Do you ever wonder why a lot of prices for retail products end in 99 cents? It is called psychological pricing and any prices ending in 9′s are considered “charm prices”.

These 9-based prices are based on a theory which states that consumers read prices from left to right and even when a decimal value of up to two places is very close to the next rounded value, consumers tend to associate the price with the last rounded value. Hence, when you list a price “$3.99”, consumers associate it with spending $3 as opposed to $4 even though the latter is a more accurate value.

Don’t believe the hubbub about online shopping killing local retail because an independent study by Swirl shows that 76% of women still prefer to shop for clothes and shoes in-store. In addition, 92% said they like to see and touch what they’re going to buy, while 90% said they like to try on the clothes. These are two must-haves that online shopping will always have a hard time trying to replace.

There are drawbacks though, 84% said that the one thing they hate about in-store shopping is dealing with crowds and 70% hate that whole driving and parking bit of it.

In today’s global economy where the Internet is the new shopping mall, it’s easy to understand how a small, local business owner could easily get discouraged. It can be overwhelming thinking about trying to compete with the price-slashing that big box stores and online retailers offer.

So how is the main street business to survive and thrive in the face of this big-money competition? The truth is that if focused on the right things, it’s actually the small business that has the advantage in many ways.

In today’s world of online shopping and big-box retailers it’s hard for the local business owner to compete, but it’s even harder if you are trying to compete on price. You may sell a popular item, but if Walmart carries a similar item and buys 10,000 of them every month, they’re going to get a much better wholesale price, and they are going to beat your retail price every time.

Trying to match the prices of major chains who buy in bulk or online retailers who have extremely low overhead is a recipe for losses.

If you haven’t brushed up on your Spanish lately, here is the first thing you would want to know about Cinco de Mayo – its a literal translation. ‘Cinco’ and ‘Mayo’ mean ‘five’ and ‘May’ (the month) respectively in the Spanish language and Cinco de Mayo hence translates into ‘the fifth of May’.

A little history lesson here – in 1862, a group of outnumbered Mexicans fought in a battle against the French in Puebla and snatched a very unlikely but hard fought victory.

Who are you?

When I come to your restaurant, or shop in your store, will I meet you?

When you call your lasagna “famous”, who made it so famous? Where did the recipe come from? Was it your great grandmother? Was it your father? Was it you?

Who are you, really? How hard did you work to get where you are?

These are all points in the story that a new guest who walks in your doors can benefit from knowing.

According to a new Manta survey, 61% of small business owners say the return on their investment for using social media is zilch, nada, nothing.

The survey sample itself was small, only 1,235 small business members, however the numbers tell a story.

But what is that story? Screenwerk took the words out of my mouth, speculating that perhaps “SMBs are unsophisticated about tracking ROI on social media or because their efforts are weak or limited.”

Here are some numbers that may support that argument:

- 55% say their main purpose of using social media is to acquire and engage new customers and referrals.

The first time I ever took a restaurant app seriously was a few months ago during a family get-together at Outback Steakhouse. And although the Outback Steakhouse app is decent (you can find locations, place an order, etcetera) it was their Tablemates app that got me. The table tent provoked me and the rest of our group to do some synchronized app-downloading. The benefit? Table games. Using the app, everyone at our tables could play games with each other while waiting for our food.

Google+ Hangouts have been referred to as a best kept secret in loyalty marketing, but it’s no secret that they can help businesses in many ways. Google+ Hangouts is a free video chatting service from Google where you can have one-on-one and one-to-many group chats with up to ten people.

The word chat doesn’t exactly imply business but yet lots of big businesses have been using it for customer service and marketing. Richard Binhammer, director of social media and community at Dell says, ”we have used hangouts for customer support, to showcase new or other product features, and to connect with customers about various matters that they have indicated an interest in.

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half?”

If you’ve ever found yourself asking this question, you’re not alone! Today we’re excited to release Swipely “Spring 2013” to solve this problem.

At Swipely, we built a simple way for local merchants to accept payments, understand customers and grow revenue. With the Spring ‘13 release, we’ve added features to help you measure your marketing campaigns and manage your online reputation. Now you can automatically monitor online marketing, in-store revenue, and customer reviews tied to specific campaigns in one place.