selling.

Many retailers do not know what their customers want and have little knowledge of their products, said businessman Mr. Terry Lister.

"There's very little market research carried out and hardly any sales training,'' said Mr. Lister.

Mr. Lister is a local partner in Deloitte and Touche accountancy firm, which runs several training courses for Bermuda's workers.

Deloitte and Touche, which is based in Canada, has just released its latest annual `Retail Christmas Outlook Survey' of Canadian stores.

The survey showed that: Almost 40 percent of retailers believed that cross-border shopping has had a significant impact on their sales; Consumers still do a significant amount of their Christmas shopping in department stores, although warehouse clubs and catalogue shopping were gaining market share, and Almost 50 percent of consumers intend to wait for pre-Christmas sales to do their Christmas shopping, despite retailers' hopes that they won't have to seriously mark down merchandise before Christmas.

Although Canada was a vastly different marketplace, the survey still contained a lot of useful information for Bermuda's retailers, said Mr. Lister.

The survey showed that customer service was seen by retailers as the most important factor to improving profitability.

"In Bermuda, this fact should not go unnoticed,'' said Mr. Lister. "The impact of good customer relations will be seen on the bottom line for those retailers who choose to concentrate effort in this area.'' Mrs. Elizabeth Virgo, a Deloitte and Touche management consultant, was concerned that only one-fifth of consumers surveyed were planning to spend more money this Christmas than they did at the same time last year.

This contrasted sharply with the rosy outlook of many retailers, who hoped for strong sales over the festive season.

"Most consumers said they would only spend as much as last year, or even less,'' said Mrs. Virgo. "This did not match retailers' expectations.

"There may be a credibility gap between what the retailers are looking for and desperately need and what the consumers are going to do.'' The survey showed that 40 percent of retailers believed that their sales were adversely affected by Canadians doing more shopping in the United States.

Mr. Lister said: "There can be no doubt that the concerns over cross border shopping for the Canadian retailer are the same concerns that are felt by the local retailer regarding Bermudians travelling to the US.'' Careful and clever use of sales and selected mark-downs could persuade more consumers to shop in Bermuda and make the total savings of a US shopping spree less attractive.

But local retailers should not copy a popular North American technique of holding regular sales with drastically reduced prices to boost trade.

"That doesn't work in Bermuda because our volumes are so small,'' said Mr.

Lister.

"The way to avoid that is to have a high quality product and staff who can talk people through purchases.'' Bermuda's retailers had to train their sales staff better and take more notice of what goods their customers want to buy, said Mr. Lister.

"The main point that comes out of the survey is the significance of training staff,'' he added.

"Quality salesmanship, product knowledge and presentation makes all the difference to whether someone buys your product or walks out of the door empty-handed.

"In many cases, an inferior product outsells a superior product because it's presented better.'' Mr. Lister and Mrs. Virgo said that some local retailers could go bust this winter unless they took better notice and more care of their customers' needs.

"To bank on recovery next year because some people believe that's when the recession will end is daft,'' she said.

"Sensible management steps need to be taken to ensure retailers survive until there is a small upturn in the economy, whenever that may be.'' While retailers all over North America were adapting to the more difficult times, Bermuda store owners were slow to change, said Mr. Lister.

Mr. Terry Lister.