An honorable mention to See All Her Faces new favourite: Jigsaw.
As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I have recently been involved in an epic struggle, the like of which I have never faced before, and one in which I wasn't sure I would make it out alive, let alone victorious.... Yes, I was looking for a Winter Coat... In January.... I found one in Jigsaw, and an example of how retailers can continue to delight their customers in what looks to be another uncertain year for the industry.
I found the coat of my dreams on their website, although neither it, nor my local store had my size. I left a message on the website with the details of what I was looking for, and also with my local store..
I received an email from their Retail Operations Controller later that day, to confirm that the option I was after was at a branch who would be phoning me that day to arrange payment and delivery. Which they did. And subsequently my local store also phoned to say they had also found one and had it transferred to their store for me to collect- from famine to feast on the stock availability front.
So yes, I got my coat which was great, but that isn't why this story is important. It's important, because Jigsaw demonstrated that whatever channel you choose to shop using (store or online) they will go the extra mile to please. And that is going to make an even bigger difference in 2010.
It shows that Jigsaw have parity of shopping experience whatever channel you are shoping via, making them much closer to the true 'multi-channel' Holy Grail that all retailers aspire towards. Providing a good shopping experience whatever the method, builds the brand- it builds loyalty, confidence and credibility- in the same way that some of us will go to a Macdonalds on holiday because we know what we are getting (Yes I'm a philistine), we are more likely to repeat shop with a particular retailer, and potentially by another method as well, if we know what will expect, (and we like it)- we know we can trust them.
Many retailers are not so good at replicating their positive store experiences online (I will try not to name and shame today because there are just too many, but for goodness sake Selfridges haven't even got a transactional website yet- it's 2010!!), it's confusing, and disappointing... and once we lose faith in the retailer's credibility and/or service, we are less compelled to shop with them at all....
The other key part of this story was the positive difference the stores made to my customer experience. It was a store who phoned me promptly to arrange despatch of my coat, and another store who took my details and transferred the coat in for me to collect.
Today's crowded market includes a number of retailers who have no 'bricks and mortar' store locations- they are pure play online retailers- Asos being one of the most successful examples. Pure E-Commerce retailers cut rent and staff overheads hugely with no high street presence, savings which can be passed on in part to the customer, making the online retailer a seemingly more competitive and attractive proposition.
So those retailers who are lumbered with the high operational costs of managing an estate of stores, such as the Jigsaws of this world, should use those stores to add value to the business- not just in terms of the turnover that each brings, but the customer service experience the store can provide with it's knowledgeable and dedicated personnel, that means that customers will come back, loyalty is much easier to build with face to face interactions than online.
Customer Service is how bricks and mortar stores can prove invaluable in the next year, and how smart retailers will use their multi-channel shopping experience to differentiate themselves in a crowded and still precarious market place.
Your Mother's old saying 'being nice costs nothing', has an addendum... it can cost a lot if you're not.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Clash of the Titans?: Why John Lewis beats M&S
John Lewis vs M&S..? No contest surely..
In light of recently published Christmas trading figures, Stuart Rose has apparently conceded M&S is losing the battle for Middle England to John Lewis, as Marks and Sparks endured a LFL sales increase of only 0.8% on the year, against what was a record Christmas for the John Lewis Partnership.
Which makes him officially the last person to notice that JLP won the war for the hearts and minds of the sensible discerning shopper a long time ago. John Lewis have been one of the few retailers to enjoy consistent strong trading throughout the recession, a trend that continued with an unbelievable LFL increase of 12.7% on the year during Christmas Peak Trading.
Why? Well...yes, the clothing offer has been substantially improved and some well received advertising campaigns have helped. And yes, Waitrose is doing better than ever thanks to the strategic vision of the self professed 'chubby grocer' Mark Price, up 16.1% on the year over the full peak trading period....
