Have you been searching for a unique mall promotion to increase traffic to your location? My husband ran across the picture below and we just had to share it with you. He read about it in a blog post about the Windsor Mall in Hong Kong — they hold regular baby races as a mall promotion. Apparently the races go on for hours and attract huge crowds. If you look closely, you can see the crowds gathered to watch.

Would this work in your mall?

I just found out about a very funny website from a retailer in the gift shop forum. The site, Not Always Right, is a place for retailers to make posts when they have a particularly challenging or funny conversation with a customer (and some of the stories are laugh-out-loud funny). I thought everyone would enjoy reading some of their posts and maybe be inspired to make a few of your own.

Here's a description of what the site is all about:

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of working in retail, service or other public-facing jobs, you’ve inevitably come across that occasional customer that either makes your blood boil, tickles your funny bone or leaves you totally confused. We all need a place to vent, so Not Always Right is a collection of quotes from these particularly memorable customers.

We believe that while customers deserve to be treated right, so do the employees and the other folks that serve them. Not Always Right is about leveling the playing field for those of us who toil and sweat every day trying to juggle demanding customers and often unreasonable corporate expectations. At the end of the day, it’s about remembering that whether we’re a customer or an employee, we’re all human, foibles and all.

I hope you get a few laughs… I certainly did!

My husband the techie (he doesn't like to be called one, but he is) suggested I try twittering. For those of you not familiar with Twitter.com, it's a social networking site where people make daily posts about what they're working on or doing during the day. Knowing only a little about it, I thought, "Great I don't even blog every day (much to our web editor's dismay), would I really be able to make five to six tweets a day?"

Then yesterday I received an email from a friend, Ted Teele of OneCoast, asking me if I'd twittered yet. This was the final kick I needed, so I went to the website, registered myself and even made my first post. I have to say, I'm surprised how user friendly it is.

I've signed up to "follow" fellow tweeters, and it's really very interesting. (You can follow me to at Twitter.com/retailexpert.)

Have you tried Twitter yet? Let me know what you think.

One of my friends who's been a retailer for 25+ years always shares his wacky employee staffing stories with me. And when I say wacky, I mean wacky! Every holiday season he operates 25-50 kiosks across the country, and one year he told me that an employee actually took down a portion of the kiosk to bring in a few items from home, including a recliner, small refrigerator and TV. He was caught three days after he "re-merchandised."

Yesterday, I heard a story on our local news station about a young artist who decided to construct an apartment at the Providence Place Mall in Rhode Island. He scoped out the space during construction, started storing supplies and two years later constructed cinderblock walls to create what he called a "luxury apartment" in the mall garage. He went undetected by mall security for an outstanding four years! Take a look at his video… it's really crazy.

I talked a couple of months ago about how important I think it is to have a few laughs in the office (or your retail location). As I mentioned before, studies have shown that levity can lead to increased productivity in the workplace. With research supporting a few chuckles a day, I try to bring a joke or funny story into the office regularly. Our staff has followed suit and we have quite a few jokers here.

This morning my husband decided to circulate an image of two squirrels—one was giving the other one a back massage—along with a message that suggested we use the attached image in an email marketing piece. He sent the email out to six or seven employees, and in a matter of minutes everyone was screaming that the image shouldn't be used because it wasn't professional.

He then proceeded to email everyone and let them in on the joke. It caused quite a few laughs when everyone realized he wasn't losing it and it was a great way to start the day.

I encourage you to incorporate humor where you work… share a joke at your next sales meeting or post a joke of the day in a store journal.

If you've implemented this idea already, let us know.