A Christmas message from NamNews

November, the new January…

From a supplier and retailer branding point of view, pre-christmas discounting became the norm, bigtime....

A time when the need to move product also served to reduce brands to commodities.

Remembering that consumers buy the total package (Product, Price, Presentation and Place) and shoppers buy the total 'shop' (Products & assortment, Pricing, Promotional activities, Place i.e. store location, Personnel, Physical distribution & handling, Presentation of stores & products, and Productivity) it is obvious that price figures highly in each case. However, it can be seen that the retail offering is more complex, and by excessively discounting, given the knife-edge margins, there is simply little scope for permanently reducing prices, without damaging the fabric of the business.

The impact of this will become more obvious tn the new year, when the next quarterly rents become due…

Meanwhile, permanent discounting of brands merely serve to commodify the category, with little benefit for anyone

Again, the new year will allow brand owners to demonstrate their need to rebuild brand equity via direct ATL re-investment, whatever the cost to the diminishing pool of retail trade partners…

Making product placement work…?

Looking for the dress you saw on a hit television show or the jerseys worn during a football game or soccer match? An iPad app aims to help viewers shop while watching TV. Unlike television shopping channels, Watch with Ebay is a new feature in eBay's iPad app that lets users buy items related to the program they're currently viewing.

After entering the network provider and channel, items related to the TV show, the actors, guests or teams in a sporting event surface within the app, triggered by appropriate video-frame tags...

A recent US study by Nielsen found that 40 percent of smartphone and tablet owners use the devices while watching TV and 29 percent of them are searching for information related to the show.

With clothing just the start, this has to be an opportunity for mealtime dish-ingredients, and even via lingering shots of an open fridge, artistic integrity permitting, of course…

My shop sees me….

                                                                                                       Jiro Bevis
Given e-tailers ability to track every mouse-move to help customise sites and maximise the likelihood of a purchase, it was only a matter of time before  bricks-and-mortar stores were able to give shoppers some much needed attention via computer analysis of their instore behaviour via security cameras, even saving surveyed consumers the bother of saying one thing and doing another….

Added to their ability to track mobile phone signals instore, retailers can now use direct feed from a store’s existing security camera system, run it through software which analyses the video and correlates it with sales data. The software can also integrate data from hardware such as RFID chips and motion sensors to track how often a brand of cereal is picked up or how many customers turn left when they enter a store…

Early days, but initial research already appears to indicate that many shoppers pay more attention to centre aisle than end-of-gondola displays..

Some are testing facial-recognition software that can identify shoppers’ gender and approximate age, whilst others are using mobile phone-number analysis to check shopper nationality.  Opportunity for ultra-sensitive in-pocket scanning of credit-cards to tie the data-set together?

Apart from the need to reconfigure store layout, assortment and displays to optimise the insight and pre-empt privacy issues, all that remains is for stores to analyse staff behaviour and try to get them to echo even a small proportion of the attention their technology is giving the shopper…  

Have a cautionary weekend, from the Namnews Team!

Bullying suppliers: the noose tightens…

Australia’s Coles group has reportedly issued a document to its buyers, warning them to work within the rules and not to bully suppliers. The highly unusual move was reported by The Weekly Times, which said it had seen the document, titled ‘Compliance Factsheet - Unconscionable Conduct’ and said to include “threatening to delete or withdraw a product unless a supplier provides greater funding, rebates or discounts than otherwise previously agreed”.

Despite being simply a local level example of government eventually reacting to ‘excessive market concentration’ this initiative should be seen as a global reaction to potential abuse of power by people who find themselves with the freedom to sign cheques in dealing with people who need the money…

The legislation to deal with this situation is already in place, with GSCOP a prime example in the UK.

