Category: assortment structure planning
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Selfridges Designer Street Room: “Strategies behind the Scenes”
For several years Selfridges strategy has been to create flexible and dynamic spaces.Each space is a complete concept. Built around the assortment it includes the music, installations, fixtures and fittings.Down to display techniques and up to showcase features such as the Skate Bowl. The spaces are customer focused “end-use” propositions such as the Designer Street Room…
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Amazon 4-Star: When Online Retail Hits a Bricks ‘n’ Mortar Wall
I’m a great admirer of Amazon. So, let’s move away from the nonsense that Amazon is killing retail. Amazon is a retailer and is leading a retail transformation. It may not be founded on designing, producing and selling its own products (although that is gathering irresistible momentum) but it is no less a retailer than…
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Pitch Perfect: Sports Direct Playing the Field
Pitch Perfect: Sports Direct Playing the Field If you want to see some clues as to what the new Mike Ashley House of Fraser might look like, then a good starting point are the new Sports Direct/USC/Flannels superstores. One of the latest is at Lakeside where a 10,000sqm sports and lifestyle experience has taken shape.…
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From Foyles to Anthropology: The “Lure” of Eccentric retailing
From Foyles to Anthropology: The “Lure” of Eccentric retailing Last week, in a further example of market consolidation, the UK’s leading book retailer Waterstones bought up the Foyles bookstore business. This included the famous Charing Cross Road store, recently moved and re-furbished. The stories surrounding Foyles are no less than retail folklore. They help to…
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Nudie Jeans: The Antidote to Mass Merchandising
If you want to experience something which is so far away from mass merchandising as it is possible to be then look at Nudie Jeans, and if possible, visit one of their stores. Nudie Jeans is a Swedish clothing brand originating in Gothenburg, founded in 2001 by Maria Erixon, a former employee and AD…
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“Commercial Retail” Overstocking & Under-Valuing the World?
I remember a comment from a best practice range review from some years ago. Having spent a couple of days reviewing the client’s own assortment and comparing with detailed visuals of best practice and competitor ranges, the chairman sighed and leaning back in his chair exclaimed “Who buys all this stuff?” At the time…
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Retailers & Consumers: A Conflict of Space & Interests
Many traditional retailers and their customers just don’t “get each other” anymore! A gap has appeared between the priorities of each, the desires, the realistic possibilities of buying & selling – a conflict of interest. The distance that divides the two camps is best seen when we look at the issue of space and…
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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Iceland: No joke for Department Stores
So, a funny thing happened on the way to the shops. To be precise a couple of funny things with more to follow without doubt. Let’s move forward a few months and I’m making my way into The Range, my local store for value home furnishings and décor. Inside I also find my new…
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John Lewis: The Revolutionary “Loved & Found”
Still my retail highlight of the year for many reasons was to see the opening of the new John Lewis at the Westfield London extension. But whilst the popular headlines latched onto the innovative and original idea to train the store personnel with actors so as to be able to engage and sell more successfully,…
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“Selling other Peoples’ Stuff! Is it the end of Generic Retailers?
So what are the common threads amongst many of the retailers suffering in the current market climate? They’re certainly well publicized. Of course there are the issues with over-sized expensive store portfolios, a slowness to embrace omnichannel, a lack of consumer confidence and a dearth of disposable income…but certainly at the epicenter of the…
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