But fundamentally, it's because we really, really trust John Lewis. And in times of uncertainty we cling desperately to what we know to be honest, reliable and trustworthy, and John Lewis fits the bill on every score.
Honesty: Their 'never knowingly undersold' policy is famous, and true- in fact they even gave me back the difference when the £40 gloves my husband bought me for Chrstimas that went half price two days later! What's not to love about a retailer who does not penalise you for being too impatient to wait for their Clearance Sale! JLP are also known for reccomending the most appropriate item for you rather than the most expensive- you can't put a price on that (well I guess you can- a 12.7% improvement in sales..)
Reliable: You know whenever you visit a John Lewis store, it will look tidy and easy to shop around- spacious and with good signage so you don't have to wander around in an increasing rage for ages. You know they will have a good range, and that they will probably have what you need. You know their staff by and large will be informed and informative, and helpful. Not much to ask perhaps- but plenty of people are still getting this wrong...
Trustworthy: These things make me trust JL- they aren't the cheapest store out there, but they don't need to be, because that trust means we will actively seek out a store, and certainly shop with them above other retailers, every time.
And in these still grimly uncertain times, that, my dears, is gold dust.
In light of recently published Christmas trading figures, Stuart Rose has apparently conceded M&S is losing the battle for Middle England to John Lewis, as Marks and Sparks endured a LFL sales increase of only 0.8% on the year, against what was a record Christmas for the John Lewis Partnership.
Which makes him officially the last person to notice that JLP won the war for the hearts and minds of the sensible discerning shopper a long time ago. John Lewis have been one of the few retailers to enjoy consistent strong trading throughout the recession, a trend that continued with an unbelievable LFL increase of 12.7% on the year during Christmas Peak Trading.
Why? Well...yes, the clothing offer has been substantially improved and some well received advertising campaigns have helped. And yes, Waitrose is doing better than ever thanks to the strategic vision of the self professed 'chubby grocer' Mark Price, up 16.1% on the year over the full peak trading period....
But fundamentally, it's because we really, really trust John Lewis. And in times of uncertainty we cling desperately to what we know to be honest, reliable and trustworthy, and John Lewis fits the bill on every score.
Honesty: Their 'never knowingly undersold' policy is famous, and true- in fact they even gave me back the difference when the £40 gloves my husband bought me for Chrstimas that went half price two days later! What's not to love about a retailer who does not penalise you for being too impatient to wait for their Clearance Sale! JLP are also known for reccomending the most appropriate item for you rather than the most expensive- you can't put a price on that (well I guess you can- a 12.7% improvement in sales..)
Reliable: You know whenever you visit a John Lewis store, it will look tidy and easy to shop around- spacious and with good signage so you don't have to wander around in an increasing rage for ages. You know they will have a good range, and that they will probably have what you need. You know their staff by and large will be informed and informative, and helpful. Not much to ask perhaps- but plenty of people are still getting this wrong...
Trustworthy: These things make me trust JL- they aren't the cheapest store out there, but they don't need to be, because that trust means we will actively seek out a store, and certainly shop with them above other retailers, every time.
And in these still grimly uncertain times, that, my dears, is gold dust.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
So How Was It For You?: The January Sales
The Jan Sale I mean!
The long held tradition of the 'January Sales', where we would all faithfully drag ourselves around the shops during the long weeks of January- to cheer ourselves up and get the bargains on the products we had been eyeing up before Christmas seems to officially be over....
I certainly remember the days, not so long ago, where the more committed amongst us would be there on the first day, picking up the early unmissable deals, whilst others of us would browse, and ride out the rest of the sale period until the dying days when the final clearance of goods would throw up some more cheap gems...
But there's no time for that now! With alot of the bargains available pre-Xmas as the high street start their sales ever earlier, Retail Week reports one 'fashion-led retailer' as stating that his business would be out of clearance and trading full price again by Thursday!!! And I think this phenomenon is evidenced to a degree on the high street and online. Sure there are still plenty of goods available at reduced prices, but it's only the 6th of January and those goods are moving quickly indeed with the best choices already gone- I tried to order a coat online late last night that was already out of stock by the time I got to payment!
