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Business Strategy
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= NRF Original Research From McGladrey. Retailers and vendors need to develop a new game plan to grow and prosper in tomorrow's environment.
The first step is to engage in an intense self-analysis. This includes consumer research in order to determine the wants and needs of the target customer, increase the value proposition with new and differentiated merchandise, find a path to a more efficient sourcing and logistics structure, strengthen its brand (whether national or owned), and implement a multichannel distribution network. Success will be tied to customer satisfaction.
From Platt Retail Institute. There is great interest among North American companies with a solid base of success in their domestic market to export that success overseas. They are targeting the established, large consumer economies in Europe and the Pacific, as well as Brazil and other Latin American nations, which are finally viable economically. On top of this are the growing interests in the potential of exporting to the huge, middle class consumer markets emerging in India and China.
Conversely, businesses in Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America have long looked to the U.S. market with visions of unlimited opportunity. It’s a nation with a big, affluent, consumption-intensive population, and America is one of the least restrictive markets to enter. America remains among the most desirable export markets in the world.
Success in one place does not predict success in another place. But international expansion presents the classic dichotomy of opportunities offset by challenges. If you are new to global expansion and are planning your strategies, this can be a good time to consider the risks that can trip up even well funded overseas ambitions. In addition to whatever other resources you are consulting, this article from PRI's Journal of Retail Analytics addresses six issues you need to consider.
From Gensler. In this video presentation, co-leaders of Gensler’s top-ranked retail design practice, Barry Bourbon and Irwin Miller share case studies of retailers that have exported their brands to new markets, along with lessons learned from the global partnerships that paved the way.
From McGladrey. As usual, the back-to-school season will be critical to retailers’ bottom line this month; however, many rightfully remain cautious. The economy continues to be a concern, but there are several strategies retailers can implement to differentiate themselves and increase market share.
From McGladrey LLP. By all indications, 2012 will be another year of lethargic growth, store closings and increased focus on everyday low prices by several major retailers, all which will have a significant impact on the entire retail landscape. Multichannel is key to survival for many.
From IBM. Today’s consumers seek and accept shopping advice from peers, family, friends and even strangers. They bring attitudes and expectations, shaped by experiences across a broad spectrum of industries, to every interaction with retailers. And through this lens of connectivity and collaboration – which enables them to know almost everything about every product and brand – these “smarter,” empowered consumers ultimately decide which retailers have earned their trust.
From Grant Thornton. Multichannel retail — the merging of traditional brick-and-mortar retailing with online and mobile retail channels — involves far more than allowing customers to purchase items through a website. Multichannel retailing presents ample, seemingly boundless opportunities for brand engagement and interaction with customers across new platforms. Yet inevitably, these new technologies, platforms and sales channels come with new risks and challenges for companies to manage.
From RSM McGladrey. Slower-than-historic post-recessionary growth and the persistent high levels of unemployment are key issues facing businesses today. More importantly, employment growth and rising income represent opportunities to drive market share and higher sales.
The consumer is responding differently than in past cycles, placing more emphasis on value – from the purchase of more private brands when it comes to basic/commodity merchandise, to cross-shopping among distribution channels. Typical of most cycles, discretionary spending is beginning to gain momentum, outpacing overall retail sales. Consumers, aided by the Internet, are smarter and more demanding shoppers. Winners among retailers and vendors will be those that understand their consumers – what they want, when they want it and at what price they are willing to pay. Those that build and act on that understanding will be the companies that prosper in the new era of growth that is now developing.
From ecVision. Retailers and suppliers that rely on technology indicate that they have been able to speed up order cycle times, improve the percentage of “perfect orders”, and minimize inventory shortages and stock outs.
Even if your company isn’t a retail giant, the need to take action to fine tune your supply chain is imperative in order to stay competitive and ensure long-term continued existence. Fortunately, there are supply chain technology solutions that can help manage volatility, mitigate risk, and remain agile enough to react to the up-and-down economy.
Retail Industry Indicators 2009 is a comprehensive report on trends in the retail industry. This report was prepared for the NRF Foundation, the non-profit research and education foundation of NRF, by The Trade Partnership.
