Three elephants walk into a bar…
It sounds like the start of a joke, but there is nothing funny about the impact that a few elephants can have on the retail landscape. While there are many, let’s start with the three named Google, Amazon and Walmart.
Here’s the Punch…
Google can put Amazon out of business. Amazon can put Walmart out of business. And, when the smart and resourceful folks in Bentonville are pressed, they too can take a swing at pretty much any specialty retailer in the world.
“What now?” sits on boardroom white boards everywhere
Retail Reinvention is not new news but it is happening at an even more accelerated pace than anyone’s predictions. Consider these gigantic facts, even without the COVID avalanche :
- Almost 50%+ of discretionary holiday spending is expected to go through Amazon this holiday.
- Retail foot traffic was reducing by a rate of 5-6% each year, with COVID now accelerating that into present day
- Approximately 100,000 retail doors will close within the next 12-18 months.
- Walmart is testing a frictionless, retroactive price matching that will make high-low pricing models extinct.
- Post Offices are being sold to real estate firms,
- Otto offers self-driving distribution trucks
- and I’m pretty sure I just saw a pig fly outside my window…
Retail Therapy
We can and should be bullish on retail. Sure, people are buying more things in more ways, and are more digitally entrenched and socially influenced than ever before. But there is good news for actual retail stores, as well.
For everyone who states that this is a dramatic time of change for retail, I would remind them that this is merely one more step in the history of retail evolution; from urban independent merchants to department stores to suburban chains to malls to specialty to big box category killers to omni-channel — oh my!
As e-commerce sales now grow dramatically, the role for stores will indeed change, and yet, they will be even more necessary.
Always in Fashion
Success through dramatic change goes back to a different elephant theory… one of never forgetting. That is, never losing sight of the core retail and merchandising dynamics that have built the most exciting sectors of all time. To some, shopping is a pastime. To some, shopping is a sport and they crave the hunt for deals. To some, shopping is a chore and they value frictionless service and speed. To some, shopping is an adventure and they seek a curated experience. To all, retail IS needed.
The marketing art and science of aligning retail merchandise with consumer interest and promotional motivation will never go out of style.
Retailing is hard work, but finding the just-right ad agency partner to help you doesn’t have to be.
Loving What Fits
ROJEK Consulting provides its clients key insights from its organizational assessments on almost 100 companies in 23 markets; we can define what core values and cultural traits are common in the cultures of highest performing companies.
Using our proprietary CultureFit™ Model, we also use organizational data science to help retailers and ad agencies forms the right partnerships; sourcing the digital agencies, media agencies and creative partners today’s marketing leaders need to succeed. We engineer partnerships to start fast and last, and create even more value over time.
ROJEK is the leading certified marketing consulting firm specializing in advertising agency review services. When it is time to find an agency to truly understand you and the challenges you face, it’s time to call ROJEK.
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