Distribution Tips to Enhance the Customer Experience

Posted on August 21, 2015 by bermanevansretail
As we have written about before (see, for example, 1, 2, 3), offering a superior customer experience is a key aspect of how successful a retailer will be.
Here are some more tips for providing an excellent customer experience, presented by Ilan Mochari for Inc.:
“When you consider the fine art of delighting customers, you might be tempted to think of it only in terms of your products or services. But there’s another way to think about it. Your company can also delight customers by finding innovative ways to distribute said product.”
“1. Tweak your distribution for a new demographic. What do millennials want? In category after category, most members of this large (80 million) and potent ($200 billion in annual buying power) group ‘want their brands of choice on demand, digitally enabled, and tailored to their specific requirements.'”
“2. Make it easy for your customers to obtain complementary products or services. Ask yourself this question: What do your customers crave, at a moment’s notice, that you’re not (yet) in a position to provide?”
“3. Explore seasonal or holiday use of your products and services. One way to experiment with innovations in product distribution is to consider your windows of high demand. While providing 24/7/365 wish-fulfillment to your customers is farfetched, you can focus on times and dates when your ability to go one step further than your competitors will have maximum impact.”
“4. Consider how you’ll fit in the world’s ever-evolving delivery infrastructure. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, if you’re considering how to tweak your distribution. You can explore who your best partners would be.”
“5. Don’t neglect the power of old-school distribution. Numerous studies show that it’s ideal to engage your customers through multiple channels.”
Click the image to read more. 

 

 

Posted in Part 1: Overview/Planning, Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Better Understanding Digital Shoppers

Posted on August 18, 2015 by bermanevansretail
Although online shopping growth continues to far outstrip that for traditional physical stores, more analysis still needs to be done to better understand the digital shopper.
 As McKinsey’s Gadi BenMark and Maher Masri write: 
“Companies have more data at their fingertips than ever, so why do online shoppers remain such a mystery? The solution begins with bringing all the information together to form a meaningful picture of the consumer.”
“An airline sends a regular customer an E-mail about a special promotion on flights from New York City to exotic Caribbean destinations. The company had noticed she’d recently browsed vacation sites. The interested shopper eagerly clicks, landing on a page that shows all the airline’s flights from all the cities it serves to all its destinations. By the time our erstwhile traveler has waded through this screen to find flights from John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, she’s no longer seeing palm trees in her head — she’s seeing red. This is the fault line of the modern digital-shopping experience, where reality falls far short of the promise of receiving what you want, when you want it.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way. The solution is cracking what we call the shopper genome: converting the vast amount of data regarding consumer behavior and desires into meaningful insights. Today, the vast majority of E-commerce companies focus on just one part of a shopper’s genome, for example, product affinities like urban or designer styles, while ignoring others, such as need states or emotional-connection points. Others compartmentalize their efforts by using separate channels, teams, and processes, resulting in a disjointed customer experience. That’s like scientists decoding one set of chromosomes while ignoring all others.”
Take a look at this McKinsey chart to see what companies should be doing. Click the chart to read more.

 
McK
 

Posted in Online Retailing, Part 1: Overview/Planning, Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer, Social Media and Retailing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Retail Sales Growth in Developing Markets

Posted on August 14, 2015 by bermanevansretail
The developed (mature) retail marketplace is seeing relatively stagnant sales growth around the globe. However, many developing markets are witnessing strong sales increases across various retail store categories. In addition, the popularity of different store formats is evolving. This has significant implications for retailers looking to expand.
According to Nielsen:
“Globally, the trade channel mix is becoming more fragmented as consumers shift toward smaller store formats. On a value basis, large supermarkets and hypermarkets account for just over half (51%) of global sales, but smaller formats such as traditional, drug, and convenience outlets grew at a faster rate over the past 12 months. Year-over-year sales growth in drug stores (+6%), small supermarkets (+5%), and traditional stores (+4%) doubled, or more than doubled, that of large supermarkets and hypermarkets.”
“Channel structures and trends vary greatly between countries. In developed markets, 80% of sales come from large supermarkets, hypermarkets, and convenience stores. While sales in large supermarkets and hypermarkets were flat (+0.3% and +1%, respectively) in the latest 12 months, sales in convenience stores, hard discounters, and drug stores grew more rapidly (+3%, +2% and +2%, respectively). In developing markets, the story is much different. Traditional trade stores continue to be the dominant channel, accounting for 38% of total retail channel sales, but sales in supermarkets, hypermarkets, and drug stores are growing at a faster rate. Sales grew by double-digit rates in drug stores (13%) and large and small supermarkets (10% and 11%, respectively), compared with only 4% growth in traditional stores.”

 

Click the Nielsen chart to read more.


 

Posted in Global Retailing, Part 1: Overview/Planning, Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 4: Store Location Planning, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer, Part 8: Putting It All Together | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment