The weather is getting colder, which means that everyday tasks — like going to the grocery store — will soon become a lot more challenging. Armed with vivid memories of trudging through the snow last year with shopping bags in tow, my wife and I decided to stock up on food before it gets really chilly outside. So, we’ve been purchasing a lot of non-perishable items at once, which has elicited some interesting reactions from people who work at the store.

In general, retail staff are puzzled about why we would want to buy so much stuff at once. Even after explaining that winter is coming soon and we live almost a mile from the store and we don’t have a car, I still have to spell out the rationale for our behavior. Namely, it’s a lot easier to stock up on food while the weather is mild, so you’re never forced to walk to the store when the weather is seriously crappy. Even after getting the full explanation, I’m sure they still think we’re weird. After all, I’ve never seen anybody else in the store buying such large quantities of food.

There’s probably a larger social construct at work here. In general, Americans are pretty bad at saving money, whether it’s keeping extra cash on hand for emergencies, or saving up for a large purchase or retirement. As a culture, we tend to focus on our needs right now, at the expense of planning for the future. Granted, there’s no huge commitment involved in buying a few months’ worth of food at once. You’d be spending that money over the next few months anyway, so you just need to allocate the time and effort to buy the food beforehand. Yet almost nobody does it.

This whole discussion makes me wonder: if we somehow educated people on the benefits of planning ahead for non-financial matters — like buying food before the winter — would they make smarter decisions about their financial futures as well?

One of the things I love about my local CVS is how open and airy the store feels. If I recall correctly, it’s part of the group of newer CVS stores that have lower aisle heights, brighter navigational signage, and generally less clutter than the old stores. Unfortunately, all of that changed when the holiday decorations went up a few days ago.

The low and airy aisles are now topped off and crammed with cheesy holiday signs and cheap gift ideas. The walls are covered with yet more holiday products. In all, the place looks just like your typical Walgreen’s or an older CVS, with the products from late-night infomercials seemingly dominating the merchandising strategy.

What went wrong? I’m guessing that CVS sends the same holiday decoration kit, and imposes the same merchandising plan, on all their stores — without regard for the differing store designs across the country. As a result, the generic holiday decorations overwhelm the store design in the newer and cleaner locations. That’s a shame, since it takes away the aesthetic and shopping enhancements that seemingly make the newer stores more enticing the shoppers. Hopefully someone from CVS will eventually take notice, and try something besides a one-size-fits-all approach in the future.

Say you walk into a restaurant and ask for a table. If you have a medium or large party, perhaps four people or more, there’s a good chance they’ll ask you a simple question: “Is your entire party here?” Answer “Yes”, and they’ll seat you promptly. Answer “No”, and they’ll instruct you to wait around and check back with them once everyone in your group has arrived.

It makes perfect sense why restaurants do this. The last thing they want is to seat a few people, and have them sit around for 15 or 30 or 45 minutes waiting for the others to arrive. Such a group would be consuming a scarce resource — table space — without contributing much in revenue during that time. Granted, they might order a few drinks or an appetizer, but I guess it’s not enough to make up for the regular, non-delayed party whose table they’d be taking up.

But there’s one kink in this approach: the math only works when the restaurant is nearly full. If there are plenty of tables to spare, why relegate the incomplete parties to a waiting area? Wouldn’t it be better to just seat them in a table where they can get settled and order a few things? The answer seems obvious to me.

If you think about it, virtually every restaurant has certain days and times when business is slow. During those times, asking “Is your entire party here?” is just silly. Try restricting the full-party question to busy periods only, and I bet customers will use that extra table time to spend more money.

While I don’t field that many sales inquiries myself, I’ve been on enough calls and read enough emails and chat transcripts to recognize what makes for a good lead. Among other things, the prospect has a need for our products and a budget that enables them to make a purchase. Conversely, there are some attributes that usually send up a red flag with regards to a new inquiry: dubious need for the product, lack of a budget, etc.

Another attribute that screams “not serious” is the lack of a company name. I’m not talking about folks who are buying for personal use or on behalf of a client. I’m referring to people who say “we don’t have a company name or website picked out yet”. To me, this is like putting the cart before the horse. Why would you go out and start talking to vendors or partners before you’ve even settled on a company name? Is getting pricing from them somehow more important than, you know, figuring out what your company is called?

Though it seems like eons ago, I was once in the same position. When our company was just starting out, it was hard getting potential customers, vendors, and other people to take us seriously. And we already had a name, website, and some semblance of a product plan. But it would have been even harder if we tried to talk to people without a company name already picked out.

All else equal, you’ll get more attention from virtually everyone that matters if you look like someone who has a real business going. So my advice to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to go on the hunt for vendors is simple. Before you pick up the phone or start filling out contact forms, do yourself a favor and choose a working name for your company — and put up a simple website if possible. It certainly can’t hurt, and I bet you’ll get a much better reception from potential vendors as a result.

During a recent trip, I came across two venues with rather unfortunate window placements. First, the Fort Lauderdale International Airport. When you’re waiting for a flight at the end of terminal 1, nearly every inch of the wall consists of huge windows without any tinting. It’s often quite sunny in Florida, so this design renders the airport space blindingly bright, and surely taxes their air conditioning system, too.

