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Grumpy Older Customers

Posted on 15. May, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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Remember the good old days when customers were prepared to pay full price? New research confirms that those times are but a distant memory. And the biggest culprits are the grey-haired brigade. Yes folks, that sweet little old lady in your store takes no prisoners when it comes to price. The findings come from the [...]

Online as a % of Retail Sales: What’s the Magic Number?

Posted on 08. May, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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Ecommerce has been shaking the foundations of traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers for some time. So it’s small wonder that one of the questions most often asked in our industry is; “where will online end up as a percentage of total retail sales?” And is there a natural ceiling, or will digital slowly but surely gobble up [...]

A High Tech, High Touch Future for Store Design

Posted on 01. May, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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A son of a mate of mine got his first iPad the other day. He’s 19 months old. Granted it’s a first generation iPad (probably about the same vintage as its new owner come to think of it), but it’s an iPad nonetheless. Interestingly, the toddler learned his first language – baby sign language – [...]

5 Ways to Fend Off ‘Showrooming’

Posted on 24. Apr, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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Note to vendors: “What we aren’t willing to do is let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom for their products and undercut our prices without making investments, as we do, to proudly display your brands, create a superior guest experience, provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, and support local communities.” So said [...]

As Mobiles Get Bigger, Stores Get Smaller

Posted on 17. Apr, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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Not so long ago, mobile phones were judged by how small they could be made, and stores by how big they could be built. It was a time that belonged to brands like Nokia with its teeny-tiny mobile handsets and Virgin Megastore with its giant music selection. Then around 2007, the paradigm flipped. Apple launched [...]

Dealing with Unchange

Posted on 30. Mar, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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In an age of disruption in retail, it’s tempting to rush to embrace the new and discard the old without question. “Everything is changing,” we bemoan. “This is a whole new era and the old rules just don’t apply.” From my regular conversations with retail CEOs to endless conference themes, the fixation on change is [...]

The Danger of Depositioning

Posted on 20. Mar, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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If you’re not careful, you can appear to be going backwards as a retailer, even when you’re just standing still. That’s one of the lessons I took away from a trip to NZ this week. I flew across the ditch to speak at the Westfield Breakfast Seminar in Auckland. As part of the address I [...]

New Retail in Action at Boxpark

Posted on 19. Mar, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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Amazing new Nike store at Boxpark in the UK brilliantly blending the digital with the phsyical. The video says it all really.

Mistaking Busy-ness for Business

Posted on 13. Mar, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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The traditional catalogue promotional cycle is a dangerous treadmill to be on, particularly in this new retail era. An advertising vehicle that starts out as a servant to the business quickly becomes master. Instead of focusing on creating real and relevant reasons for customers to consider your store or website, the catalogue program itself becomes [...]

The Coming Era of Flat Earth Pricing

Posted on 06. Mar, 2012 by Jon Bird.

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Way back in 2005, Thomas Friedman wrote a best seller entitled “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century”. As he explained to Wired Magazine at the time, “the world is becoming flat. Several technological and political forces have converged, and that has produced a global, web-enabled playing field.” And don’t Australian [...]

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