How important is advertising to a 12 month old retail business?

started a traditional sweet shop 12 months ago, with front page newspaper advert. did quite well but trade dropped off in the summer and is not as good as this time last year. Could advertising turn this around or was novelty value a key factor when the business was new?

Advertising is important- whether you are a 12 months old business or a 10 year business.

You should constantly be looking to increase your profit and getting the word out about you. Even mircosoft advertise and look how long they have been going for.

Reminding people of your service is extremely important. You have to let people know you have something to offer and that if they want sweets, yours is the shop to visit.

How can they know without advertising?

Well..you can catalog your goods yourself and save tons of money.If you have a digital camera,take pics and get going on it! I do this for mine and it worked wonders for business!

Advertising is crucial, there's no reason why your business should not do well but people have to know you're there.

Now is a good time to advertise again. I know I sometimes forget about certain businesses, especially those I don't patronize often. Put the word out and business is sure to pick up, especially this time of year.

oh yeah, always important, could also do some gimmics like go out into the streets with your company name on a t-shirt / coat, dressed up all olde fashioned and offer your wares to the public as a little taster. look into doing roast chestnuts outside again dressed up in olde attire to get your public rushing to you, erm do special gift boxies for christmas and do it in the style that the era that your shop is from. a little research on the tinternet can bring a load of things about how the sweets were wrapped up etc. and do that as a novelty as young will think it's brilliant and the older will think that they a nice nostalgic trip down memory lane

Sweet shop.. is a sweet shop..just like any other .unless you got more to offer ..it is pointless to advertise..your type of business can't rely on locals alone..you also need a lot of passing trade..

Retail operations usually do 2/3s of their business in the last quarter. Now is the time to advertise.Things will slow down again in mid January. You have to. The reason business is not as good as this time last year is because you are not advertising.

Have a look at some of the articles in the advertising section of http://www.hammocksurvivalguide.com/

If you've got a local free paper do a promotion in there (it's cheaper than a paying newspaper usually), something along the lines of a free goodie bag if they spend over x amount or bring in voucher for free item (specified selection). That'll get em in. You just need to make sure that once they're in they want to spend. Exterior of the shop needs to draw people in. Once inside you need to have a good selection to give people choice and lots of offers. If you give good value or have something unique people will spend and they'll come back and they'll also do your promotion for you by telling people - word of mouth is crucial to any business.
There's loads of stuff you can do but without knowing all the facts I can't help that much.