ComfortChannel.com Blog

How do you define good quality? Exclusive quality, old fashioned quality, hand-crafted quality, top of the line quality.  Unfortunately, a lot of quality is extremely overpriced. In today’s time, we know our customers want deals, coupon codes, and just plain affordable quality. We have just finished our quest to rapidly speed up our buying power to bring new collections of Home Furnishings that are designed to make your home comfortable. You will find materials such as leather, sheepskin, and classic hardwood. Our Buying team is thrilled to be able to market these items because they look super expensive, felt super expensive, but still at an affordable price. Stay tuned to the New Arrivals link on the front page.  For our blog readers, we have the “blog10″ comfortchannel coupon code that will last for the rest of this month (expires 1/31/09). Just type blog10 at checkout.

The marketing teams at both Target and Kmart were on the same plan this week when they both introduced Dollar deals in the weekly ads. This is after Staples did a Dollar Days Deal last week on office supplies like pens, scissors, and binder clips.  The problem is that Comfortchannel is not in the business of selling soda or dog food, but we do sell dog beds and cube refrigerators for 12 packs of pops, like the Avanti Little Tavern.  Walmart’s ad was all about pets (pet mailer),  with the whole page devoted to pet food. Does this mean that people gifted themselves or relatives a new puppy for Christmas?

Kmart is advertising combed cotton bath towels on the their front page along with bath tissue and standard pillows.  In terms of health and fitness products, Kmart is advertising an inexpensive treadmill and recumbent bike on the top corner. The rest of the ad is void of exercise equipment, and turns to a variety of Home and Garden items.  Target has some exercise equipment items in the middle of its ad, featuring similar inflatable exercise balls as the  Gym Fitness balance balls on Comfortchannel that come with pump and DVDs.

Recently a Wall Street Journal Article discussed the unique marketing approach for to help push people to buy Sharp Air Purifiers. The company had developed Plasma Cluster technology which uses water vapor to generate ions that neutralize airborne germs.  Since people may not understand plasma and cluster and just want clean air, Sharp changed the marketing to the benefit ” Germ Killing Ion” instead of touting the feature. This is basic Marketing 101. Sell the sizzle, not the steak.  Hopefully, more appliance companies will look into selling the benefits of their technology instead of features like “0.28 Micron filter”. For the record, the plasma technology removed 90% of air borne mold in one hour in a testing room of 50 square feet. Sharp now markets the air purifiers to fight everything from bird flu to house dust.

While we may be in the midst of winter, it is a time of resolutions and perspective on the recent past of 2008. Spring is when nature comes back to life with buds, sprouts, and flowers, and it is also a time for us to come alive again too. Have you become stuck in a rut? Climb out. Has your business or career stagnated, Get it moving with energy and passion. Spring is the perfect time to restart and accomplish goals.  Here are some tips taken from a recent article from a Costco magazine:

Reawaken: If business or personal life became boring for you, you should search for new challenges and adventures. Start a new business, without jeopardizing your current paycheck that once again can excite you. I have made it a goal in 2009 to finally start a second business in the style of Consumer Reports, a products review website business that I have been planning for several years now.  In my personal life, I will take the time to climb the local mountains surrounding the area. Take home idea: Explore New Ideas.

Replenish: As busy as lives can be with adulthood, it is easy to lose momentum in several areas of life. We need a source to replenish our tanks and regain momentum. How? Seek a new source of inspiration: Read books and magazines about people who did things that seemed impossible. I am currently reading the book, Conquering Gotham, about the Pennsylvania Railroad attempts to tunnel under the mile wide Hudson River to Manhattan. Other sources of inspiration are Tradeshows, networking events, and other venues to meet new people. Take home Idea: Meet new people, living or dead, to expand your horizons.

Recreate:  Play should be a word in your dictionary to help spawn creativity. Go outside and play. I took the kids out sledding this morning and we made new tracks on the mountain side. The sun was shining, fresh snow on the ground.  And of course, I had several new ideas come to mind when I climbed up to the take off spot high up the mountain. Take home idea: Play stretches the “think outside the box”muscles.

Repeat and Repair:  Reinvest in people, relatives, hobbies, and other things that need a little TLC. As the article mentioned, Spring is a great time for mending and planting.

Revive: What excites you? Having a vision or goal in mind keeps you alive. Allow those to live again.

We recently celebrated a large chair order with our vendor, specifically the growth in business year over year and the great business relationship that has continued since the beginning of this decade. One of the traditions is to go to the local Sushi restaurant in Bozeman Montana and take in some great sushi creations from the chefs behind the counter as part of the celebration. It was fun to see the Hoshizaki display cases at work.  Here is a quick snapshot from that fun evening and hopefully we will double our sales this year for commercial Hoshizaki restaurant equipment.