We were not regular shoppers at Field’s. They were the upscale department store in town and our household was definitely blue collar and middle class. We did most of our holiday shopping at Sears but I always looked forward to the Marshall Field’s Christmas shopping experience.

Field’s provided a free coat-check service when you arrived so you could shop comfortably without winter coats, hats, gloves and boots. The best part of the experience occurred after you made your purchase. The sales clerk took your item and carefully placed it in a rolling cart behind the counter. Then you went on your way to do more shopping. The next day a dark-green Marshall Field’s truck pulled up in front of our house and the delivery person brought our shopping items to the front door, fully wrapped, each with a bow!

Imagine that! Shopping with doorstep delivery.

Field’s was ahead of the curve. Today, doorstep delivery is changing the retail landscape. While consumer spending in April reached the highest level in more than a year, the trend toward online shopping is hurting traditional brick-and-mortar retail stores. Internet and catalogue shopping increased 10 percent in April, while department store sales decreased 1.7 percent.

Kohl’s posted an 87 percent drop in sales last quarter. Macy’s reported its worst quarterly sales since the recession.

The drop is especially profound in the apparel category. A story in the Wall Street Journal last week called it the “Amazon Effect.” A stock analyst estimated that Amazon has 7 percent of the U.S. apparel market and is projected to reach 19 percent by 2020.

Consumer shopping behavior is changing.

As consumers spend more, they are spending it on non-apparel items like entertainment, travel and food.

When they do sit down to shop online, they are looking for the “triple crown” of retail shopping: advantaged pricing, vast selection, and the convenience of free doorstep delivery (the faster the better). Online price-comparison apps have spread from travel to car buying and now include virtually every retail category. There is no reason to pay “retail” anymore for first-quality merchandise. Even upscale retailers are entering the online retail fray. It’s driven down profit margins and rendered the advantages of private label irrelevant.

The selection of goods online is amazing. It has depth and breadth, and pushed the notion of “we’re out of your size” off of people’s problem list. They just click on the next search item and see if it’s available there.

The advantage of getting the lowest price and the best selection is becoming secondary to the convenience of doorstep delivery. Consumers just don’t want to spend the time to drive, shop and drive again.

The need to touch, feel and try on has been superceded by the time it saves in people’s insanely busy lives. 

A recent survey of more than 1,000 online, U.S.-based shoppers showed that half of those who opted to pick up goods in a store encountered problems getting their purchases.

Shopping is not entertainment anymore, it’s a hassle that shoppers don’t like. They have found an alternative.

The doorstep delivery model continues to evolve and the most recent service improvement is groceries and fresh food that can be delivered in your absence from home, directly to your refrigerator or kitchen.

A Swedish company is offering to have their messengers unpack your online grocery order and put the items away. Customers install an add-on lock, which messengers can open with their smartphones. Unlike drone delivery, this service eliminates failed deliveries and protects perishable items from spoiling.

The retail shopper is becoming more elusive every day. They are bombarded with email and text messages along with the “sales posts” on social media.

There is no need to schedule shopping trips anymore – the “shopping life” ends at the front porch.

William Steiger is an instructor and marketing consultant in Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s College of Business Administration and coordinator of the college’s Professional Selling Program. He can be reached at william.steiger@ucf.edu.

If you voted, did you change your vote based on the ads?

The marketing of political candidates through advertising has been extensively studied for over 50 years and the research found inconsistent evidence of the efficacy of political advertising in changing someone’s voting choice.

The commercials for candidates tend to promote “what’s good about me” or “what’s bad about my opponent.” The positive ads showed relaxed candidates surrounded by smiling and enthusiastic people from a representative demographic background. The negative ads used unflattering photos or video and comments clearly taken out of context to portray “what’s bad about” the opposing candidate. Some of the positive ads offered information on the candidate’s position on various issues although the negative ads generally focused on a candidate’s unethical or questionable behavior.

I didn’t believe either one of the approaches although they do stir emotion in me, which is one of the purposes of the ads. Research has found that ads appeal to the emotions of voters, a practice that seems to subvert the rational decision-making on which democratic processes properly rest. This makes me feel manipulated, angry and disappointed in the candidates and the process of marketing the candidates through commercials.

