After another turbulent week on the world’s stock markets and a refocus on the uncertain economic horizons ahead, purse strings are inevitably drawn ever more tightly around the already tied arms of retail bosses and managers.
Restricted investment in the new, leaves the only other alternative – “to make the most of what retailers have already!”
It may be stating the obvious, but the fact remains that many retailers are still failing to maximize what they already have, and after several years of cutting costs and reducing assets of every kind there really is no other course than to maximize those assets remaining. Assets fundamentally falling into the 3 P’s – product, places & people.
In terms of product, selling more of less lies at the heart of maximizing the opportunities of the assortment budget. Learning from inside, the sales histories and buying trends, combined with learning from outside, the benchmarking of competitors and best practice, to buy more precisely and more confidently lays at the heart of maximizing any retailers’ assortment. Never miss the sale of a best seller through lack of investment in stock, and never throw away investment through buying stock that never sells.
Altogether easier said than done, although of course many do, so why not improve your benchmarking and analysis of best practice. Why invent the wheel particularly when it’s already in danger of coming off the wagon?
Retail places, quite rightly, are never far from the front page headlines as they develop and evolve as part of the omni-channel strategy of any retail business. They pose their own particular problems of presenting to the physical customer both authority and range to satisfy the need for variety and choice, yet with focus and editing to appease the restlessness of the time strapped consumer, maximising every precious shopping moment.
Physical stores need to inspire a customer who wants choice without the hassle of choosing. Retail stores must sell with confidence and personality. Best practice stores require bravery both to cut the physical assortment whilst introducing emotional theatre and personality. A shift from investment in the physical to investment in the emotional.
Again easier said than done, but yet again many do. So look outwards to assess what store investments work to add theatre and sales to your competitors, and look inward to your brand and your proposition to identify what store investments will drive your own personality and commerciality and which investments are simply following a hollow trend with a poor return.
In today’s difficult market, “making the most of what retailers have!” returns as always to people, because in any business people make good ideas happen, they turn propositions into profit. Whilst individuals should be nurtured, integration needs to be championed, because the major opportunity to make the most of what they have is still for retailers to truly coordinate the functions of their businesses for efficiency and for sales. The historical divide still remains between buying and selling, head office and stores, marketing and merchandising, logistics and store operations.
The work of individuals is too often lost in poor integration, and the true focus of what they do misguided through a lack of focus on the customer interface itself – the physical and online store.
The customer doesn’t care about the people in retailers, the work they do, the problems they have, but they care passionately about the interface they experience with the product – the retail places, the stores, e-commerce, m-commerce and social.
Integration, and integration alone, brings together the 3 P’s of product, places and people in a way that matters to the customer through the brand and retail experience they have.
Only integration will ensure ultimately that “retailers do make the most of what they have!”
Are you looking at and making the most of your assortment and buying budget – internally through historical sales analysis, and externally, through benchmarking?
Are you making the most of your physical and online stores through identifying and investing in those tangible elements that do deliver inspiration, brand, theatre, sales and return of investment?
Do you integrate your retail functions, empowering individuals and coordinating focus on the selling interfaces?