These days, independent retailers face a lot of competition, and certainly today’s economic climate isn’t doing anyone any favors. That’s where Retail Up! comes in. Bee Bantug co-founded the company in 2002 as a way to help independent retailers embrace all that the Internet has to offer to get the most out of their businesses.
“To me, it’s a very exciting thing when people can take opportunities,” said Bantug. “A well-thought-out Web site can help you achieve a lot of things that ads can’t do for you, additional staff can’t do for you, buying more inventory can’t do for you, and so on. It may not be something they understand immediately,” she continued, “but I guarantee it’ll get them thinking.”
Bantug got the idea to start her company after working in international marketing and advertising, when she was one of the first in her agency to introduce the idea of using the Internet in their programs and strategies. Following these corporate assignments, her first application of this technology was actually in the natural foods industry, but it wasn’t long before she and her partner realized that their product “would be needed by any other industry that is supported by a lot of independent retailing and independent suppliers. Because we understand music and we know the situation and conditions of business in a music shop, we retooled this technology for use in the music industry,” said Bantug, who had a lifelong interest in music and still plays instruments as a hobby.
Hands-On Approach
As one of the managing partners of Retail Up!, Bantug is very involved in the company’s strategic and policy planning. But just because she’s at the head of the company doesn’t mean she’s separated from the people her product serves. For example, if you’ve been to one of Retail Up!’s NAMM University sessions, Bantug wrote all of the workshop materials and designed the PowerPoint presentations. If you worked with the program and needed a logo, Bantug most likely helped you design it. Bantug and her partner also make sure to stay involved on the ground level with all of their retail clients.
“My partner and I both do the initial interviews,” she said. “We try to understand as best we can what the goals are at the moment and in the coming years. [We] work out a proposal, and then monitor how the progress of that original vision unfolds over time.
“Over the past seven years, we have very successfully kept clients and helped clients grow,” Bantug continued. “There were even shops that started out as a music education studio that today have become solid, full-line retailers. They not only have teachers, they also do rentals and sales of products and repairs of instruments. We’re very, very proud of being able to help with that growth and using technology to make that happen.”
Having been in business for more than 20 years, working with a variety of cultures in places like Tokyo, Manila, and Amsterdam, Bantug feels she’s well suited for working with so many different retailers. She also credits her thirst for knowledge with keeping her successful.
“It helps to be open to whoever it is you’re dealing with or talking to at the given moment. That way, you take their point of view and really see it. Instead of having your preconceived ideas, you say ‘ok, where are you coming from?’” explained Bantug. “[I do] the best I can to take the knowledge I have and make it useful for you.”
Looking Ahead
Just as Bantug hopes her clients learn from her, she’s learned from them and even implemented some of those lessons into her product offering. One example she points to is a visit to a retailer in California.
“We could not get to our appointments because they couldn’t see us. The store was packed with parents and kids trying to rent an instrument. There were two staff members behind the counter and they were up the wall trying to please everybody. They couldn’t do anything. They could not sell anything or answer any other questions,” she recalled. “When we came back, we talked it over with our IT staff and said we got to help these people. So what we did was come up with the very first rentals online management program.
“By renting it online, not only do we make it possible for [parents] to see the instrument but every time they look at the instrument, on the same page are the recommended accessories—whether it’s the mouthpiece or a care kit, as well as the recommended music book,” Bantug continued. “From the standpoint of the parent, they can do all this from their office or home, so they’re helped. And the store immediately magnified the turnover of rental accounts that they could handle. Plus they were able to sell the accessories and the books that people forget about when before, they were just trying to finish the rental forms and get out of there.”
That incident occurred two years after Bantug formed her company, and she is as excited by technology today as she was then, always looking for ways to expand on helping independent retailers.
“I believe that the next row of contact for developing musicians for today and musicians for the future is the music educator. A lot of music educators are independent contractors so I’m in the midst of trying to figure out how it’s possible they reach more parents and students more directly, more frequently; become more accessible to them,” she said. “Right now we have made it possible for the shops to present their teachers with full credentials and allow parents and students to choose and sign up for lesson schedules. But I’m thinking, hey, what about the ones who don’t work with music shops? How do they get and work with their students? How do they get themselves known in the community? I haven’t had the time to completely talk to different music educators to understand their challenges and figure out a solution for that. One day soon I know we will.”
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