What Retailers Need to Do to Thrive in the Years Ahead

Posted on October 27, 2013 by bermanevansretail
As they plan for the future, retailers have many challenges to meet.
In a new report, Ian MacKenzie, Chris Meyer, and Steve Noble of McKinsey & Company identify five key trends: “demographic changes, multichannel and mobile commerce, personalized marketing, the distribution revolution, and emerging retail business models. Each trend is powerful on its own, and collectively they will redefine what it takes to be a successful retailer.”
According to MacKensie, Meyer, and Noble: “Big changes are inevitable and retailers must act now to win in the long term. There is historical precedent for this kind of upheaval, which recasts the industry’s winners and losers. Within the past century, local corner stores gave way to department stores and supermarkets, then to suburban shopping malls, then to discount chains and big-box retailers. Each of these shifts unfolded faster than the one that preceded it, and each elevated new companies over incumbents. Indeed, six of the ten largest US retailers in 1990 have since fallen from their positions as new winners, such as Amazon.com, Costco, and Walgreens, emerged in their place.
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Posted in 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 , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Can Bricks-and-Mortar Retailers Get Better Consumer Data?

Posted on October 25, 2013 by bermanevansretail
Online retailers are able to generate enormous amounts of information about shoppers — quickly  and inexpensively. Store-based retailers often wish that it was so simple for them to obtain such data.
Consider these observations from Dawn Klingensmith, reporting for the Path to Purchase Institute:
“Compared to online retailers who gather consumers’ ‘digital crumbs,’ bricks-and-mortar stores are ‘disadvantaged’ and only want the kind of insights that E-commerce sites ‘have in spades,’ according to a New York Times report. Location tracking and location-based profiling could help stores improve and personalize shopping experiences. ‘That’s our core mission statement right now – we want to be Google Analytics for offline retail,’ says Michael Minar, a data scientist at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Euclid, a company that worked with Nordstrom.”
“The higher-level approach, called macrolocation, looks at the store and the world beyond to understand traffic patterns, whereas microlocation is interested in individuals inside the store, says Eric Newman, VP of products & marketing for Digby, a mobile commerce and marketing technology provider based in Austin. Macrolocation technology notes the number of people – or rather the number of devices – that pass by a store as well as those who enter it. Since dwell times are also noted, stores can assess whether window displays are engaging and if they draw people inside. Dwell times also indicate how long shoppers stand in line at checkout so retailers can adjust staffing levels.”
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Posted in Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 4: Store Location Planning, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Panera Bread: Operations Need a Facelift

Posted on October 24, 2013 by bermanevansretail
Panera Bread has had an incredibly successful business model and grown significantly over the last decade: “We are bakers of bread. We are fresh from the oven. We are a symbol of warmth and welcome. We are a simple pleasure, honest and genuine. We are a life story told over dinner. We are a long lunch with an old friend. We are your weekday morning ritual. We are the kindest gesture of neighbors. We are home. We are family. We are friends.”
But even the best can sometimes run up against some tough problems. As reported by Julie Jargon for the Wall Street Journal:
“Panera Bread Co. said its restaurants’ inability to handle customer demand is behind a slowdown that prompted it to lower profit and growth forecasts for this year. Long lines have caused customers to walk out, and inaccurate orders have led others not to return, the company told investors on Wednesday, a day after a quarterly financial report that sent its shares falling. The fast-casual chain said it plans to add more staff, update its kitchen equipment, and add technology to speed service and improve order accuracy.”
Click the image to read more of the WSJ story.
Photo by Bloomberg News

 

Posted in Part 1: Overview/Planning, Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment