Are brick and mortar stores a dying breed?
Circuit City, Blockbuster, Border’s, Filene’s and the Sharper Image are only a few of the better known retailers that have closed their doors in recent years. The full list is ominous. Check out this Wikipedia listing if you’re up for a big shock. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_department_stores_of_the_United_States) Sure, you can blame it on the natural evolution of things. Or stronger competition. Or the growth of internet shopping. Or constant price battles that force weaker players to fold up their tents. But, really, it’s more complex than that. Do you really care whether your office supplies come from Office Depot, OfficeMax or Staples? Does it matter if your light bulbs come from Home Depot, Lowe’s or Ace Hardware? What difference does it make if you buy your next TV from Best Buy or HHGregg? What’s relevant is that many of today’s retailers are turning a blind eye to the retail disasters or yesterday. They have forgotten how to differentiate themselves. They have become commodities. No, brick and mortar stores aren’t going to die as a relevant shopping channel. But as smartphones become a ubiquitous shopping tool and the internet offers a myriad of place to find it cheaper, customer loyalty will become more and more difficult to achieve. The question that ever retailer should be asking themselves is where to take a stand. Is offering the greatest customer service, like Nordstrom, an answer? Is it making the shopping experience a form of entertainment, like Apple stores, a way to go? Is providing the highest quality products, like Whole Foods, an option? Maybe it’s instigating the perception that being a generic brand is to offer unbeatable value, as Costco has done with its Kirkland brand. Whatever it might be, remaining a relevant retailer means digging deep to find a unique point of difference.
Apple store lavishes service on disgruntled iPhone user
The customer enters a teeming Apple store one week after the release of the new iPhone with a head of steam built up over a seven-day period of unalloyed product frustration. “I want my money back,” the customer says to the first associate by the door. “This phone is a complete failure on every level. And don’t even try to tell me I’m holding it wrong.” The associate in harm’s way, a maybe-at-most-23-year-old woman, changes her bright smile into a look of sorrowful concern. “That’s terrible you’ve been having trouble. I’m so sorry. Let me help you right here if you want to return it and get your money back,” she says. “One thing, though--you don’t have to, but would you mind telling me what’s been going on with it? I’d really like to know.” This initial rejoinder is a pitch-perfect response. She apologizes before doing or saying anything else. She is immediately acknowledging there is not going to be an argument or hoops for the customer to jump through to get satisfaction—in this case wanting his money back. She then does a quick verbal pirouette to express genuine interest in what the problems have been. After the customer finishes his description of dropped calls, email issues, lost data, and more, the associate again apologizes, sympathizing with the customer’s plight. “I know that must be really tough when you’re on a business call or sitting waiting for an important email,” she offers. “If you have a minute, there’s something I can do that might help quite a bit by just resetting the connection—you won’t lose any data—want me to give it ...
Back to the hedonic treadmill?
What happens now that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has officially declared the recession “ likely over?” Consumer spending, still sluggish, is finally on the rise. Nobody is yet breaking out the champagne – and as bloggers and cartoonists among others have warned, the economy won’t truly rebound until jobs return, and right now it’s still not a pretty picture. But is a new frugality here to stay, or will we soon return to some of our old ways? It may depend on your rung on the ladder. While working stiffs grabbed private label bread and took staycations, the richcurtailed their purchases of fine art and sold off the private jets. Sure, the recession slammed the fortunes of rich and poor alike – Bill Gates isout $3 billion -- but the families who had $20 million before the recession and then found their assets depleted to $14 million were never in jeopardy of going hungry. To some extent, the wealthy went on a time-limited spending diet because of a jarring hit to their balance sheet, and because for at least a while it appeared unseemly to flaunt lavish purchases when so many people had fallen on hard times. But here’s a truism which bears repeating: the rich can only hold out for so long. They really do need, or at least, really, really want what others may call non-essentials , like couture, art, and second homes. Once the stigma lessens, as Michael Silverstein of the Boston Consulting Groupsays, “…the rich will realize they're rich again and start to spend.” According to the 2009 Mendelsohn Affluent Survey, nearly a third of wealthy households purchased fine jewelry and a fifth purchased artwork or collectibles in the past year. As the recession slowly begins to thaw, the rich are very likely to go ...
Gilly Hicks–We’re Not Sold
When it comes to Gilly Hicks, the lifestyle lingerie emporium aimed at teens and the newest brand in the Abercrombie stable, there’s one thing we can all agree on: the store itself is beautiful, luxurious, and sexy. The look of the space has won raves from fashion bloggers and stock analysts alike. The branding is brilliant, although entirely fictional: Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries concocted an elaborate Australian back story for the entirely American underwear brand (who knew “down under” had other meanings?) A portrait of “Gilly” hangs in the stores, to add a faux vintage feel to the shop. Gilly Hicks hopes to be younger and hipper than, but just as successful as, Victoria’s Secret. The opening of Gilly Hicks has been controversial. Although Citigroup analyst Kimberly C. Greenberger praised the store’s “cute and sweetly sexy” image and said, “We believe Gilly Hicks could be a more wholesome alternative (to Victoria's Secret), and mothers would not mind taking their 15-year-olds to Gilly Hicks to shop,” an assortment of critics have attacked the whole notion of trying to sell sex to teens. Everything from the store’s racy ad campaign, featuring 7-foot-tall posters of naked men, to the website, which broadcasts a video showing women swimming topless, and the effort to sell sexy lingerie to teens has drawn complaints. But the ultimate question, indeed, the only question is, will it sell? Gilly Hicks represents a huge per store investment, from the home-like front porch exterior to the dimly lit Ralph Lauren-on-steroids interior, with a huge amount of square footage dedicated to selling a tiny passel of products that would fit comfortably inside the closet of a New York City studio apartment. On the one hand, other companies have made big profits using edgy, sexy ads to sell to the teenage set. The other ...
Drop a quarter in the jar if you like this post
Maybe I wasn’t in an especially charitable mood, but I thought I had seen it all when I recently spotted a styrofoam cup duct taped to the delivery window of a Dunkin’ Donuts, a sight which gave off the weird vibe that drive-through customers should offer a reward to a forearm for handing them a bag. There are a few topics that are guaranteed to generate heated arguments on the internet. Is it rude ask people to take their shoes off in your house? Is it tacky to have a cash bar at your wedding? And today’s subject, should behind-the-counter employees solicit tips in a jar next to the register? Anywhere you see counter service, you’re likely to see a jar or cup filled with dollar bills and coins. Cold Stone Creamery has raised the tip jar to an art form – workers break out into loud goofy songs when you drop a bill into the jar. Even teachers have gotten in on the act – one instructor conducted an informal experiment by setting a tip jar on his desk, and found that a few of his students threw in some (promptly refunded) change. Nowhere is the tip jar more ubiquitous than the coffee shop, whether it’s the indie rock dive around the corner or corporate behemoth Starbucks. There’s a certain logic behind the coffee shop tip jar; after all, say baristas, bartenders get tips, and making a latte is at least as complicated as pouring a draft beer. Tip jars have their supporters. Counter service employees are delighted to get a few extra dollars for their efforts. Store owners and managers are happy to have their employees rewarded without having to raise prices or wages. And some customers don’t mind the jars, or even find some of the more creative hand ...
