Category: customer service
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Body Shop: Rough-diamonds should never be over-polished!
in branding & visual communication, brave-words, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, health & beauty, impulse retailing, in-store services, packaging, product suppliers, recycling, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, store theatre, sustainability, telling product storiesWhere do you begin with the story of Body Shop. So many twists and turns, and so many lessons. Anyone who remembers the 1980s and 1990s experienced a totally new retail concept. Body Shop was way ahead of its time in the world of conscientious cosmetics and toiletries. It was primarily a producer, ensuring that…
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Trust M&S to be ‘Positively Dissatisfied!’
in assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, fashion accessories, food & drink, home, ladies fashion, multi-category, omni-channel retailing, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, store experience, store operationsI remember this story from the halcyon days of M&S. That when customers bought food from M&S and it didn’t taste amazing, they immediately thought their cooker was not working properly and called an engineer. Of course this may well be folklore. However it does illustrate the level of trust that M&S commanded, and it…
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Time for us to create our own certainty in this world of retail uncertainty.
If there has always been one certainty in the retail industry, then it is uncertainty. We deal with customers who are unpredictable. We forward guess every season in terms of what we should stock in the hope we can sell it. We are at the mercy of the weather, the geo-politics of the world and…
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Where is your sales growth going to come from this year?
in assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, ethical retailing, food & drink, health & beauty, in-store services, meaning in the retail madness, personalisation, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, social savvy, store theatre, sustainability, telling product storiesWe are already in autumn, an important time of year for planning the commercial growth of our retail businesses. We may be considering extending our assortments, planning new product ranges, growing our human resources, even contemplating opening new physical shops and online sales channels. Growth can come in many ways to achieve these crucial additional…
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Rapha: A renaissance in cycling
in accessories, assortment structure planning, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, food & drink, in-store services, internationalisation, leisure & sport, new retail, omni-channel retailing, product suppliers, retail, retail brand heritage, retail strategy, shop of the future, social savvy, store experience, store theatre, telling product stories, visual merchandisingThe lessons for us all: “Never treat your customers as a commodity but as a community. To have a community you must have common passions, missions and values. You must believe and mean something to your customers. And you must re-establish and re-enforce that meaning in everything that you do.” Rapha Performance Road wear is…
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Nobody’s Child: Everyone’s favourite sustainable partner
in customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, fashion accessories, footwear, ladies fashion, meaning in the retail madness, new retail, omni-channel retailing, Pinterest Gallery, product suppliers, recycling, retail, retail strategy, social savvy, supply-chains, sustainability, telling product storiesThe lessons for us all: “Modern retail is too complex for a single business. Collaboration is essential for success. Collaboration through the complete supply chain from growers to retail partners. To be sustainable there is no alternative!” Nobody’s Child is a responsible brand on a mission to bring beautiful fashion to every woman, everywhere without…
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Petit Pli: One giant leap in space-age fashion
in assortment structure planning, customer service, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, fashion accessories, footwear, in-store services, internationalisation, kids fashion, ladies fashion, leisure & sport, meaning in the retail madness, new retail, omni-channel retailing, packaging, personalisation, Pinterest Gallery, retail, retail businesses, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experience, supply-chains, sustainability, telling product storiesThe lessons for us all: “Petit Pli is born from innovation and invention and has created unique materials & products that make it unique. But it is essential that every retailer also lives continuously with innovation and invention. In the best and worst of times continually look forwards to be new, newsworthy and interesting for…
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Bike Shed Motorcycle Club: Revving up Community
in assortment structure planning, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, fashion accessories, food & drink, footwear, health & beauty, in-store services, internationalisation, leisure & sport, location strategy, menswear, multi-category, new retail, omni-channel retailing, Pinterest Gallery, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail organisations, retail strategy, social savvy, store experience, store theatre, telling product storiesThe lessons for us all: “You can teach people how to be successful at retailing, if they have the passion. But it’s much more difficult to teach ‘Passion’ even to people who know how to buy & sell. People really love to buy passion, today!” The Bike Shed Motorcycle Club started in November 2011 as…
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Zara Battersea: High visibility through hidden technologies
in assortment structure planning, customer experience, customer service, fashion accessories, fast fashion, footwear, home, internationalisation, kids fashion, ladies fashion, leisure & sport, menswear, omni-channel retailing, Pinterest Gallery, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, shop of the future, space management, space planning, store experience, store layout, store operations, visual merchandisingThe lessons for us all: “It is one thing designing & buying the best product in the world, but another level when you can say with confidence where every piece of it is! We should all learn from Zara’s product passport investment, so we can ensure we sell all of what we produce. We make…
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House of Hackney: Home for inspiration.
in accessories, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, ethical retailing, home, in-store services, internationalisation, location strategy, luxury, new retail, omni-channel retailing, Pinterest Gallery, product suppliers, retail, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experience, store layout, store theatre, sustainability, telling product stories, visual merchandisingThe lessons for us all: “To build a beautiful retail proposition that engages and attracts remarkable loyalty and trust, a business must move beyond product and price, no matter how attractive. Beauty and loyalty now come through the incarnation of a mission, of values and qualities that are expressed through product, people, environments and actions.”…
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