website excellence Archives

‘Is Brand more important than Product?’ A question for students at the London College of Fashion (LCF)

The LCF student’s collaborative challenge module is now entering the creative phase. Always a fascinating period of any project, when all of that valuable research and benchmarking needs to be translating into customer facing outputs. The students are so tech native that visual imagery and social media communication is second nature to them. It is the polar opposite to me and many of the lecturers who were initiated into retail-

Discover a ‘Five-Star Christmas: “Meaning in the Retail Madness”

“An excellent read *****” “Valuable reference for anyone in retail *****” “This book is more relevant now than ever! *****” ‘Meaning in the Retail Madness’ explains how touchpoints have replaced channels, how linear supply chains will become circular, why assortments are increasingly virtual, how physical is turning to local, and why products and shops are not necessarily made for each other anymore. It supplies a blueprint for retail’s new ‘agile-

Not sure if you enjoy being sustainable? You need to get into the world of Loanhood.

In the meantime… Renting, recycling and the circular supply chain is featured in the new book – ‘Meaning in the Retail Madness – How to be an Essential Retailer’ If you’d like to read my book for many more retailer insights and best practice. And to here my thoughts on retail’s future, then that’s an excellent idea. I hope that the sections on how to flourish in the ‘The life-

Online retailing is becoming ‘expert in ‘selling’ but forgetting ‘how to give’

Online retailing is becoming ‘expert in ‘selling’ but forgetting ‘how to give’ I am sure I am not the only one to have been disappointed and disgusted at the condition of some products that arrive on my doorstep, from online retailers. My latest experience was the receipt of some ladies coats from one of the largest online fashion specialists. A business whose strategy I have up until now admired. The-

Amazon Wardrobe: Facilitating returns to drive sales

Amazon Wardrobe: Facilitating returns to drive sales Taking the customer’s money is only half the story of retail. In fact, giving the money back is threatening to become the primary activity in an online world where the customer is now calling the shots. A landscape has formed where the customer returns at will, and the retailer picks up the bill. Buying many sizes and styles with the intention of returning-

Bloom & Wild: Delivering a fragrant revolution

Bloom & Wild: Delivering a fragrant revolution I’d recommend that we all spoil ourselves with flowers. Not, for the hell of it, and not any flowers. Just those delivered by Bloom & Wild. Their story is not about flowers, no matter how beautiful they are, but about disrupting a market where with one decisive initiative they transformed the sector. From that point they have blazed a trail of disruption through the-

Retail Beginning or Retail End? 7 essentials for survival!

The Morning Post:- 23rd March Retail Beginning or Retail End? 7 essentials for retail success! Sometimes it makes sense to draw a line in the sand, even when the sands are changing at an unprecedented rate. This is certainly the case in retail. We are not surrounded completely by doom-and-gloom retail news, however there is undoubtedly a lot of it. This reached a focus this morning with the announcement from Next of its-

Missguided Opinion: Cracks in the E-commerce Golden Egg

The Evening Post:- 20th March “Missguided Opinion: Cracks in the E-commerce Golden Egg!” Firstly, let me say I am a huge fan of Missguided. Whilst not the classic target customer I remember the palpable excitement of walking through their first store in Westfield Stratford, conceived in collaboration with Dalziel & Pow. It was such a refreshing store with so many ideas for the new era of physical shopping, not bogged down-

MADE+ in Heaven: Delivered to your Door!

So, imagine a furniture concept that throws out the baggage of the traditional way of doing things, and re-invents the whole process from the perspective of the customer and the designer. More or less, you have Made.com Made is born from a passion for modern, beautiful furniture and the frustration of buying it the old-fashioned way. And with necessity being the mother of invention it was real life experience that-

E-commerce efficiency: Facilitating your failure?

Don’t get me wrong I’m a believer in e-commerce and an avid online shopper, and I get as frustrated as the next man or woman when it comes to inefficient websites, product misinterpretation and expensive and extensive delivery times. And of course, efficiency is an absolute essential to any online retailer, and will make the difference between survival and extinction in the highly charged competitive online market place. However there-