The National Retail Federation Foundation (NRFF) and KPMG have published the ninth annual "state of the retail industry" study, Retail Horizons: Benchmarks for 2010, Forecasts for 2011. Retail Horizons offers a detailed overview of the current state of the industry and retailers’ plans for the year ahead. The full report provides deep insights into tactical decisions and strategies retail companies will implement as the industry continues to recover, and how they will try to maintain customer focus while placing a greater emphasis on the bottom line. Research for this year’s report was conducted in the fall of 2010 and is based on responses in nine functional areas through online surveys from more than 310 retail executives in 135 companies.
From Grant Thornton LLP. With the holiday season behind us, gift card sales continued to surge. Not only did more people purchase gift cards this holiday season, but the average amount spent on each card increased as well. While consumers flock to gift cards for their flexibility, businesses have embraced them as a means to increase sales, improve cash flow and manage inventory. But with the growth in use of gift cards also comes an uptick in scrutiny and regulations, especially within the past year.
Grant Thornton LLP’s new white paper, Gift cards: Opportunities and issues for retailers, explores the areas of risk and opportunity gift cards can bring to retailers and outlines how new rules from the IRS and the Federal Reserve Board provide retailers and gift card issuers much-needed guidance.
From Deloitte. This report examines how these trends will most likely shape consumer spending patterns and the world of consumers more broadly. What will consumers in different geographic and demographic segments value? What will they need and want? Given what they have faced in recent years, how will their attitudes and behaviors continue to change in the coming decade? To set the stage for this discussion, the report begins with a broad look at how changes in the global economy are likely to affect consumer spending as we slowly emerge from recession. In so far as one can ever predict the future, it then looks at longer-term economic, demographic, and technological trends and some of the resulting changes in consumer attitudes and behaviors that are likely to take place over the next 10 years.
KPMG and NRF Foundation are pleased to deliver the eighth annual state of the retail industry study, Retail Horizons: Benchmarks for 2009,Forecasts for 2010. A year ago, the retail industry was facing its greatest global financial crisis in decades and, while challenges continued in 2009, lessons were learned. This year's report details how retailers moved quickly and thoughtfully to position themselves for success as they entered a new decade.
From VeraCentra. How relevant are your marketing communications? Studies reveal that up to 63 percent of consumers have or will consider abandoning a brand all together because of irrelevant communications. Executed well, relevancy can prevent customer defection, improve customer satisfaction and increase customer spending while reducing marketing costs. Growing Customer Relationships with Increased Relevancy describes:
• What marketers risk if today's relevancy requirements are ignored
• How to use Business Intelligence to achieve deep customer understanding
• Which technologies facilitate relevant customer communications
• Quantifiable improvement in customer metrics and campaign response rates
Select charts and information from NRF's 2010 Halloween Consumer Survey.
This report highlights simultaneous media usage, online search triggers such as coupons, preferred social media websites, blogging habits and even music preferences.
Explore 2010's Back-to-School and Back-to-College survey data charts including: Back-to-School and Back-to-College Spending by Year, Total Back-to-School Spending, How the Economy is Impacting Back-to-School, Total Back-to-College Spending, and Where College Students Will Live.
From Grant Thornton LLP. The goal of this white paper is to help convenience store companies identify trends affecting the industry. The white paper touches on both big-picture trends, such as merger and acquisition activities, as well as trends in technical areas that may get overlooked as executives grapple with strategic issues. In addition, the white paper identifies four emerging issues that convenience store management need to keep on top of: shifting consumer preferences; volatile gas prices; employee engagement; and mergers and acquisitions. It also has lists of ideas for management personnel to consider as they evaluate what’s right for their organization.
The consumer trend charts on this page include: graduation spending by demographic and popular graduation gifts for 2007-2010.
From Precima. This whitepaper is a guide to five proven strategies to winning shoppers by capturing the right trips and the right categories, based on actual case studies from Precima’s work that demonstrate the true value of a shopper-centric strategy. Each case study focuses on identifying high-priority shoppers and analyzing transaction data associated with those shoppers, thus helping retailers gain in-depth understanding of their shoppers in order to win the bigger basket and long-term loyalty.
From BIGresearch. BIGresearch's Consumer Intentions & Actions Survey monitors over 8,000 consumers each month providing unique insights & identifying opportunities in a fragmented and transitory marketplace. Watch the highlights from the most recent survey in the video briefing.
From Deloitte and the National Retail Federation. To better understand ways companies are tackling today’s talent challenges and positioning themselves for long-term success, Deloitte collaborated with the National Retail Federation (NRF) to conduct a comprehensive survey of the industry’s talent management strategies and practices. Survey respondents included senior executives from the largest retailers in the U.S. based on STORES' Top 100 list. Through an analysis of the results, Deloitte and the NRF identified various areas where retailers have the opportunity to better align their operations with talent management objectives.
