Focusing on most impactful areas
With myriad channels through which to sell to customers, masses of marketing tools and social media options to choose from, and an array of technologies including new hyped products such as AI to select from it is essential that retailers focus time and resources on those areas most relevant to their target audience.
Speaking at The Retail Conference 2024, organised by The Retail Bulletin, Nigel Oddy, CEO at American Golf, revealed the story of the ongoing turnaround at the business that has had a rollercoaster history but is now on the up and returned to profitability on the back of it re-focusing on its core offer.
Reset on core vision
“We had to refocus on what made it good through a reset, to get under the skin of the business. We needed to go back to retail, the things we were good at, not running golf courses, driving ranges and food & beverage. We got everyone focused on one vision – as the ‘one-stop-shop for everything golf’,” he says.
With e-commerce accounting for 25% of sales Oddy says the effort is on an omni-channel strategy but the stores play a particularly important role within this because this is where clubs can be custom-fitted and the knowledge of the store teams can be fully leveraged. The plan has been to make the team members feel like VIPs and for this to then transfer onto the customers.
Elaine Wrigley, Retail, Operations & People Director at American Golf, says: “We can bring the customer journeys to life. We have incredible expert team members…and our customers love the interaction and the technical expertise available. Some of the VIP experience is just a warm welcome and we’ve freed up the teams in-store to be able to spend more time with customers.”
Leveraging physical stores
For Shweta Pamula, Senior European Category & Campaign Insights Manager at Samsung Electronics, stores are particularly important for certain products but the company has the challenge of operating only a handful of its own physical outlets.
“The challenge is that we have few stores so as a manufacturer we are reliant on third-party stores because we have complex products that need shops to bring them to life. Stores will get more important with AI technology as it will be more crucial in the future to show [customers] what the value-add is of Samsung products,” she says.
It is a similar story for Lucy Litwack, CEO & Owner of Coco de Mer – that sells luxury lingerie and intimate adult products, that has the unique problem of being unable to advertise online. “Overall it makes the online business a challenge although people did previously want to buy online as it was private. However, the world has moved on and we’re now in a position to give more and more personal experiences in our store,” she explains.
The feeling had been that stores were unnecessary but now Litwack says the ability to touch and feel the products and talk to humans has increased in importance for shoppers. “People now want to book personal shopping experiences…and we’ve a shopping suite with a dedicated member of staff,” she adds.
“Luxury has taken on a new definition and it’s now about creating personal, exceptional experiences. It’s not about selling products but is about an experience to engage the hearts and minds of customers and build trust and loyalty. The product has become the souvenir of the experience,” says Litwack.
Addressing vacant units
Rowland Gee, CEO at The Shocklite Company and Director at AromaChimie, is a big advocate for stores and believes the government should take action against the many vacant stores that plague high streets up and down the country and could instead be used by new retailers.
“There are so many retailers that don’t have the [high street] exposure and the consumers want exposure to them. The government needs to hear what’s going on. Consumers and retailers want it [sorting],” he suggests.
Access to physical space would certainly help Nicole Compen, Founder of Raye the Store, which offers space on a short-term basis for retailers to run pop-ups. “The challenge is finding pop-up sites. There are not as many vacancies as before and not many landlords support short-term leases anymore. Over time we hope they will be more comfortable with pop-ups, especially when stores are vacant between tenancies,” she explains.
Peter Grainger, Co Founder of CafePod Coffee Com is also on the look-out for a store having originally launched into supermarkets with Waitrose and Sainsbury’s before also moving into the direct to consumer (DTC) channel but he found online was very transactional. “With coffee the biggest challenge is people don’t know how to [properly] make it at home. The missing link is interaction and so we are looking for a high-touch store to empower people to make great coffee at home,” he says.
Flexing the channels
As a challenger brand Nick Jefferson, Founder & CEO of Wylde Market, has resisted working with the supermarkets who he says are price-focused whereas he is not selling products on price but on quality. He aggregates products from various suppliers for home delivery with a DTC model.
Isabelle Gormezano Marks, Marketing Director of East London Liquor Co., also has a focus on DTC along with selling into the on-trade – pubs and bars – where it has strong relationships with its [corporate] customers. “We work tirelessly on what our customers want. This is helped by being small and agile, which our large competitors aren’t,” she says.
Such a flexible multi-channel approach that incorporates DTC is now widely accepted as a sensible approach rather than the gung-ho DTC strategies that prevailed immediately after Covid-19.
Susannah Schofield OBE, Director General of Direct Selling Association, says: “The channels are not in competition anymore, especially as retailers need to engage with younger consumers [down different channels], which has to bring bricks and clicks together. New channels are being brought in.”
This thinking is very much reflected in the strategy deployed by Tracey Powers, UK Sales Director at Avon, who says the traditional model for the business – through brochure distribution – has been broadened out to include partnerships with retailers such as Superdrug and an online store on Amazon that will be followed by a forthcoming launch on TikTok Shop.
Avon’s beauty advisors are also encouraged to embrace other channels, according to Powers, who says some have their own online stores. “Avon is now a full omni-channel business through DTC channels and relationships with retailers,” she says.
Emily Kraftman, Chief Commercial Officer at Who Gives a Crap, says retail relationships have also been used by Who Gives a Crap to complement its core DTC approach. “We fell into DTC in 2012…but B2B has always been in our business – including cafes and restaurants. We’ve also stepped into retail with Waitrose in the UK, WholeFoods in the US and Woolworths in Australia, which is all part of our journey,” she says.
Consistency across channels
Care has to be taken managing these channels, according to Vikram Saxena, Founder & CEO at BetterCommerce, who advocates consistency across the channels and provides a solution to help deliver this for retailers with complex product mixes and those operating across B2C and B2B.
“We let businesses tell their stories consistently – across stores, websites and mobile. Often there could be different promotions on different platforms and we bring everything together. We get the data sources aligned. Bringing the top two or three channels together can deliver quick results,” he says.
One new development involves bringing commerce to Whatsapp, which would replace a lot of activity on email. For B2C this can be for customer service issues where people are asking about their order status, and for B2B it’s about stock availability and the price of products. “Whatsapp makes life easier. It’s a huge opportunity waiting to explode,” he says.
Certainly for Ed Duggan, Financial & Commercial Director at Fishpools, it is the preferred channel of communication for the company’s customers. This represents a departure for the business that has had a physical store since 1889 and has not relied much on any digital channels to date. But changes are taking place.
“We chose to fight on the grounds where we believed we could be profitable. We had a strong brand presence in the geography of the store and e-commerce has broadened it out. We’ve re-engineered the website to target geographies we want to reach. We’ve invested in technology but with one store it is hard versus chain retailers,” he says.
It is clearly working as Duggan says “we could not now exist without the website, digital marketing and a social media presence”. “The degree to which you immerse yourself in these is specific to each company,” he adds.
Bringing data together
He acknowledges that to expand further the company has to have the relevant data. For Saxena this is essential for retailers in order to take advantage of the opportunities presented by AI. But data can be a serious problem: “Most retailers still have fragmented data and to bring it together is a challenge.”
This is recognised by Shetal Bhatt, Head of CRM & Marketing Operations at SSE Energy Solutions, who says: “We’re in a data transformation programme as we’ve disparate data sources and we’re building a single source. The single customer view is where we want to get to but even joining two important data sources together can make a dramatic difference. It is better than waiting two or three years to get everything together. You have to be pragmatic.”
Morgan Maaka, Manager of Direct Sales – UK at Lightspeed Commerce, agrees: “We see brands with lots of data but it’s a mess. It needs to be accessible. You need data that is digestible and actionable.”
Although the data is absolutely crucial Jonathan Gabay, Author of Practical Digital Marketing and AI Psychology, says it should not be the only determinant for decision-making. “All data can suggest one thing but something else can then happen. It’s not just [based on] what happened in the past but also today. People often say one thing but do something else. Also using a bit of gut instinct goes a long way,” he suggests.
Nick King, Insight Director at AutoTrader, agrees: “Data tells you some things but instinct also tells a lot. Use the data to augment your thinking but it should not be the be all and end all.” For King and also Bhatt their data is being used to support them telling a story to customers including some myth-busting. For King this is very much around electric vehicles and for Bhatt it is about helping people on their journey to net zero.