I follow politics because I view it as one of my responsibilities as a citizen. While I’m not a political expert, I feel I’m informed about issues and the candidates’ position on the issues. It’s what determines my vote.

But what about the voters who are uninformed. Does the “information” in the political ads influence them more than me? Research says that it does. So in these cases, the ads have a dual role: provide information and stimulate emotion to influence their voting behavior.

Political ads that trick people into acting contrary to their interests or on the basis of untruths should be criticized regardless of whether they make an appeal to emotion or logic.

There is mounting empirical evidence that emotions are tied to ebbs and flows of voter participation. In contrast to many aspects of public affairs, evidence to date suggests that emotion has a positive impact on getting citizens involved.

If the ads can get voters to the polls, I’m all for it.

If the information in the ads is truthful and helps them to make an informed choice in the absence of having any information, I’m all-in on that too.

ł˘±đłŮ’s all get to the polls next time.

William Steiger is an instructor and marketing consultant in Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s College of Business Administration and coordinator of the college’s Professional Selling Program. He can be reached at william.steiger@ucf.edu.

The recession resulted in many sales jobs being held open and it created a gap between experienced sales people and the rest of the sales force. New sales people just weren’t being hired to keep the pipeline full.

Now, as sales workers retire at an increasing rate, sales companies are under pressure to play catch-up. They will need millennials to fill the gap.

A millennial is someone born from 1982 to 2000, but there are varying opinions on whether they can or will fill that sales void.

Mark Roberge, chief revenue officer of Inbound Sales Products for HubSpot, wrote an article for Sales & Marketing Management magazine that explained why “Millennials Make Great Sales People.” The Wall Street Journal recently featured an interesting article titled “Bright Future in Sales? Millennials Are Hesitant,” in which the writer highlighted the difficulty employers were having persuading millennials to work in sales. A follow-up to that article in Forbes by Roberta Matuson pointed out “Why You Can’t Fill Sales Positions With Millennials, and What You Can Do to Change This.”

So why is there this apparent contradiction? First of all, it’s always dangerous to generalize when discussing generational cohorts. Second, the sheer size of the millennial cohort ensures that there will be considerable variance within the group. Third, the occupational preferences of the millennial cohort are complicated by the range of ages within the group.

As an instructor in the sales track at the Â鶹ԭ´´, I have an up-close view of millennials and their inclination to pursue a career in sales. The basic sales class that is offered in the marketing department includes students from a wide variety of major courses of study. They enroll because the class is required or because they want to improve their interpersonal communication, especially as they prepare for job interviews.

At the start of the semester I ask them if they’re interested in a career in sales and about 25 percent raise their hands. When I ask the same question at the end of class, about 50 percent of the hands go up.

This confirms two things. Many millennials don’t know what they want to do after graduation. Second, the millennials’ interest in a sales career can be influenced by a program that emphasizes professional behavior in the pursuit of an honorable occupation. It has to change their perception of a career in sales.

Sales isn’t for every millennial student, so sales recruiters have adapted and learned how to attract the millennial student. This generation is graduating with more debt than any previous generation of college students. Companies have introduced sales jobs that start students at a higher rate of base salary to reduce the initial risk of taking the jobs.

Millennials want to learn, grow and advance, so companies have structured career paths to clearly define how new employees can advance through performance and promotion to leadership positions. Millennials are also very interested in choosing a company with a positive culture. The response has been an increased emphasis on having a transparent business culture that is collaborative, exciting, fun and, ideally, technology driven.

I also coordinate the professional sales program at Â鶹ԭ´´. This limited-access program is designed to prepare students for a career in sales. Last spring, more than 100 students applied for admission to the program and they all shared one thing in common: They wanted a career in sales.

The program has a 95 percent placement rate because companies need sales people, and our program–and more than 100 other programs around the country–are producing a supply of freshly minted millennial sales professionals to meet the industry demand.

Research studies have found that sales-program graduates ramp up in sales assignments quicker, they stay longer with the company, and they perform at a higher level than non-sales program graduates.

Whether they graduate with a business degree or a sales-specific training program degree, millennials are ready to fill sales jobs.

William Steiger is an instructor and marketing consultant in Â鶹ԭ´´’s College of Business Administration and coordinator of the college’s Professional Selling Program. He can be reached at william.steiger@ucf.edu.