NRF Foundation, the research and education arm of the National Retail Federation, is pleased to invite you to the learn more about findings of the eighth annual "state of the retail industry" study, Retail Horizons: Benchmarks for 2009, Forecasts for 2010, sponsored by KPMG
From J.D. Associates. A successful customer loyalty program should be integrated in a retail POS system. A long-term customer loyalty strategy must be implemented and regularly monitored for effectiveness. When developing a customer loyalty strategy certain considerations deserve attention.
Across the retail industry, Store Operations is underserved when it comes to analytics and Business Intelligence (BI). Merchants and marketers must exploit this information every day in order to succeed - if Store Ops were empowered to do the same, retailers could build and sustain competitive advantage in a market that's tougher than ever.
In this issue of Retailing with Insight, we illustrate how BI can and should be extended to Store Ops users including Store Managers, District and Regional Managers,VPs of Operations, Store Auditors,Trainers, Store Planners and Store Analysts.
From Third Eyesight. In India there is a segment for every product, an opportunity for every service, be it ever so small. But when bubbles are bursting all over, as the Noughties Decade comes to a close, these opportunities need to be reviewed. Some businesses will work better than others in the current market environment, and strategies will need to be adapted. Here's one view of what we might expect in 2010.
From Continuum. Retail promotional signage is more complicated today. It requires collaboration that includes your vendors, merchants, marketing specialists, pricing staff, advertising coordinators, translators, operations and store environment. You have to organize and communicate. What worked in the ‘90s will not work today. You have to achieve customer impact, centralized branding, management of your total promotional signage “real estate”, time-to-market, pricing accuracy, reduced administrative burden, localization and assortment clustering for demographics and regulatory environment, bullet-proof in-store execution and helpdesk support for marketers and stores.
From Source Technologies. Considering a self-service kiosk solution? Look beyond the single function device and plan to get the most from your investment. Implementation of multifunction self-service kiosks can increase a retailer’s return on investment (ROI) - when the device is capable of more than a simple task. If you’re looking to install a price checking device, why not expect more? With the right technology, that price checking device can accommodate way-finding, gift registry, e-couponing, digital signage and much more.
From Retail Systems Research. For retailers, the “moment of truth” comes at that exact second in time when the customer gives the clerk money in exchange for merchandise. But retail payment systems are undergoing a quiet revolution. Alternative forms of payment are emerging, offering new flexibility to consumers both inside the store and in new shopping channels, and causing a gradual shift from traditional forms of payment. While some look to consumer acceptance of new payment methods as the bar to measure the potential of such innovations, RSR wanted to uncover the motivations of retailers who ultimately must decide to make these new methods available to customers.
From Two West, Inc. The tradition of Halloween has become one of the highest revenue producing events in the United States, representing $21 billion dollars each year, with a median of $40 spent per family. However, it is easy for retailers to forget that Halloween is a largely American phenomenon and can be off-putting for someone with no cultural context for the holiday. This article outlines how retailers can capture an untapped multicultural market, expand market share and increase revenue, by making Halloween accessible and appealing for all cultures.
From NRF and BIGresearch. Being a mother is hard work. In addition to the full-time responsibility of taking care of their family and their home, many moms also balance a job outside of the home and try to make time for what they enjoy outside of work. A recent analysis of BIGresearch's Simultaneous Media Usage Survey (SIMM 14) looked at moms’ shopping patterns: when she uses coupons, how she uses the internet to research products, if she likes social media (she does, by the way) and even her favorite television station.
From Predictix. In the last 12 months, the retail industry has seen shockwaves bigger than in the last fifty years. Their business has fundamentally changed. Retailers and brands who until recently had a clear sense of who their customers were and how, when, what, why and at what prices they bought, find themselves in a new world where all of these variables are in constant flux. This continuous change is limiting their ability to plan, forecast, price, and replenish effectively. Thus, retailers and brands are left facing a dilemma: They need new technology to adapt their processes and to respond more rapidly to their changing markets, but they can't afford the massive up-front capital expenditures or lengthy implementations associated with new technology.
