Is Sephora Living Up to Its Price Promises?

Posted on December 22, 2014 by bermanevansretail
What happens when retailers do not live up to the promises they make to customers (or seemingly do not live up to them)? The social media fallout is typically fast and furious.
The global Sephora chain, owned by upscale LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is known worldwide for its extensive assortment of personal care items and for its huge brand selection.
Although is not really known for its low prices, Sephora does offer periodic sales. Recently, it ran a price-oriented ad campaign when it opened a new store in Sydney, Australia. But, critics claim that this promotion has not lived up to expectations.
As reported by Adele Ferguson for the Sydney Morning Herald:
“Sephora’s promise was pretty clear. When it opened its doors on December 5 to throngs of consumers – many of whom had camped out overnight – the global cosmetics giant claimed its arrival marked the end of price gouging in Australia. Ravi Thakran, the Asia and Middle East president for global luxury goods group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which owns Sephora, told Fairfax Media at the time ‘That’s a big promise and we will certainly keep that’.”
“But the reality is vastly different. Sephora is not living up to its promises of lower prices and social media have found it out. A deep dive into comparisons of the prices at which Sephora is selling some of its products in Australia versus the U.S., reveals its claims are full of hype. In some cases, the prices discrepancies, factoring in taxes and the exchange rate, are as high as 60 per cent. Even if shipping costs are taken into account, the price differentials are still massive.”
“The fact that Sephora’s pricing claims fall short of reality is bound to have an impact on brand trust. If it continues to adopt a policy of silence instead of confronting the questions head on, including an explanation for why its prices are up to 60 per cent higher in Australia than in the U.S., its reputation will suffer.”
Click the image to read more.

Shoppers flocked to Sephora’s Pitt Street Mall store when it opened in Sydney. Photo: Dallas Kilponen


 

Posted in Global Retailing, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Auto Dealers Not Yet Exploiting the Growth of Smartphones

Posted on December 21, 2014 by bermanevansretail
As we have noted several times before, consumer use of their mobile devices has been growing rapidly (for example, see 1, 2). Yet, their use of smartphones to access content varies greatly by product category.
According to a new study from eMarketer:
  • People spend 60 percent of their time accessing content about telecoms through their smartphones, 36 percent of their time through PCs, and 4 percent of their time through tablets.
  • In contrast, people spend 20 percent of their time accessing content about autos through their smartphones, 74 percent of their time through PCs, and 5 percent of their time through tablets. (small rounding error).
Thus, auto dealers have great untapped potential with mobile phones:
“Auto retailing today is structured to serve the industry rather than the consumer. But disruptive business forces, technological changes in the product and a newly smartphone-empowered consumer will upend the dealership model. Mobile remains an area of distinct opportunity for dealer innovation, especially as consumers have yet to fully integrate smartphones and tablets into the buying process. Any player in the automotive space that can reduce friction in the buying process stands to make significant headway with reluctant shoppers.”

 

 

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 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Do You FULLY Understand What’s Involved with Personalization?

Posted on December 19, 2014 by bermanevansretail
As we have noted before (see 1, 2, 3), customer personalization is an important tactic for retailers — both online and offline.
Recently, Neustar (a data-driven intelligence firm) published an interesting report on customer personalization:
“Customers expect it. Technology enables it. Brands who can deliver it are generating huge increases in ROI. Personalization has gone way beyond simply adding a customer’s name to a communication. Customers increasingly expect highly relevant content in the right channel at the right time, whether they’re on a brand’s Web site, a social network, or in their E-mail inbox. For brands, delivering this one-to-one experience at scale – to thousands, or hundreds of thousands of prospects and current customers – requires leveraging sophisticated data sets, processes, and platforms.”
“It’s no surprise that many marketers are struggling. In a recent survey by Digiday and Neustar of 100 digital media and marketing executives, more than half (53%) reported ‘always’ or ‘often’ struggling to personalize their marketing at scale. Marketers know they need to make their marketing personal, but aren’t sure how to do it at a scale that makes it cost-efficient. The challenges include data quality, difficulty of activation across online and offline channels, and a lack of understanding of the components of the process. [Our] A–Z deals with the latter.”
Click the image to download Neustar’s report.

 

 

Posted in Part 1: Overview/Planning, Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment