"the primary role of the store will not be to sell product"

Um texto excelente em "The Store Is Media And Media Is The Store" a merecer a reflexão por quem é responsável por uma loja física:

"There’s a dramatic and strangely under-editorialized reality taking shape in retail.  One that seems to be eluding even some of the industry’s most sophisticated retailers and brands.
.
It’s that until very recently the primary function, form and purpose of retail stores was to distribute products. Stores were the principle and in many cases the only means of availing distribution of products to a given market.
.
Consequently, the entire retail industry framework has been based on product sales from the store to the consumer, and the revenue it generates.
...
It’s all about the sale of product.
...
In a post-Internet, post-mobile world of one click access, the distribution of products has all but ceased to be the issue. When one of something can be efficiently shipped to anyone, anywhere, the question of where the sale takes place is rapidly becoming moot.  In other words, in the long-term, sales of product simply can’t be the primary strategic purpose or metric for the store.
.
Some of the world’s largest retailers are struggling with this jarring reality already. “Stack it high and watch it fly” has abruptly turned into “stack it low and hope it goes” as big box stores scramble to lower inventories in the face of flat or declining sales.  The knee-jerk reaction among some is to simply downsize and marginalize the role of the store.  Others are adopting the buzzword of omni-channel – resigning to the idea that all channels now act as one – which I would argue risks oversimplifying what’s really happening.
...
What used to be a distribution channel is becoming a media channel and likewise, media channels (television, magazines, radio, print advertising, social media etc.) are increasingly becoming the “store”.  Virtual storefronts are cropping up in all forms of media.
...
So increasingly, the primary role of the store will not be to sell product but rather to deliver the most powerful, and emotionally galvanizing experience possible, to create an essential level brand affinity, trust and allegiance – none of which necessarily results in immediate, or location-specific revenue recognition.
...
Of course, many will.  But unlike today, where retail is a product-first, experience-second business, the reverse will increasingly be true.  Product sales will simply ride on the back of remarkable experiences.  Consequently, sales in general will steadily become a less meaningful or accurate measure of true store contribution and productivity."

IMHO, parece-me que a Farfetch está a apontar ao lado "Farfetch: da compra à sua porta em 90 minutos" ao concentrar-se demasiado na tecnologia como a salvação da loja física.

"Complements are not substitutes"

"Business models and competitive advantages are complex systems. This means that they consist of multiple elements – some of them tangible; some intangible – which interact with one another, meaning that it is their combination that makes it work. In many markets, digital will just add one new factor to the mix or replace one element, but not often all of them. This means that in many businesses, digital technology will complement and alter the incumbents’ existing resources and capabilities, but it certainly won’t always entirely replace them altogether. Therefore, when making strategy, the focus should be on identifying complements, rather than assuming complete substitution."

Um trecho que faz pensar no impacte do online no retalho físico. Ontem numa empresa um empresário usou o termo: "lojas cansadas". Entretanto, outro empresário recordava que a Amazon está a entrar no retalho físico.

Quando os centros comerciais chegaram não trouxeram necessariamente o fim do comércio de rua. Obrigaram o comércio de rua a renovar-se... ou não.

Trecho retirado de "What So Many Strategists Get Wrong About Digital Disruption"

Dúvida (parte II)

Parte I.

Acredito que vamos começar a ver com mais frequência notícias deste tipo, pelo menos em certos países.

What ails retAIL? The number of stores that have shut this year. The #DigitalTsunami in Retail. https://t.co/WJcSfzevlZ pic.twitter.com/CXXB7NzokI

— Abhijit Bhaduri (@AbhijitBhaduri) April 8, 2017

"the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics job market report released on Friday showed it was an even bigger disaster than expected, with 30,700 jobs lost. Combined with similar job losses in February, the retail industry had its worse two-month job creation period since the depths of the Great Recession. And retail, which employs nearly 16 million Americans, was one of the very few industries to ditch jobs last month and certainly cut the most jobs by far of any industry."

E sempre a mesma resposta instintiva e errada, tal como nos media:

"Under enormous pressure from investors, retailers are cutting costs, including personnel, in a bid to hit earnings per share targets despite soft sales, thereby meeting projections and mollifying investors. The irony of course is that leaner store staffs will likely compromise store service and give shoppers more reason to go online. And many of them have made it clear, when they go online, they go to Amazon. Hello, vicious cycle."

Quando um disruptor oferece uma proposta de valor superior aos clientes os incumbentes só sabem responder com os custos...

Trechos retirados de "Bankruptcies and Amazon Impact on Retail Hiring"

Parte V - A via da experiência ou a via do volume?

Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.

"Big box retail stores are losing relevance, while e-commerce and specialty stores grow in appeal. People no longer want — or need — to shop as anonymous customers in large stores with shelves stocked high in aisle after aisle. As a result, big box retail must shift its strategy — from competing on access and selection to staging big experiences and providing big discounts.
.
The shrinking demand for big box retail can be seen in the numerous store and company closures across several categories over the last decade.
...
These large-store format companies are losing share to Amazon and other e-commerce sellers and to specialty retailers. The former are able to offer a wider selection than even the largest brick-and-mortar store can and their digital tools make it easy to navigate an otherwise overwhelming number of choices with ease, speed, and precision.
.
The appeal of the latter is an edited, or even curated, selection of goods targeted to specific customers who self-select into shopping at the store — and these smaller stores often provide superior, personalized service. Not all specialty stores are thriving, but as a whole, the specialty segment of retail is growing while most other sectors have been on the decline.
...
Big boxes can shift from being places to stock and sell goods and become venues to stage immersive, memorable, share-worthy experiences. While specialty stores might create an intimate or personal experience, large stores are conducive to experiential retailing that is communal and physical.
...
An alternate route for big box retailers is to offer big discounts, using well-honed supply chain and analytics capabilities to offer high-demand products at low margins — with the immediacy and interactivity that e-commerce players can’t. Volume and velocity are required to make this model work"

Estas coisas devem dar um nó na cabeça dos académicos sempre à procura da solução correcta. Não há solução correcta! Não é um puzzle! Cada empresa é um caso, cada caso tem de ter a sua própria solução.

Parte IV - ainda experimentando mais com mais experiências

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"America's malls have been dying for years. Of the nearly 1,200 enclosed malls in the U.S., one-third are doing so poorly that they aren't generating enough money to pay for the maintenance of the structures themselves. Part of this decline can be traced to the Internet. Now that consumers can easily buy products online, brick-and-mortar retail stores can't afford to simply serve as showcase rooms, only to see visitors buy the very products they offer from Amazon at lower prices. They need to offer exceptional in-person experiences to keep customers coming, buying in, and returning to their stores.
.
In the midst of this graveyard of malls, new retail concepts are emerging.
...
"We're really interested in creating a reason for customers to come to the store several times a week.
...
He points out that a brick-and-mortar store needed to offer more than a mere physical space for selling products. Boyarsky wants people to associate his brand with not only fashionable activewear, but also a whole world of experiences connected to wellness surrounding fitness, nutrition, and special activities. "We want to be seen as a curator of the fitness world,""

Trecho retirado de "In The Graveyard Of American Malls, Bandier Is Reimagining The Brick-And-Mortar Store"

Parte III - experimentando com mais experiências

Parte I e parte II

"Macy’s new concept store seems to have been conceived by dutifully checking off boxes on a “hot retail trends” list.
.
On June 25, the struggling department store chain will unveil a new prototype in a renovated store at the Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, filled with lifestyle shops that play up services.
.
The mix of in-store shops includes the Restore, Nourish and Strengthen boutique, stocked with athletic wear such as Finish Line footwear, Fitbit watches and even a juice and smoothie bar, according to The Columbus Dispatch. With the shop, staffed with health and fitness “ambassadors,” Macy’s is angling for a piece of the only robust part of the apparel market, while capitalizing on the nation’s ever burgeoning health and wellness trend.
.
The store will also debut a free personal-shopper service dubbed, My Stylist @Macy’s; a LensCrafters eyeglass shop with licensed opticians; and a Bluemercury spa by the beauty chain Macy’s acquired last year, offering facials and waxings. Bluemercury reflects Macy’s move to modernize its beauty business along the lines of hot — and hipper — freestanding concepts like Sephora .
.
A revamped wedding services department is also on tap, clearly a bid by Macy's M +2.59% to appeal to Millennials, the coveted generation that’s displaced Baby Boomers as the nation’s biggest buying group and is projected to generate $1.4 trillion in sales by 2020, according to Accenture ACN +0.00%.
.
Macy’s efforts to offer lifestyle shops spiced up with services and on-staff experts points to an urgent push to counter the encroachment of e-commerce by giving consumers something online shopping can’t: tangible experiences and in-person pampering.
...
Macy’s will be watching closely how shoppers take to the new prototype to see what can be rolled out to other stores. And management is crossing their fingers. ”Instead of teaching someone to ring a register, we’re hiring people who understand the lifestyle,” said Kathi Newton, vice president and store manager told the Columbus Dispatch. “I think this is going to be a real game-changer.” We’ll see."

"Can Facials And Fitness Experts Revive Macy's?"

Parte II - Um festival de experiência e transformação

Parte I.

"Grocers offer fitness classes, facials, child care to lure consumers away from online rivals...
Shoppers looking to pick up milk and eggs may have other reasons to spend time at their local supermarket: yoga classes or a spa treatment, perhaps.
.
Under growing pressure from discounters and online rivals, supermarkets are trying to transform themselves into places where customers might want to hang out rather than just grabbing groceries and heading home.
.
In Phoenix, a Fry’s Food Stores, part of a chain owned by Kroger Co., features a culinary school and a lounge with leather couches perched next to a wine bar. A Kroger store in Hilton Head Island, S.C., offers a cigar section to complement its wine cellar that stocks $600 bottles.
.
Whole Foods Market Inc. has a putting green outside its Augusta, Ga., location and a spa offering peppermint foot scrubs and facial waxing in a Boston store. Elsewhere, it has bike-repair stations.
.
A ShopRite store here in Hanover Township, near New York, runs a fitness studio with yoga, barre and Zumba classes and has a cosmetologist on weekends."

Recordar Pine e Gilmore:

"with experiences, customers pay for the time they spend with a company, rather than for the activites the company delivers"

Recordar "Versão Beta (parte III)"
.
Lembram-se do avanço imparável dos centros comerciais sobre o comércio tradicional? Agora temos o avanço do online sobre os centros comerciais. E temos as experimentações, para reformular o modelo e encontrar alternativas que façam os clientes voltar aos centros comerciais.
.
Não sei se resulta, não sei quanto tempo terão de fuçar para encontrar as alternativas viáveis. Sei é que estão a fazer o que deve ser feito: fuçar, fuçar e fuçar. Pois:

“The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.”

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Attention Shoppers: Yoga in Aisle 3"

Parte I - Os problemas de um modelo

"Department stores were built around the idea that consumers would come to the store for inspiration and discovery. But retailers can no longer rely on that draw. Consumers increasingly get inspiration online first, from social media and blogs, and not from the retailers themselves.
.
When that happens, the decision-making process employed by shoppers gets turned completely on its head – consumers start to choose the specific products they want to buy before they choose where to buy them from. This leaves department stores forced to compete on price instead of value.
...
Another place where department stores are getting hammered is on the fast fashion front. Retailers like Zara and H&M can put out new fashions every few weeks. Department stores were built around the concept of featuring brands, almost like a store-in-store.
...
If your only value proposition to consumers is that you have great brands under one roof, you’re going to lose. ... News flash: you can get great brands anywhere. And when you look for them online, even if they’re at different stores, they’re only a tab away.
.
So what should department stores stand for, then? They should stand for a lifestyle. They should stand for things that help consumers solve their lifestyle problems. But stores have been gutted. High-end luxury department stores are the exception. The rest of the vertical have no expertise in stores. Not beyond what I could get asking random people on the street. Why should I go to a store when I can get better advice from blogs? At least they have followers to help give them some cache and sense of expertise.
.
And department stores are not organized to present solutions to lifestyle problems. Need an outfit for a wedding? Well, first you have to go to dresses, and then shoes, and then accessories. Need a new outfit for a job interview? Same deal, except it may be even worse. You might have to visit several brand vignettes to find this brand’s suits vs. that brand’s suits, and then start all over again if you need a blouse or shoes to go with.
.
Now, part of the problem is that the brands themselves want their vignettes. They want their voice to the customer to stand out, even within the department store. But how do consumers shop online? They see all blouses together. They can filter by brand if they want, but the primary sort is the function first, brand later. And you just can’t shop that way in a department store."

Trechos retirados de "Here's What's Wrong With Department Stores"

Acerca da evolução do retalho

O pensamento gringo, como simplifica com propriedade o @nticomuna, o pensamento gringo só conhece o factor preço, por isso, só se concentra no corte dos custos.
.
Quem se concentra nos custos entra numa espiral que o afasta da experiência, da surpresa, da emoção. Depois, temos isto: "STARBUCKS CEO: We're witnessing a 'seismic change' in retail".
.
Lembro-me de entrar numa loja da Papelaria Fernandes e murmurar "Surpreendam-me!" e sair frustrado de mãos vazias. Agora, acontece-me o mesmo com a FNAC.
.
E volto ao templo das experiências.

Paisagem competitiva sempre a mudar

"Zara didn't have to invent a brand new product to become the world's biggest fashion retailer. It just had to invent a new process. And process innovation is dominating the global economy.
...
"Prada wants to be next to Gucci, Gucci wants to be next to Prada. The retail strategy for luxury brands is to try to keep as far away from the likes of Zara. Zara's strategy is to get as close to them as possible."...
...
 Zara's most important contribution isn't a new product. It's a new process: fast fashion, directed by customers, and enabled by a short manufacturing leash. Process innovation is the story of modern retail"

A Zara e os centros comerciais com as H&M e outras cadeias de retalho apareceram e mudaram a paisagem competitiva, praticamente eliminando o retalho tradicional. Agora, outros querem aparecer para, por sua vez, voltarem a mudar a paisagem competitiva "Amazon Planning Private-Label Clothing Lines":

"Amazon is reportedly considering selling its own private label fashion brands. At a Tuesday event hosted by fashion publication WWD, an executive at Amazon announced plans to eventually sell its own private label fashion brands as part of a larger rollout in the apparel sector."

Li isto e pensei logo nas lojas do grupo SONAE... Quando o negócio é preço, mais tarde ou mais cedo, alguém aparece a propor um preço mais baixo.
.
Como é que as lojas mais dinâmicas do retalho tradicional estão a aprender a enfrentar o online?
.
.
.
Marcas próprias e designs exclusivos. O truque é a exclusividade.
.
BTW I

"Fashion goods generally have a profit margin of 30% to 40% while private label products can earn 55% to 65%, according to a note from Nomura analysts in April."

BTW II interessante "Ecommerce de calzado en España: más de 50 millones por trimestre con un ticket medio de 79 euros":

"Casi 80 euros. Eso es lo que gastan, de media, los españoles cada vez que compran calzado por Internet. La cifra es cerca de diez euros mayor a la del gasto por transacción en prendas de vestir. Aunque el volumen de negocio del ecommerce de calzado es muy inferior al de las prendas, el calzado fue el subsector de la moda que mejor arrancó este año en Internet, registrando un crecimiento interanual del 40,8% [Moi ici: Depois de anos a crescer 70 e 80%] hasta superar por primera vez la barrera de 50 millones de euros en el primer trimestre."

.
Primeiro grupo de trechos retirado de "Zara's Big Idea: What the World's Top Fashion Retailer Tells Us About Innovation"

Depois, a culpa é da crise

Lojas onde não se faz batota, onde não se cultiva a experiência, onde não se pratica a interacção criativa com os clientes, culpam a troika, o poder de compra, o IVA, os centros comerciais, os trabalhadores, o governo, a oposição.
.
Entretanto, certamente cometendo alguma qualquer inconstitucionalidade, os consumidores vão mudando de canal, vão mudando de prateleira, "Porque É Relaxante Portugueses Compram Cada Vez Mais Na Internet".

Internet e autenticidade (parte II)

Já o escrevi por aqui, tantas e tantas vezes, no meu trabalho, muitas vezes, acabo sendo quem abre porta para o primeiro contacto das empresas com o marketing.
.
Se uma empresa aposta na subida na escala de valor, descobre que tem de fazer algo mais do que produzir e vender. Tem de criar uma marca, tem de a comunicar, tem de lhe transmitir uma densidade e uma identidade própria.
.
Ontem, enquanto escrevia "Internet e autenticidade" recordei-me de um empresário do calçado que em 2010, apesar de ter uma empresa saudável a ganhar dinheiro, acreditava que o calçado em Portugal não tinha futuro, por causa da China. Como ele trabalhava no segmento do private label para marcas estrangeiras, tentei desafiá-lo a recomeçar uma marca que tinha existido nos anos sessenta do século passado. Recusava sempre com o argumento de que montar uma campanha de marketing ficava muito caro.
.
Já depois de "Internet e autenticidade" vi que o Miguel Barbot no FB me tinha enviado uma hiperligação para "Tracksmith, stories and experiences". Mais um exemplo da aposta na experiência, da aposta na autenticidade e, também, da aposta na escassez.
.
O artigo começa por referir este texto "The future of luxury - Experience counts" onde se pode ler:

