NBK RetailDavid Blakeney, former Store Development Director at House of Fraser and Sook, joins Natalie to discuss:
Brian Librach, former VP of Stores at Urban Outfitters, Pacific Sunwear and Old Navy, joins Natalie to discuss his new book: The Retail Leader’s Roadmap.
They explore the reasons why retail leaders get stuck, the evolution of bricks & mortar retail, and how retailers can ensure their staff are motivated and engaged.
Other topics include:
Helen Dickinson OBE, CEO of the British Retail Consortium, joins Natalie on the podcast to discuss the BRC’s 2024 manifesto. They discuss:
This episode is available on the usual channels (Apple and Spotify) or you can watch a video version on YouTube.
Is bricks & mortar retail facing an existential crisis or a rebirth?
In a world where shoppers can buy just about anything online and have it delivered the very same or next day, it’s not unreasonable to ask – what is the point of stores? How can stores possibly differentiate when online shopping offers near-infinite assortment, hyper-personalisation and, increasingly, immediacy?
Over the past 18 months, bricks & mortar stores have been periodically forced to shut their doors and divert their customers to their least profitable channel – e-commerce. Retailers commendably pivoted, and consumers quickly adapted. But what happens next? Will habits learned during lockdown stick, accelerating the demise of the physical store, or will shoppers revert back to their old ways as normalcy resumes? Regardless, the pandemic-induced shift to digital has magnified the urgency for retailers to repurpose the physical space. There will be no return to the status quo.
So how do retailers balance the need for short-term agility with long-term vision? And, more importantly, what data should retailers be using to measure their success?
In this virtual debate hosted by Teradata, Mikael Bisgaard-Bohr, Vice President of Teradata EMEA, Clive Humby OBE, Co-founder of dunnhumby and chief architect of Tesco’s Clubcard, and I explore the key traits required as retailers navigate the complexities in this post-pandemic digital era.
“Historically, stores have measured two things – ‘how much and where’ – but what we need to understand is ‘who and why’,” said Humby. “We have got to stop thinking about just the transaction itself.”
Major high street retailers like Next believe that stores now face a “fundamental and irreversible disadvantage” to online and like-for-like sales declines will remain the new normal. I tend to agree. In a post-pandemic world, the role of the store will be three-fold – transact, inspire and facilitate online shopping. If the role of the store is no longer purely to sell, then how should we be measuring its success? Going forward, metrics like dwell time, conversion rates, staff satisfaction and percentage of online orders collected/returned instore are going to be a whole lot more meaningful than measuring the inevitable decline in transactions made within a retailer’s four walls.
Future of e-commerce? Stores, of course!
Big media day yesterday covering the news that Amazon has debuted its checkout-free store concept in London.
This is watershed moment for U.K. retail. Amazon is known for disrupting the status quo, raising customer expectations and forcing competitors to raise their game. Remember Amazon is a tech company first, retailer second. The big question is – does Amazon really want to become Britain’s biggest supermarket or perhaps it’s more lucrative to license this tech to… everyone else? Either way, Amazon transformed the checkout experience online and will now do the same in-store. Goodbye, friction!
Natalie Berg joins Karl McKeever, MD of Visual Thinking, as co-host of The Retail Exchange‘s final podcast episode of the year.
If you were trying to end this year by winning a prize for its greatest understatement, you could describe 2020 as ‘eventful’. It is difficult in many respects to argue that 2020 was an especially good year. Emerging trends didn’t just gather momentum, they marched forward to turn the industry on its head in ways we could never have imagined. For retail, it’s been a year of contrasting fortunes. Some have faltered. Others have thrived.
To set the tone, we revisit some of the interviews and discussions that have shaped The Retail Exchange’s podcast episodes in 2020, with special co-hosts Karl McKeever and Natalie Berg reflecting on the past year – the challenges faced, things we’ve learned, the opportunities taken – and looking ahead at what’s to come in what we all hope will be a brighter 2021.
You can listen to the full episode here.
As Britain’s ‘non-essential’ retailers prepare to reopen their doors in the coming weeks, one of the biggest challenges they face will be convincing shoppers to walk through the door. And, no, I don’t just mean from a safety perspective; I’m talking about the additional friction that shoppers will inevitably encounter.