Couple with this the emergence of the savvy consumer determined to receive demonstrable value-for-money in dealing with retailers and brand owners, and it is possible to see this ‘common sense’ assessment being transferred up the supply-chain. The global financial wake-up call simply swept away the nonsense, enabling all parties to see business dealing more clearly, and gave them the courage to demand evidence of fair-share behaviour…

Also, given the government’s willingness not to punish corporate whistle-blowers when illegal anti-competitive practices are exposed by one of the parties, it can be seen that major retailers will be increasingly tempted to complain to the authorities when they feel, or can prove, that rivals are gaining unfair competitive advantage via illegal pressure on suppliers.

However, in the meantime, a real opportunity exists for those retailers that are prepared to play fair in negotiating with suppliers of all sizes. Despite the global financial pressures, suppliers still have some discretion in allocating trade funding, and are prepared to go that extra mile, or even kilometre, with retailers that are playing by fair-share rules, the ultimate source of real and sustainable competitive advantage….

Live above a shop: new homes built for retail therapy

A way forward for the high street, starting at the top, naturally....

Be part of the cappuccino culture. Buy a new home above a smart London high street and meet your friends for coffee at Chelsea Walk, in Fulham Road, which will have 56 flats and 14 retail units (above).

You’ll also find it happening in Bloomsbury and Belgravia, Marylebone and Mayfair, South Kensington and the Square Mile, Notting Hill and Knightsbridge — Londoners are moving to be close to their shops.

Not those predictable high street chains but individual shops, where owners are serious about their food and homeware, their crafted goods, their cheeses and delicious treats, home-made breads, butchery and bistros. The attraction of these retailers is so strong that developers have recognised buyers’ desire to live near them, in attractive new homes where they join a “village” community in areas with genuine cachet.

Lucky for some, but therein lies the germ of an idea to regenerate traditional high streets. 

Obviously it means taking a proper dose of reality by landlords and local government, running the numbers, and dissolving some long term upward-only leases, but how about converting vacant retail properties back to domestic accommodation, before circumstances force the move…? Video: Scale of problem 

John Lewis opens its first virtual shop in Brighton

All of the retailer's ‘top 30 things to buy for Christmas’ are included in a QR window display at a branch of Waitrose.

Customers can scan the QR code of the item they want, which will then take them to the John Lewis mobile site to complete their purchase.

After ordering online, customers can pick the item up after 2pm the following day from any John Lewis or participating Waitrose store, if the order is place before 7pm the previous day.

The most famous, and possibly most successful, example was Tesco Korea's virtual supermarket shelf in a subway in Korea, which resulted in a 130% increase in online sales.

The issue will be what KPIs JLP will use to measure success before rollout:

-       Sales per item listed (need to segregate window vs. website sales)

-       Sales per window (aggregation of above)

-       Opportunity cost of window space (Waitrose tends to use blanked-out windows in this location)

This raises several issues:

-       Is it a poster?

-       Is it a ‘shop’?

-       Is it a calalogue?

Either way a worthwhile experiment, but meanwhile a possible temporary/permanent answer to all of those empty windows in the high street?

And the space behind the empty windows?

How about using this now low rent, minimal/zero rates space as back-up storage for healthy shops nearby, thus allowing them to eliminate all instore storage space in in high-cost rental areas?

Bringing impulse to the masses, online (literally)

Sugar rush hour from Bianca Consunji on Vimeo.

Alex "Tracks" McFarland, 25, makes $150 a day selling candy on the D train, illustrating the fact that cuts in public services may give rise to the formation of alternative, irregular service networks...

A new study indicates that tax evasion is more about a combination of the shadow economy, taxation and the institutional setting than tax rates alone. In other words, the integrity and efficiency of the public sector is connected with the shadow economy because a more honest and proficient bureaucracy increases the probability of catching tax dodgers. In addition the cuts in public services may give rise to the formation of alternative, irregular service networks.

Others may simply see the shadow economy as an alternative and very efficient route to consumer..

Alternatively, a nice little weekend earner for KAMs?   

Have an income-boosting break, from the NamNews Team!
Source http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/