"tilting a bit from having to being"

Onde se reforça o papel crescente da importância da experiência, Recordar "Experiência versus preço".
.
Depois, o texto começa a descrever como uma marca, sem loja física, está a criar a sua aura, está a desenhar a sua proposta de valor:

"With no physical stores yet, and a small collection of niche products, it is using story to create an experience for its customers – the story of running, style, culture and history.
...
Tracksmith is testing the market and tempting it – a steadily building collection, limited runs of products. [Moi ici: Em vez de começar com uma colecção inteira, começou com alguns produtos e com edições limitadas] I’ve bought a couple to try out – and I’ve had to wait a couple of months until the first t-shirt I wanted was back in stock."

Interessante, o uso de uma revista em papel, para a apresentação dos conteúdos que ajudam a situar a marca, a desenvolver a mística da marca. Interessante a comparação que o autor faz acerca da qualidade da revista, por comparação com revistas para corredores:

"As a runner, I’m used to technical, functional and often pretty unstylish clothing and – frankly – content. Runners World is the staple periodical for runners. It’s good for tips and motivation, but stylish and beautifully designed it is not – and its website is an embarrassment (I say that as a paying subscriber). It’s aspirational in a performance sense, but running as a culture and a lifestyle, not so much." 

Depois, descreve a embalagem e o reforço da ligação entre o cliente e a marca ainda antes de chegar à peça, com o número e a mensagem.
.
Este trecho:

"Since it started, earlier this year, Tracksmith has been selling a small but growing – one or two items at a time – collection of clothing" 

Merece ser sublinhado. Julgo que quem arranca com uma marca nova, porque tem de primeiro passar pelo filtro do dono da prateleira, tem de o seduzir com o aspecto do produto, com a qualidade do produto e com o potencial de ganho com o produto; por isso, tem de avançar com uma "colecção completa". No entanto, quem avança para uma loja online própria, não tem de passar por esse filtro, pode começar sem ter essa colecção "completa", pode começar com uma gama mais pequena e com uma forte identidade, para depois, crescer lentamente no número de SKU.
.
BTW, aquele "As a runner, I’m used to technical, functional and often pretty unstylish clothing" fez-me recordar este texto lido ontem de manhã "Cooler than Your Dad’s Sweatpants: Mr Porter Launches Athleisure"

Versão Beta (parte III)

Em linha com o que por aqui se escreve há anos, este artigo "What Happened To The Shopping Mall?" sobre o futuro dos centros comerciais:

"What is happening to the shopping mall? According to mall researcher Green Street Advisors, more than 20 enclosed malls have been shuttered over the last few years with another 60 on the endangered list."

Resultado do impacte profundo do comércio electrónico:

"Ecommerce has significant implications for the current conception of the mall. We are seeing that traffic is down, so cross selling and upselling are down, impulse buying is down, therefore basket size is down—so everybody in the mall is affected by traffic being down. If you have two or three major traffic-driving tenants in trouble, this affects the entire mall. This then creates a domino effect in the entire community in terms of tax base, employment, and blight."

É inevitável? Há centros que resistam?

"Some you see succeeding are experience-based malls, ones that have restaurants, movie theaters, and other sources of entertainment or services. The other place where you are seeing malls thrive is at the high end. The luxury malls, what the industry calls A-class malls, are doing very, very well. It’s the B- and C-class malls that are in trouble. These malls are targeting the income-constrained middle- to lower-middle class consumers, and that’s really where the problem lies." 

E ainda:

"Another thing that has happened in the economy is that the need for convenience has gone up dramatically. Most category-killers were destination stores, but over time people didn’t want to spend that much time traveling, so smaller formats closer to your home are becoming the rage for almost every retail sector." 

Recordar:

• Momentos e mudança no sector da moda
• Versão Beta (parte II)
• O futuro dos centros comerciais

Momentos e mudança no sector da moda

"The result is the latest wave of retail Darwinism: the classic American shopping emporiums that put downtown Main Streets out of business in the 1960s are now themselves on their way to extinction.[Moi ici: Será que ainda ouviremos nos media o choradinho a pedir apoios para salvar os centros comerciais?]

