Pushing sales beyond the magic £100 million
It’s been a busy time for Morleys Stores, the London-based independent department store group. Camp Hopson in Newbury, a feature of the Berkshire market town since 1921, became store number eight at the end of 2014. It’s clearly a good fit for the group and Morley’s head office management team expect the acquisition to help push sales beyond the magic £100 million mark. Of course integrating the new business to take advantage of centralised buying and streamlined operations, while maintaining the independent character of the…
Creating a virtual shop window
E-commerce and the multitude of online channels now available present a real opportunity for ambitious retailers. For smaller retailers particularly it’s an obvious way to extend your footprint without opening new stores and will even put your products in front of a global marketplace. With more and more consumers searching out products on-line, it’s a great way of levelling the playing field and giving you the chance to win more consumers. Delivering sales across multiple channels might look complex, but, with e-commerce platforms like Channel…
If you integrate & connect you’ll improve warehouse productivity & customer expectation
It has been quite astonishing how rapidly smart phones and mobile devices have become commonplace. Today’s consumer is always connected; they can browse and shop 24/7 whether at home, or on the move. It’s something you can’t ignore and successful retailers are those who adapt to the new mobile world. While tablets and in-store wi-fi can enable staff and improve the shopping experience, understanding how and when to adopt new technologies remains challenging. The important thing is not to lose sight of the basics, because…
Are you getting the most from your customer data?
Recent stories in the press like Glynn Davis’s article discussing evolving skill-sets in interpreting and analysing customer data in Retail Bulletin, highlight a real issue. He argues that more emphasis should be placed on mathematics and data in the retail marketing role, if retailers are to make sense of, and profit from, the sheer breadth and volume of customer data now at their fingertips. As he explains, “not only have the volumes of data increased, but the variety has also grown massively – now taking…
EDI – the secret to supply chain control
Retail systems specialists Futura explain why EDI is the next big thing for mid-tier retailers. Successful retail operations depend on strong supply chain control. This is especially important for lifestyle and fashion retailers, where the agility to respond rapidly to seasonal demands and changing styles is critical. But with more channels and more products, an increasingly switched on consumer and a truly global supply base, it gets more and more complex. Manual systems simply can’t keep up which is why we believe electronic data interchange (EDI)…