Not all doom & gloom
Spring has been a tough time for UK retail with the sad news first of British Home Stores (BHS) and then, almost immediately after, Austin Read the gentlemen’s tailoring brand, both tumbling into Administration. Of course these aren’t the only retail failures over the last months, but they stand out for being two of the most enduring and well known high street brands. Fortunately, not all retail failures end this way and some have risen, Phoenix-like from the ashes. T J Hughes, the much-loved Merseyside…
Are your systems talking?
Keeping your store and online customers happy means delivering great performance. This depends on a multitude of fine-tuned elements and functions covering every aspect of your business. Ensuring all these systems and processes talk to each other, is more important still. I believe your challenge is not just about integrating online and offline channels. The key is real time inventory, but this requires your EPOS and retail management systems, warehouse applications, e-commerce systems, customer analytics, loyalty programmes and accounting to be connected seamlessly. The fall-back…
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…