My second encounter with problematic windows was inside an IHOP restaurant. About half of the restaurant looks out onto a dumpster and trash area — not exactly what you want to be reminded of when having breakfast. In both of these cases, the venue could improve things considerably by recognizing that the windows aren’t doing them any favors. Then, choose a suitable approach to make things more appealing. For instance:

– Tint the windows
– Put up some semi-opaque blinds
– Cover the windows with artwork

Remember, anything that customers see through your windows becomes part of their overall experience and perception of your business. There’s no shame in reducing the amount of tell-all, see-through glass if it makes things easier and more pleasant for your customers.

A few months ago, I bought a portable DVD player to take on long trips. It was a surprisingly affordable purchase, and I’m very pleased with the product so far. One thing annoys me, though: having to take the disc out when you’re transporting the player from one location to another.

Actually, that’s not accurate at all. There’s nothing in the user’s guide that mentions taking the disc out when the player is in transit. Absent any recommendation, I’m forced to assume that having the disc in there when the player is bouncing around in my bag is probably a bad thing. Perhaps the DVD player was designed to travel with a disc inside. But there’s nothing in the documentation about it either way.

Ironically, I’ve seen decidedly non-portable products like printers and scanners that have detailed transport instructions. For instance, I remember a scanner that had a big locking lever that you were supposed to move into the locked position for transport. So it’s even stranger that these instructions are so hard to find for products that are made for traveling.

I’m not saying that every portable electronic device needs a guide full of travel tips. Nobody would read it anyway. But if a product has a slot or door where a disc goes, or a removable cover that protects a sensitive component, it probably makes sense to print some travel-related guidelines on there. In my case, “Remove disc when transporting this player” would go a long way towards eliminating the confusion.

When people have the freedom to choose how much they pay for something, it’s quite common for the vendor to provide a suggested amount. For instance, I’ve seen this approach applied to tipping in restaurants and donations to a charity. The business or organization prints a suggested or recommended amount that customers should contribute, presumably to steer people towards higher dollar values.

I’m sure this makes some people give a larger amount. They interpret the suggested value as a social norm or expectation, and thus try to match or exceed it. But what about the people who already planned to give more than that, or who get offended or annoyed by the very premise of suggesting the size of their tip or donation? I would imagine that some of these people end up reducing the amount after seeing the suggestion.

Does recommending an amount tend to increase the total tips or contributions for a typical organization? Probably, or it wouldn’t be so common of an approach. However, I’m sure there are businesses and charities whose customers are turned off by this tactic. For these organizations, it makes sense to try removing suggested amounts on an experimental basis. That way, you’ll know for sure if your customers respond favorably to having the numbers put right in front of them, or if they tend to aim higher on their own.

I haven’t used eBay in years, but I always admired one simple feature they provided on their website. Since most auctions end at a specific time, and so much bidding happens in the last few minutes or even seconds, eBay had a link to view their “official time”. By using that data, there was no confusion over exactly how much time was left to bid.

Other sites could really use this feature. For instance, when you’re flying on Southwest, your boarding order depends on how quickly you check in the day before. Sounds simple enough: if the flight leaves at 3 pm, then you just visit the website at 3 pm the previous day. But there’s a problem: how do you know that 3 pm on your watch matches up with 3 pm on Southwest’s official clock? And what about time zone differences?

Solving this problem would be quite straightforward. On the check-in page of their website, Southwest could add a little map of the United States, with a live clock shown in each time zone. Then, the text would say something like “Here’s our official time for each time zone. Just locate where your flight leaves from, and you’ll see if you can check in yet.” Aside from making things easier for customers, this information would also eliminate a lot of unnecessary page reloads — thus saving Southwest on bandwidth costs as well.

After arriving at the airport for a recent trip, my wife and I walked up to the line where they check your boarding pass and ID. I gave the airport employee two IDs and two boarding passes. She examined each ID, looked at the boarding passes, and gave them back to me. Before we got even five feet away, the airport lady asked my wife for her boarding pass and ID again — the same ones she had presumably just looked at. I was baffled, but I complied with her request anyway.

Now, this woman probably had an IQ in the low-to-mid-teens. But really, how dumb do you have to be to screw this up? Let’s see, we had two people together at the desk, with two IDs, and two boarding passes. Even if the lady didn’t see the second boarding pass, she looked at both of the IDs. I wonder how much time and money is wasted at airports nationwide by hiring people this inept. Then again, I’m also baffled that people like that even manage to put their clothes on in the morning and show up to work in the first place.

If you run a local business, it usually makes sense to provide lots of photos on your website. Aside from pictures of the inside of the venue and your products, customers often look for photos of what your location looks like from the street. By using that visual cue, customers will have an easier time finding your place once they get close to it.

With this in mind, some businesses embellish their photos by adding a giant street number or a big logo that isn’t really there. Sure, this makes the photo prettier and more distinctive. But there’s a cost: each item you add to the picture becomes part of the customer’s mental image of what to expect when they get there. If they’re looking for a huge sign or number that doesn’t exist, they may walk or drive right by.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t optimize your photos so they’re clear and attractive to potential customers. However, if a particular modification would make the picture look a lot different than reality, it’s probably best to leave it out.