O tema, personalizado no caso da GAP, neste artigo "Inside GAP'S Plan to Get Back Into Your Drawers", já aqui foi abordado várias vezes, o futuro dos centros comerciais. Recordar "Versão beta", por exemplo.
.
No entanto, o mais interessante é a própria história da GAP:

"The iconic brand [Gap] slept through the fast-fashion revolution fueled by the likes of European labels H&M and Zara; got lost amid competitors such as Uniqlo and Target, who offered basics and denim at higher and lower price points; overexpanded; and became too ubiquitous for today’s niche-minded fashion crowd. "We used to talk about the ‘Gapification of America,’ that notion of one size fits all," says WSL’s Liebmann. "That’s just not a proposition relevant to America now." Between 2006 and 2010, sales dropped every year at Gap’s North American stores; since 2013, store sales have continued to suffer.
...
He is convinced that the company’s future will depend not just on delivering better product but on radical experimentation.[Moi ici: Interessante, porque isso é o que fazem os "ignorantes" empresários das PME que descobrem, que fabricam o seu futuro, enquanto os académicos lhes dizem que está tudo perdido, ou que precisam de se deslocalizar, ou de ter mais dinheiro] Gap thrived in the heyday of the mall—what Peck calls Retail 1.0—and floundered in the fast-fashion wave he calls Retail 2.0. Gap’s hope, he explains, is to leapfrog ahead to win in the Retail 3.0 era: a mobile-fueled future in which physical stores will have an entirely new role. "We’ve been doing business the same way for 40 years, and there are very few 40-year-old business models that are successful forever," Peck says. "Periods of disruption are periods of disproportionate opportunity," he continues, laying the  stakes. "More money is made during disruptive times—but is also lost—than is made during times of stability." So what will that store of tomorrow deliver?"

Ainda há dias escrevemos aqui no blogue sobre a superioridade económica do modelo Zara.

"Training customers to expect chronic discounts has become a destructive cycle at Gap. He knows that he has to "pull out the promo needle," as the industry puts it. To do so, Gap needs to ramp up its Retail 2.0 capability: Right now, he says, it takes the brand at least 10 months to get its new product ideas into stores. [Moi ici: Um barbaridade nos tempos que correm] That’s about three times as long as competitors like H&M and Zara, which have built their success by hopping onto the fashion world’s hottest trends and riding them. "We’re an industry that guesses a lot," says Peck, who is working with vendors across the entire supply chain to cut production time down to around 30 weeks.[Moi ici: 30 semanas? Ainda é muito! Por isto, também, é que o têxtil português está a fazer o seu regresso] "The faster you are in conceiving product and putting it on the shelf, the less risk there is."

E, como verdadeira cereja no topo do bolo...
.
Os comentários que as pessoas fazem sobre a GAP, o seu site, os seus produtos e posicionamento.

A boa velha batota

Num país populoso como a China, os números são de um outro campeonato:

"“It’s dying,” says Wang, shaking his head as he looks out at abandoned stores and torn promotional posters in what was once the busiest market in the Zhongguancun district, known as China’s silicon valley. “There are more sales staff than customers around here. Everyone buys online now.”
...
The online revolution promises to boost productivity and could create 46 million new jobs in China by 2025, many of them higher-skilled, according to a report by New York-based McKinsey & Co. in July. The losers will be as many as 31 million traditional roles, the equivalent of the entire employed population in Britain."

Altura para?
.
Repensar a experiência de loja... a boa velha batota!!!
.
Trechos retirados de "Chinese Retailers Play Poker in Empty Malls as Shoppers Go Online"

Uma plataforma para relacionar duendes?

O @walternatez chamou-me a atenção para "Alfaiates do século XXI. A tradição casou-se com a modernidade"... como não recordar Mongo!!!

.

Como não recordar "A costura é uma arte"

.

