Reinvent Retail

There’s been a lot of buzz about some questionable activities in regards to review site Yelp and local businesses. A great explanation from Yelp about how they work internally.

Great article at a fantastic (uk) blog

Telling story about the use of social media in retail.

It’s no longer becoming something that just the hip kids do, it’s an essential part of your marketing plan.

If you are an independent retailer, or a a teenage girl (and if you are reading this blog you know which one you are)

Go buy this book at a local bookstore.

Great article about author (and Amoeba records founder) Yvonne Prinz and this book at the LA Times.

From a reddit article titled “Best use of a cell phone I’ve seen in a while”

So I’m in line at the customer service desk of my local grocery store. Four people ahead of me in line, and one person working the desk. And it seems that this woman has to answer 6 phone calls for every customer in person that she serves in person. After 8 phone calls (and her dealing with a little old lady who wants to return half a banana! WTF?!) the guy in front of me pulls out his cell phone and starts fiddling with it.

Then he makes a call and the customer service desk phone rings (again). She stops what she’s doing and picks up the phone:
Her: Metro, Customer service.
Him: From a customer service point of view, doesn’t it make sense to serve the people who have actually made the damned effort to come into the f*ing store.
Then he waves at her and hangs up.
She ignores the phone ringing after that.

I’m not a huge fan of the UI, but for a corporate giant, its a pretty nifty little idea.

Read the comments for more info.

I’ve heard this story for a long time, but sure, big box retailers are in a price war.  Independents are getting screwed.  There are those in the industry that believe the indies will be the only one standing once Borders and others go bust.

Wal-mart is 20 times larger than amazon.com, yet amazon is trying to compete in a price war.  We’ve all read about Wal-marts tactics in the past.  But in a recent article, the New York Times hits it right on the head with their description of Amazon customers: “affluent urbanites who would rather click with their mouse than push around a cart.”

Sure with one-click or [idiotic] PayPhrase checkout they can capture some impulse buys.  But retail shopping is a completely different mentality.

I believe that where Amazon could win is with independent retailers.  They have an incredibly efficient shipping infrastructure, leverage their buying power to keep prices low.  I’ve talked with many retailers upset at the fact that they can sometimes buy a product on Amazon cheaper than they can from their distributor.  That blows for everybody – its a price and convenience competition.  Independent retailers have a lot of strengths: location, selection, convenience, ambiance, community.  Why shouldn’t they buy from the cheapest / most-convenient distro?

Amazon could get into b2b distribution with a super beefy version of Amazon Prime for retailers buying large quantities. Forget returnables, just products that will move off the shelves.   They should be in the business of making a profit on every piece they move out the door, not focusing on loss-leaders to try and build loyalty or up-sell.  But what do I know?

do you know what *your* customers are searching for?

Google Retail Blog: Latest Consumer Search Trends from Google’s Marissa Mayer.

Was just forwarded an interesting article from the Minnesota Post about the new deep discount price wars going on between Target and Wal-mart.  The big boxes are competing with Amazon on best-sellers by selling below cost to bring customers into the store.  Of course this sucks, both because they are devaluing books, and because indie retailers just cannot compete.  Sure you can argue that indie bookshops are more of a long-tail operation.

How about this thought experiment. I’ll go find a tiny retail operation.  400 sqft.  Carry the books and magazine I love (authors who have been published in McSweeney’s…) to build a reputation.  Prominently advertise that I can special order absolutely anything at prices competitive with Amazon.  Spree for an Amazon Prime account ($79 a year) and pre-order anything for 20% above amazon prices (which are still well below msrp)  I can have anything amazon sells in my store within 48 hours (probably just as fast as most distributors)  My customers are happy because they’re supporting a local bookshop who is now competing with Barnes and Noble.  I’m happy because I’m making a pretty decent margin with almost no effort.  Sure I’m purchasing from my biggest competitor, but why is this a bad idea?

Leave a comment, get us on twitter or email me directly: tyler at reinventretail.com with your thoughts.

Here’s the article.

I’m in San Francisco this week, staying with my old college roommate and learning fantastic new stuff at the Paypal Developers conference.

There’s a fascinating, well-thought-out read over at FISTFULAYEN describing changes in the Jazz world.

The scary, one-line summary: the median age of the jazz-show goer (yes, that’s a phrase) is 46, up from 29 in 1982.

I think his advice is equally applicable to music retailers:

• Build modern websites
• modernize portals