelerator tool to help client retailers identify best products to meet customer needs and improve profitability. Developed by CBA, the tool enables retailers to adapt inventory mix to optimize sales in their local markets based on individual budget circumstances.

Former operations manager for CLC Bookcenters before launching KRS, Halstead has worked in a broad range of retail operations, from missionary-owned stores to chains. He said his mentor was the late Ernie Martin, a former CBA board chairman and owner of Whittemore’s, the industry’s first independent million-dollar store.

“I am honored to be a CBA service provider and want to give of my time and skills to help retailers and the overall industry improve the services we provide in service to the kingdom of God,” Halstead said.

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