A certa altura pode ler-se:

"Público-alvo: o executivo. Alguém com poder de compra, que pertence à classe média-alta e que gosta de ter uma imagem cuidada. Ou um fashionista,"

A isto chama-se identificar quem são os clientes-alvo, o alicerce de qualquer negócio que queira ter um futuro.
.
Outro ponto interessante é este:

"As camisas que a Slägen & Zonen está a exportar para França são produzidas em Portugal. Os tecidos são italianos e o algodão é egípcio. Renato Braz explica que têm procurado tecidos portugueses, mas que ainda não encontraram a qualidade – do tecido e do serviço – que pretendiam, por cá. “O nosso primeiro critério é a qualidade dos tecidos e o segundo é o nível do serviço. Em Portugal, ainda não encontrámos, sobretudo a nível do serviço, uma oferta que nos agrade”, contou." 

Recordei logo ""Sim, missão para duas ou três gerações seguidas" (parte IV)" com as empresas do pavilhão "premium" e, a conversa com um produtor de framboesas que me alertou que não basta produzir boas framboesas, é preciso escala mínima para as cadeias intermediárias se darem ao trabalho de aceitar discutir proposta. Se calhar, as empresas que estão no pavilhão "premium" consideram que estes alfaiates não têm escala suficiente para as interessar.
.
Até que ponto estes alfaiates, que também podem ser duendes, e os duendes das CHIcoração (aqui e aqui, atenção ao comentário neste último postal) deste país precisavam de alguém que os pusesse a falar e a trabalhar juntos?

Plataformas de interacção

Nada que não tenha sido abordado e previsto aqui há muito tempo "Compras online vão continuar a crescer apesar da importância das lojas"
.
E qual o papel das lojas tradicionais?
.
Como podem sobreviver?
.
Um trecho retirado de "The Power of Co-Creation" começa a levantar o véu:

"retail stores can be more than places that sell products; they can become engagement platforms"

Recordar o exemplo da Retrosaria:

• Um mundo co-...
• Mongo em Portugal

Continua.

Uni-vos

Mais um exemplo de uma tendência a acompanhar com atenção, a mudança de modelo de negócio dos pequenos produtores agrícolas, para fazerem o by-pass à grande distribuição e capturarem margens superiores:

 "Grâce au circuit court Paysans.fr recevez chez vous les produits de saison, panier de légumes, panier de viandes ou panier à la carte de produits frais cultivés par 160 producteurs de nos régions"

Algo já por várias vezes sugerido neste blogue e retirado de "paysans.fr"

O futuro do retalho

"The Experience-Seekers – “value the best experience, not just price” (32%). As the largest segment of M-Shoppers, they demonstrate why retailers still need to invest in providing a unique and compelling in-store experience.
.
The Traditionalists – “prefer the in-store shopping experience” (30%). These shoppers are committed to purchasing in-store, making them the least threatening segment for retailers. They are open to interacting with retail stores on their mobile devices, whether by website, store app, or even scanning a QR code."

É nesta gente, nestes 52% dos consumidores que o retalho tradicional, ou clássico, ou físico, se tem de concentrar para ter um futuro. Tem de perceber que não consegue competir no preço puro e duro.

"Retailers don’t have to resort to automatic price-matching to compete with online shopping. We uncovered several opportunities for retailers to engage M-Shoppers on their phones as part of the shopping experience. These range from varied discount strategies, to exclusive in-store experiences, providing the right mobile-ready information, engaging shoppers in social media, and designing loyalty programs that build long-term relationships with customers."

No entanto, basta ouvir quem está à frente da associação do comércio para perceber que estão longe desta reflexão. Por agora, culpa a crise como a única responsável pela queda das compras no comércio, por causa da perda de poder de compra.
.
O poder de compra há-de regressar e as vendas não subirão em linha com esse aumento. Então, procederão como o comércio tradicional procedeu aquando da invasão dos centros comerciais, sem estratégia, sem segmentação, sem diferenciação... muito choradinho e pedidos de subsídios.

Trechos retirados de "The Surprising Truth about Showrooming and the Mobile-Assisted Shopper"

Ver também "JPMorgan Chase's Brian Tunick on Retail's Recovery via Value Pricing"

Uma verdadeira curiosidade do dia

"Every Nov. 11, millions of Chinese shoppers flock to the e-commerce websites operated by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. They spend more on those sites during that one day of discounts than Americans do on all online retailers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
...
By one measure, Alibaba is the world's largest e-commerce platform: The total volume of merchandise handled last year by Taobao and Tmall, the company's two main shopping sites, topped one trillion yuan ($160 billion), larger than last year's totals for Amazon.com and eBay combined."

Trecho retirado de "Alibaba Builds a 'Black Friday' for China"