Surprisingly few retail managers, planners, and executives make business decisions based directly on information regarding their customers' purchasing behavior. This is a big problem for an industry whose very purpose is to fulfill the needs of their shoppers. In this edition of Retailing with Insight, we examine how customer transaction information is vital to everyone within the retail enterprise. Business Intelligence (BI) tools can reveal valuable insight by linking the Market Basket to performance data at every juncture and organization level.
From Applied Predictive Technologies. Analytical Customer Relationship Management promises the ability to target the right offers to the right customers at the right point in their purchasing lifecycles, enabling executives to increase marketing ROI and improve cross-selling / up-selling effectiveness. But as organizations explore Analytical CRM, many run into significant obstacles in sifting through gigabytes of transaction data and aggregating across millions of transactions to accurately assess customer behavior patterns. APT’s Market Basket Analyzer helps companies overcome these challenges and reach actionable insights. Leading retailers use Market Basket Analyzer to bridge the gap between Analytical CRM’s highly promising concept and the challenges of implementation.
From NRF. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2009 Father’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, Americans are expected to spend an average of $90.89 on gifts for dad, down slightly from $94.54 last year.
From Precima. Factors like growing competition, the explosion of brand choice, and an overload of market noise have all led to the increasing power of the consumer and the decreasing effectiveness of traditional retail strategies. In the face of this new market reality, we see retailers and manufacturers increasingly adopt a consumer-centric strategy as the new basis for competition. Precima provides ten tips to retailers and manufacturers for adopting a comprehensive consumer centric approach to business, drawing on the data and findings from research that Precima and DemandTec commissioned from IDC Global Retail Insights, titled "Being Consumer-Centric: A Retailer and Manufacturer Update."
From Grant Thornton LLP. Retailers throughout the country and across nearly all sectors experienced their biggest declines in decades at the end of 2008, and continue to suffer declining sales in 2009. The economic downturn has hit the retail sector hard. But with the challenges, there also are distinct opportunities. This white paper highlights five key trends transforming the retail sector and offers tips for capitalizing on these areas of growth: buyers are choosing clicks over bricks, private-labels are gaining ground over name brands, going green is bringing in the green, a loyal customer is your best customer, and improving processes lowers costs and boost customer satisfaction
NCCR partnered with ExpoTV to understand Americans’ perceptions of the chain restaurant industry. A panel of everyday consumers was asked to share their unbiased opinions about dining out, which provide more clarity into why people choose certain restaurants. Respondents said they visit chain restaurants because the experience is consistent, the food is safe, and the prices are reasonable.
What does it mean to be a customer-centric retailer? Watch, listen, and read along with this online session to learn the answer to this question. Research by IDC Global Retail Insights describes the state of customer-centricity in the industry. DemandTec and Precima highlight best practices for merchandising and marketing. Leading retailers Best Buy and PharmaPlus present practical case studies of their own customer-centric initiatives.
Given the realities of a global economic recession that has thrust companies into a vortex of plunging consumer demand, the rise of consumer control fueled by the ever-growing popularity of social media, and the decline of brand loyalty owing to a competitive marketplace awash with consumer choices, companies are under more pressure than ever to improve customer satisfaction and retention. At least part of the solution lies in the power of capturing, integrating, enhancing, analyzing and acting upon customer feedback. This is evidenced by a plethora of success stories that show a strong correlation between an increased focus on customer feedback as a strategic imperative and positive business outcomes. Aberdeen research findings further speak to the year-over-year improvements across several key performance indicators that companies have realized as a result of putting the right technologies, organizational resources, business processes, and performance metrics in place to achieve success with respect to their customer feedback initiatives.
A growing number of consumers are looking for healthier eating choices away from home. With hints of organics, locally sourced products and ingredients, health and wellness, and sustainability tossed into menu options, food retailers the likes of Seller’s Market and Pagliacci Pizza, as well as heavy weights like Chipotle, McDonald’s and Subway are trying to take advantage of a cultural shift toward higher quality experiences. While this has significant implications specifically for fast casual restaurants, opportunities abound for purveyors across all segments of food retailing.
Retail Industry Indicators 2008 is a comprehensive report on trends in the retail companies. Drawing from official government data, supplemented by industry surveys, it presents up-to-date information on a variety of topics that describe the industry. These include including retailers’ contribution to the overall U.S. economy, retail store and online sales levels and trends, employment and compensation levels and trends, and information about retail companies, including inventory shrinkage, profitability and size of retailers.
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