Value of storytelling
Storytelling is also proving vital for Rebecca Pagan, Commercial Director at Pagazzi Lighting, who says the way to ensure their loyal customers do not go elsewhere is to tell a story, which has become an increasingly important differentiator for the retailer.
“You have to tell a story. That’s the secret. Share your story and get everybody to know about you and show why people want to shop with you. We have a face in front of the brand. Big brands don’t have that,” she says, adding that social media is a massive focus for the business and that just before Covid-19 it had 10,000 Instagram followers and now it has 75,000. “I was on Instagram Stories every day and we’ll be on TikTok soon. You have to make sure you pull the right levers in the right channels,” she explains.
For Janis Thomas, Managing Director of Look Fabulous Forever – which focuses on older customers, it is YouTube that drives the business and is the platform it uses to share its stories. “The technique [for applying products] used by a 70-year-old is very different [from a younger person]. We help people look their best and they trust us. We’re relaxed about the journey to purchase,” she says.
Becci Edmondson, Chief Product Officer at MPB, is focused on trust with her messaging to customers and to potential buyers as the business deals in second-hand products that encompass photographic and video kit. “We have to educate the customers about our purpose, and the brand and to get to know each other,” she says.
Engaging employees
Telling stories is certainly helped by having an engaged team, according to Sanish Mondkar, Founder & CEO at Legion, who says: “Employee engagement is critical. Sometimes how much it matters gets lost. Retailers need to try and accommodate the needs of employees. Technology can help solve the problem by empowering them to own their own schedule, which impacts on customer service.”
He is an advocate of using automated schedule generation software that involves taking lots of data inputs in order to predict demand and to assign the right people at the right time with the right abilities and most crucially recognising their preferences. “Flexibility is the most important factor in a person staying at a company. There is a minimum 10% drop in employee turnover when you have perfect scheduling,” says Mondkar.
Brad Capon, Vice President UK & Northern Europe at YOOBIC, agrees: “Great customer experience is led by employees and if they are not happy then this is where attrition comes from. People are becoming disengaged as they are overwhelmed. Simplify what they do to reduce the stress.”
A happy stress-free workforce is a key objective of Vishal Talreja, former Chief Development Officer at Itsu, who says: “We need to take away centralised tasks from colleagues. Happy colleagues equals happy customers and then everything else falls into place.”
For Russell Danks, Managing Director at Laine Pub Co., having the team interact with customers is part of this process and is one way that hospitality differs from retail. “My visit to Tesco recently was a soulless experience. I never had any human interaction. We have self-service technology at our Brighton pub for when it is busy but sometimes people just want a chat at the bar. Our job is to get people into the present. There are generational behaviour differences and Gen Z are challenging [some of the thinking].”
Quick delivery expands into retail
One area where they seem to be driving change is with delivery – especially on-demand ordering with quick delivery times. Trond Kongrød, CEO of Inovretail, says: “It’s a world of services today. How is UK retail doing in a fast-paced world? Few can cope with consumer demands and those who are fast are the winners.”
He suggests retailers need to tie-up with specialists in order that they can provide quick-commerce to their customers. This is certainly a strategy that a growing number of retailers are adopting as they align with delivery specialists such as Deliveroo and JustEat Takeaway.com that are expanding beyond restaurant deliveries and into groceries and increasingly non-food categories.
Camilla Kater, Advisor to the CEO & SVP of Care and Rider at Deliveroo, says: “Our mission is to bring the high street to people’s doors. The key categories are emergency needs such as health & beauty, pet food and gifts. We’ve pushed our existing partners to expand their SKUs and we’ve added Boots, Superdrug and local independent retailers like florists.”
It is a similar story for Ellie Starr, Head of Strategic Partnerships at JustEat Takeaway.com, who says the company moved into retail a year ago and now works with brands such as Boots, Majestic and Card Factory. “We’ve a nuanced strategy around certain sectors – we can now deliver nappies from Boots in 30 minutes – with key categories being healthcare, pharmacy, pets and electronics,” she says.
