The Power of Love Over “Like-for-Like”

Posted on 25. Aug, 2011 by Jon Bird in Brand Strategy, Retail Marketing, Westfield World Study Tour 2011

There is a natural tension in retailing between the emotional and the rational, the heart and the mind. In times like these, it’s easy to veer towards the latter.

Suddenly as a retailer you start focusing so much on whether you’re making your like-for-like store sales that you forget about whether your customers truly love your offer in the first place. Statistics become more important than salesmanship, and the shopper gets lost in the process.

Of course, the numbers are important, but they should be viewed more as an outcome than an input. Skilled merchants know their customer like a friend, understand their wants, anticipate their needs, and fulfill them in such a way that the stock turns in a well-oiled way, margins are healthy and the comparable store sales and profits come home.

UK author and retail commentator Martin Butler* told me over the phone from London last week that he believes in the power of “love”. Butler interviewed over 100 senior retail executives for his best-selling book “The Art of Being Chosen – Secrets of Success for the Giants of Retail.” In the book, Butler set out to crack the code of what separates the best from the also-rans. What he found astonished him.

The common thread running through the fabric of great retail is “emotion”, according to Butler. Elite retailers are in fact “more obsessive about the emotions of others than they are about the merchandise” or the mechanics of the business. They are still “fanatical” about what they sell of course, but it’s the emotions of customers and staff that is “where the battle is”. The best retail leaders have what Butler calls “soul”, that indefinable something that transcends spreadsheets and translates into sales.

Ron Johnson at Apple has it (and is about to take it with him to US department store JC Penney). Mickey Drexler at US apparel retailer J. Crew has it (perhaps partly due to his visual merchandising background). And in Australia, Naomi Milgram of the Sussan Group has it in spades.

On the Westfield World Retail Study Tour in the UK last year, I learned just how much the British public loves their department store, John Lewis. As Martin Butler notes, it’s a relationship built on “trust”, backed up by genuinely superior service, which is in turn driven by the co-operative structure of the business – every staff member owns a share, no matter how small.

In “The New Rules of Retail”, authors Lewis and Dart write more clinically about the “neurological connection” that links successful retail brands with their customers. What they’re really talking about is love. Just mention the name of a favourite store to a customer and the shopping juices get going. As the authors espouse, customers anticipate a great experience, enjoy shopping “ecstasy”, and eventual consumption satisfaction.

So by all means, keep a close eye on the numbers. But don’t overlook the power of love. Emotionally committed customers and staff are the keys to retail success.

*Martin Butler is a keynote speaker at the upcoming Westfield Breakfast Seminar Series, which tours Australia in September. For more details, visit www.retailstudytour.com.

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