Hey everyone! My dad has been taking some time off recently to remodel his kitchen, living room, and dining room (don’t worry, my mom approved it all). He asked me to write a ‘Message from Wil,’ detailing the changes I am helping my brother Alex make here at Ozzie’s. I’m sure some of you have noticed a few of them already!
Taking the Business Forward
Alex has been working extremely hard over the past year. His goal is to transform us into a modern retail team. Technology moved so fast over the past 20-25 years that Oswald’s started to fall behind. My brother has been focused on taking us into the future with a foundation that allows us to keep up with the chains.
Moving a business into a digitized world is not easy, so Alex asked me to take the reins of our website. Most of you reading this have probably noticed I haven’t been on the sales floor recently. This is because saying I would do the website was the start of a very slippery slope; a slope that is now a full-time job and more!
One of our store’s biggest struggles for the past 20 or so years has been attracting new customers. Many things have led to this problem including insurance provider changes, Naperville getting much larger, and multiple big box pharmacies coming to town, among others. The biggest struggle, however, was realizing just how much the internet was changing traditional businesses.
Finding Us on the Web
I have a quick question for you. If you wanted to find the phone number or address for Oswald’s, what would you check first: a phonebook or the internet? If you answered the internet, congratulations!—you probably found our great Google business listing. If you answered the phone book, you might have had trouble finding us. The internet is so much faster and easier than a phonebook that the vast majority of people switched years ago. And this is just the very tip of what we’re updating at the store!
When my brother moved back to Naperville a few years ago, he became the store’s general manager. Alex has a great vision for the future that we are excited for, but it’s going to take time and work. Some of our most popular new integrations include our daily social media updates (on 5 platforms!), new blogs posted to our website 2-3 times a week, and our monthly email newsletter.
Oswald’s in 2019
For 2019 we are making some big changes. We will be integrating a new point of sale system, which will make things easier for us and you. We will be making more regular YouTube videos and tutorials about medical equipment. And, last but not least, we are expanding our website to offer more goods and easy-to-access services (schedule your free prescription deliveries in Naperville online! Coming soon.)
2019 is going to be a very busy year for us, but we’re ready for it. Alex has been doing a great job and his hard work has inspired the rest of our team to up our game. I’m excited for a lot of the positive changes we have in the works and I hope you’ll like them when they go live.
Stay Warm! – Wil
