Category: Perspective

Convenience Retailer vs. Destination Retailer: Decision Time!

5/1/2023

Throughout the pandemic, millions of shoppers – including the older Baby Boomers – discovered the benefits of online shopping. Then, as brick-n-mortar retailers scrambled to survive, the increased availability of delivery, curbside pickup, BOPIS (Buy Online, Pickup In Store) and BORIS (Buy Online, Return In Store) was well received by a broad swath of consumers.

We see that this has brought heightened awareness of two different retail strategies: Convenience Retailing versus Destination Retailing.

And here's the deal: retailers now must choose either one or the other of those two strategies. You cannot have one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat. You DO have to decide!

That uncertain/undecided middle ground is not a viable choice.
Those who end up there by default – by choosing to not choose are on their first step to being former retailers!

Retailing vs Ikea Furniture Assembly

4/3/2023

Successfully "doing retail" has always been a challenging and fascinating and evolving exercise. As the old Chinese proverb states, “It’s easy to open a store. However, it’s tough to keep it open.”

And today, seemingly more than ever, third party organizations, more than individual entrepreneurs, seem to be drawn to retailing. Consider:

Vendors and manufacturers who decided that they would rather open their own stores than continuing to deal with “failing” retailers. It would be so much easier.
Online-only operators choosing to offer customers a hands-on experience with their product. (And then, those pesky customers were in their stores, but "Just looking, thank you." Who knew?)

These and others fit into our category of “retail-as-added-use.” "It looks easy. Why don't we open stores?"

But, retailing is not their core competency; they are manufacturers or direct marketers, or wholesalers, or importers, or whatever.

Checking the "Vital Signs" of Retailing

3/20/2023

The Retail Owners Institute® makes it easy for you to get a quick financial health assessment of your own stores, as well as the retail industry, and every vertical within it.

From farm stores to apparel stores, wine stores to tire dealers, gift shops to convenience stores; all 45 verticals.

Here's how to get started.

Go to the Retail Benchmarks page of The ROI site.
Scroll down the page to see the links to all 45 retail verticals.
Choose the vertical that includes your stores; immediately go to that vertical's Benchmarks page.
See the results for each of 6 key ratios for the past five years. To get a better look, just click each image to make it larger.

Quite a picture, isn't it? Which ratios are trending up? Down? Any suggest some shaky times ahead? Any surprises? But most importantly, how will yours compare?

Index of Retail Sales Potential

1/17/2023

Managing inventory – arguably the #1 responsibility of a retailer – has been beset by a host of new and sometimes daunting challenges since 2020.

The last few months of 2022 only made matters worse. As supply chain issues seemed to subside, foreboding talk of a recession dominated, dampening customer spending.

Many retailers are feeling a bit over-inventoried as a result. Similar to that sense of having a few added pounds after the holidays.

In other words, a situation that is crying out for perspective. And The Retail Owners Institute® has you covered on that!

What Is "Value" for Your Customers? Really?

11/14/2022

What is the definition of "value" for customers? Pretty straightforward, actually.

Value = benefits received for the burdens endured.

Wait. What? "Benefits received?" "Burdens endured?"

Turns out, the only single answer to "What is value?" is, "It depends."

Don't just roll your eyes. What constitutes value for your customers increasingly is a make-or-break part of retailing.

Important: Look Behind the Top Line Numbers

11/7/2022

Consider this retailer, whose sales over the last 4 weeks are down 12% compared to last year.

Some retailers in this situation essentially freak out.

But others know to keep asking questions. Before they decide what to do next to fix lagging sales, they want to know "Why?"

So, here is one way to get to the numbers behind the numbers; to begin to know the "why" of your sales trends.

All it takes is tapping into the data that's already in your POS system, and putting together a little summary tally sheet. Here's one example.

Spoken Like a Retailer, But...

9/12/2022

It's back-to-school season!

We were struck by these comments from folks for whom "back-to-school" is more than a season.

Look what a state superintendent of public instruction* had to say about the upcoming school year.

"The sheer burnout of the last two years caught up with everybody."
"But out of that came a genuine assessment of what matters most."

Lots of retailers can identify with those comments, don't you agree?

Or, these observations about the disruptions and uncertainties of the pandemic:

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