And why? A key reason is that a lot of retailers have been caught out in the past, particularly last year when winter stock had been ordered many months before the full impact of the recession on consumer spending had been known or felt. This left them with a high stock holding of old/discontinued lines- the proverbial albatross around the retailer's neck, tying up cash that should be spent on new stock, and eroding margins as the stock needs to be ever deeply slashed in price to be cleared.
Nobody wants to make that mistake again, so tighter stock management has been required, with stock holding reduced, and stock turn increased, (smarter sourcing helps- reducing lead-times means stock can be bought in smaller, more regular quantities, reducing risk), with early sales and initial competitive price cuts to clear out that residual winter stock quickly and move on....
Finally and most importantly- Is this a good thing for consumers? Well, if you have been savvy and fairly aggressive about your sale shopping then perhaps you have still done well out of this years' sales; but the more laid-back shopper has probably missed out- as they say, You Snooze, You Lose!
It also presents more challenges for retailers as they now have to present us with a new reason to brave the shops at this somewhat grim time of year, and a reason to part with our cash at a time of the year when we were still expecting post-Christmas bargains... So the new season of products will need to be in stores much earlier, and will need to include real 'Must-Haves' to acheive those objectives.
Lets see how that pans out....
The long held tradition of the 'January Sales', where we would all faithfully drag ourselves around the shops during the long weeks of January- to cheer ourselves up and get the bargains on the products we had been eyeing up before Christmas seems to officially be over....
I certainly remember the days, not so long ago, where the more committed amongst us would be there on the first day, picking up the early unmissable deals, whilst others of us would browse, and ride out the rest of the sale period until the dying days when the final clearance of goods would throw up some more cheap gems...
But there's no time for that now! With alot of the bargains available pre-Xmas as the high street start their sales ever earlier, Retail Week reports one 'fashion-led retailer' as stating that his business would be out of clearance and trading full price again by Thursday!!! And I think this phenomenon is evidenced to a degree on the high street and online. Sure there are still plenty of goods available at reduced prices, but it's only the 6th of January and those goods are moving quickly indeed with the best choices already gone- I tried to order a coat online late last night that was already out of stock by the time I got to payment!
And why? A key reason is that a lot of retailers have been caught out in the past, particularly last year when winter stock had been ordered many months before the full impact of the recession on consumer spending had been known or felt. This left them with a high stock holding of old/discontinued lines- the proverbial albatross around the retailer's neck, tying up cash that should be spent on new stock, and eroding margins as the stock needs to be ever deeply slashed in price to be cleared.
Nobody wants to make that mistake again, so tighter stock management has been required, with stock holding reduced, and stock turn increased, (smarter sourcing helps- reducing lead-times means stock can be bought in smaller, more regular quantities, reducing risk), with early sales and initial competitive price cuts to clear out that residual winter stock quickly and move on....
Finally and most importantly- Is this a good thing for consumers? Well, if you have been savvy and fairly aggressive about your sale shopping then perhaps you have still done well out of this years' sales; but the more laid-back shopper has probably missed out- as they say, You Snooze, You Lose!
It also presents more challenges for retailers as they now have to present us with a new reason to brave the shops at this somewhat grim time of year, and a reason to part with our cash at a time of the year when we were still expecting post-Christmas bargains... So the new season of products will need to be in stores much earlier, and will need to include real 'Must-Haves' to acheive those objectives.
Lets see how that pans out....
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
The Grinch Who Stole Borders' Christmas: A Think Piece.
So this is Christmas... And What has Borders Done? Another Year Older... And...
well you know the rest.....