Will customers queue up to enter a department store? Will they want to pop in to a clothing store if they can’t try stuff on? Will they accept less choice on shelves as retailers make space for social distancing measures? If they have picked up a book off the shelf, will they remember to then place it on the special quarantine cart? This might all be worth the hassle – if there was no such thing called the internet.
Don’t get me wrong. Bricks & mortar retailers should get a much-needed initial boost when they reopen. These are uncharted waters, but pent-up demand must be a given when consumers themselves are pent up for months. We are social creatures, and the notion of ‘going shopping’ is inherently a leisure activity. The high street retailers that have thus far survived the so-called ‘retail apocalypse’ are those that focus on all the things shoppers can’t get online – inspiration, discovery, curation, community, experience.
In my latest for Forbes, I explore how this will look in a post-COVID world. Has ‘experiential retail’ finally been relegated to the buzzword archives? Has a pandemic killed the art of browsing? You can read the full article here.
Picture this – a radical new grocery concept designed to revolutionize how Americans shop. The store is much smaller than your typical supermarket, around 10,000 square feet and stocking an edited range of just several thousand products. The store doesn’t feature banks of traditional checkouts; instead it’s a heavily automated and efficiency-driven experience. There are no bakeries, butchers, or any of the counter services you’d find in most supermarkets.
Nope, I’m not talking about Amazon’s latest cashierless grocery format, Amazon Go Grocery, which launched in Seattle this week. I’m talking about the now defunct Fresh & Easy, Tesco’s failed attempt to crack the US grocery market.
In my latest piece for Forbes, I explore 3 key learnings for Amazon:
1) Have a clear proposition.
2) Destroy the friction, not the experience.
3) Expansion does not indicate success.
You can read the full article here.
What’s in store for the retail sector in 2020? First, let’s be clear about what’s not changing. We’ll continue to see a bifurcation of winners and losers as the industry sheds itself of status quo retailers (translation: brace yourself for more doom and gloom). The ubiquitously connected ‘on-my-terms’ shopper is here to stay. We’ll see a continuation of the convergence of physical and digital retail. The race to stamp out friction and inefficiencies will only accelerate, and reinvention of the physical store will remain top of the boardroom agenda.
Now the fun stuff. In my latest piece for Forbes, I’ve highlighted 8 retail predictions for 2020. You can read more here.
The final whitepaper in our series with Red Ant explores how bricks & mortar stores must evolve to become genuine hubs for fulfilment.
The most successful retailers today are those that view their stores as assets not liabilities. As contradictory as it may sound, they understand that the key to growing e-commerce sales is leveraging their physical infrastructure.
These retailers also recognise that traditional metrics for success are no longer valid in today’s omnichannel world; the future of retail isn’t solely online or in-store but a blend of both channels. A OnePoll survey shows that nearly 40% of shoppers use online and store channels equally.
So, the store estate is actually an asset, but problems arise if they are not fit for their new purpose. As 20% of UK retail sales now take place online, less physical shelf space is required. Instead retailers need to dedicate more space on the shop floor to fulfilment services.
Store fulfilment plus points
When asked what types of experiences they would like when in store, the top three answers from shoppers all related to fulfilment:
There’s no denying that the rise in online shopping has come at the expense of physical retail sales, but we can’t overlook the many opportunities it has also created for those retailers willing to evolve.
One of the main draws of click & collect is the ability for customers to ensure product availability before heading in-store, as 40% of shoppers surveyed say that knowing what you want is in stock is a factor in choosing one retailer over another.
Over half (51%) cite not having to wait for deliveries as a reason to shop in store versus online. Customers coming home to the dreaded “sorry we missed you” note adds a lot of friction to an experience that is intended to be anything but.
Holistic customer experience
Click & collect is, therefore, a no-brainer for retailers, and many have been quick to recognise that in-store collection and returns can improve footfall and consequently incremental spend. Countless studies have shown that shoppers often purchase something else once in store and herein lies the opportunity: retailers must engage with shoppers at the point of collection in a bid to cross-sell or upsell based on the items that have been reserved.
Making the most of this, however, depends on equipping store associates with the right technology. The aim should be to establish staff as trusted shopping companions rather than simply someone who gives the customer their order and ticks it off on a list.
The data is there, but retailers need to connect the dots to offer that holistic customer experience.
Download Store of the Future: The Store as a Fulfillment Hub now to get the full picture and read more of Natalie Berg’s expert insights.