It has finally been confirmed this afternoon that Borders UK will be closing all it's stores at the end of today; no new buyer has as yet been found, although talks are ongoing. The news confirms definitively the worst fears of the 1150 staff who have effectively been 'dead men walking' since it was announced in November that Borders had collapsed into administration, with increasingly little hope of a Christmas Miracle...
They will be relieved of their posts on the 24th December, Scrooge would have been proud.
Many of those who have shopped at Borders, or in fact ever bought books, knows what fundamentally went wrong with Borders. And there were a few things....
The Borders US arm was a successful chain in the US in the nineties (they are also struggling there now though), encompassing as it did the 'Friends culture' that had been wholeheartedly embraced- people didn't want to browse fusty little bookshops any more, they wanted to buy cds, drink generic coffee, lounge on sofas and meet hot singles; in a nice big out of town store (they have to drive everywhere anyway so this is nothing unusual for them), with the 'buying books' bit a casual afterthought to all the other 'Central Perk' style fun. Brits who had visited a store while in the US were extolling the virtues of the Brave New World of 'book shopping without bookshopping'.
By the time Borders established it's UK presence towards the end of the 90s, there were obvious flaws with the business model that became more of a problem over time.
Borders located themselves in a number of out of town 'retail park' locations. Whilst visiting out of town malls is standard shopping behaviour for US customers who have to drive everywhere, that's not 'how we roll' over here. Retail Parks tend not to be destination stops for customers over here. We go because we work close, or we are killing an afternoon before we pick up the kids, or importantly- because we have a specific purchase in mind (usually a sofa- they all seem to have a sofa store on-site!). We don't wake up of a morning and decide we simply must go to Speke Retail Park, and spend the day there, wandering around B&Q and buying CDs. And we definately don't decide we need to spend time milling around a bookshop, in a retail park, in the middle of nowhere. So location was a big problem.
The second issue was that the 'Friends' model itself has grown tired. Not only is everyone doing it- you can grab a coffee and preview your book purchase in plenty of places these days, but also- we have grown wary of multi-nationals and our own big players enforcing their generic view of the purchasing experience. (Think 'You've Got Mail' the mediocre Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks movie in which she runs a little book store threatened by the heartless chain bookseller he represents) Retailers have had to adopt more of a 'glocalisation' approach to trading, to inspire loyalty. In these uncertain times we shuffle back towards what we know, and heritage (such as M&S '125 years'campaign and the myriad other retailers also trading on their history recently) and local (e.g. the 'save our high street' campaigns to fend off the rise of the super-supermarket.... ) values become more important.
Borders had nothing to trade on here- they could be said to be a perfect example of the faceless soulless corporation we feel no loyalty for and are happy to desert when a more favourable alternative presents itself...
Which brings me to the third and most important factor in Borders' UK demise... The internet... aka 'The Amazon effect'. For those of us not rushing back to our local bookshops to help them in the fight against Tom Hanks, there was Amazon. It revolutionised book shopping, changing the book industry forever.. Buying a book was suddenly so quick, so simple, and so cheap, and with online sellers able to ferociously undercut due to lack of crippling overheads. This has been competition too fierce for many to contend with, and has only grown over time... It is now estimated online sales of books are actual set to overtake high street sales within 10 years. According to Verdict research, pressure on retailers that rely on bricks and mortar is set to “intensify” and that 2020 will be a “tipping point” for retailers of books....
I'm; not even going to mention the recession because Heaven knows that isn't a unique problem to Borders- although it does force the adage 'Adapt or Die' to be truer than ever..
And there you have it. Despite their best efforts- a slick new IT system, a cost-cutting headcount reduction, a diversified product offering... Borders could not ring the changes enough to survive, and are another 2009 casualty of the current 'economic climate'...
So who was the Grinch who stole Borders UK's Christmas? Well I guess it was the Internet, the Customer, the US arm... And Borders UK themselves. These things are never simple, but also usually more simple then they seem....
well you know the rest.....
It has finally been confirmed this afternoon that Borders UK will be closing all it's stores at the end of today; no new buyer has as yet been found, although talks are ongoing. The news confirms definitively the worst fears of the 1150 staff who have effectively been 'dead men walking' since it was announced in November that Borders had collapsed into administration, with increasingly little hope of a Christmas Miracle...
They will be relieved of their posts on the 24th December, Scrooge would have been proud.
Many of those who have shopped at Borders, or in fact ever bought books, knows what fundamentally went wrong with Borders. And there were a few things....
The Borders US arm was a successful chain in the US in the nineties (they are also struggling there now though), encompassing as it did the 'Friends culture' that had been wholeheartedly embraced- people didn't want to browse fusty little bookshops any more, they wanted to buy cds, drink generic coffee, lounge on sofas and meet hot singles; in a nice big out of town store (they have to drive everywhere anyway so this is nothing unusual for them), with the 'buying books' bit a casual afterthought to all the other 'Central Perk' style fun. Brits who had visited a store while in the US were extolling the virtues of the Brave New World of 'book shopping without bookshopping'.
By the time Borders established it's UK presence towards the end of the 90s, there were obvious flaws with the business model that became more of a problem over time.
Borders located themselves in a number of out of town 'retail park' locations. Whilst visiting out of town malls is standard shopping behaviour for US customers who have to drive everywhere, that's not 'how we roll' over here. Retail Parks tend not to be destination stops for customers over here. We go because we work close, or we are killing an afternoon before we pick up the kids, or importantly- because we have a specific purchase in mind (usually a sofa- they all seem to have a sofa store on-site!). We don't wake up of a morning and decide we simply must go to Speke Retail Park, and spend the day there, wandering around B&Q and buying CDs. And we definately don't decide we need to spend time milling around a bookshop, in a retail park, in the middle of nowhere. So location was a big problem.
The second issue was that the 'Friends' model itself has grown tired. Not only is everyone doing it- you can grab a coffee and preview your book purchase in plenty of places these days, but also- we have grown wary of multi-nationals and our own big players enforcing their generic view of the purchasing experience. (Think 'You've Got Mail' the mediocre Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks movie in which she runs a little book store threatened by the heartless chain bookseller he represents) Retailers have had to adopt more of a 'glocalisation' approach to trading, to inspire loyalty. In these uncertain times we shuffle back towards what we know, and heritage (such as M&S '125 years'campaign and the myriad other retailers also trading on their history recently) and local (e.g. the 'save our high street' campaigns to fend off the rise of the super-supermarket.... ) values become more important.
Borders had nothing to trade on here- they could be said to be a perfect example of the faceless soulless corporation we feel no loyalty for and are happy to desert when a more favourable alternative presents itself...
Which brings me to the third and most important factor in Borders' UK demise... The internet... aka 'The Amazon effect'. For those of us not rushing back to our local bookshops to help them in the fight against Tom Hanks, there was Amazon. It revolutionised book shopping, changing the book industry forever.. Buying a book was suddenly so quick, so simple, and so cheap, and with online sellers able to ferociously undercut due to lack of crippling overheads. This has been competition too fierce for many to contend with, and has only grown over time... It is now estimated online sales of books are actual set to overtake high street sales within 10 years. According to Verdict research, pressure on retailers that rely on bricks and mortar is set to “intensify” and that 2020 will be a “tipping point” for retailers of books....
I'm; not even going to mention the recession because Heaven knows that isn't a unique problem to Borders- although it does force the adage 'Adapt or Die' to be truer than ever..
And there you have it. Despite their best efforts- a slick new IT system, a cost-cutting headcount reduction, a diversified product offering... Borders could not ring the changes enough to survive, and are another 2009 casualty of the current 'economic climate'...
So who was the Grinch who stole Borders UK's Christmas? Well I guess it was the Internet, the Customer, the US arm... And Borders UK themselves. These things are never simple, but also usually more simple then they seem....
Thursday, 17 December 2009
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