Editorial Blog: September 2009 Archives

The Magic of Mom & Pop Businesses

Last Thursday an article was posted on www.crosscut.com that talked about a new book on Mom & Pop businesses by Robert Spector, "a Seattle writer who is an expert on retailing and has written books on Amazon and Nordstrom." The article (The Enduring Wisdom of Mom & Pop by Knute Berger) outlined the key themes in Spector's book and brought up some interesting points about independent businesses.

In his article, Berger reports that it's Spector's assertion that Mom and Pop businesses are incredibly resilient. They have, Spector says, "survived every bubble and retail trend, and they're highly adaptable because they have to be. In the Darwinian world of retail…it's not the strong but the flexible who survive." Berger also explains that "Spector sees retail as intensely personal, and Mom & Pop businesses as the living expression of community… and vibrant commerce is at the center of what a city really is."

Further into the article, Berger writes:

…There is a craft, and maybe even a little magic, in becoming a treasured neighborhood icon, or a place customers want to come back to. Sometimes, Mom & Pops are successful even when they make business decisions that would look "bad" on paper, like Hobby's, the Newark, N.J. deli Spector describes that gives a free sandwich to any person who comes in and says they're hungry and haven't eaten. Why? "Because no one walks away hungry from Hobby's."

What do you think? Are Mom & Pops resilient? Is there "a craft, and maybe even a little magic" to being a success? Spector's book is called The Mom & Pop Store: How the Unsung Heroes of the American Economy are Surviving and Thriving. It's published by Walker & Co. I'm definitely going to check it out. (It's available on www.chapters.indigo.com and www.amazon.ca.)

Posted by Lori Smith on September 8, 2009 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Communicating in New Ways with our Core Customer

I don't think anyone would argue that women between the ages of 25 and 55 comprise the core market for retailers of gifts, tablewares, home décor, gourmet foods and more. This group, which could be dubbed the "Mom" segment, is this industry's target demographic. Knowing that, I was very interested in the results of a survey conducted by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, which were sent out last week in a release from the National Retail Federation (NRF).

The new research advised retailers trying to influence Moms that they should pay attention to the Internet. The study found that women at home are more likely than average adults to use Facebook (60.3 percent), MySpace (42.4 percent) and Twitter (16.5 percent). In addition, some 15.3 percent of respondents maintain their own blog. The research also found that 93.6 percent of mothers regularly or occasionally seek the advice of others before buying a service or product, and 97.2 percent give advice to others about those products or services they purchased.

The fact that women are connected is something that I keep on hearing over and over again. At the International Home + Housewares Show in March, I attended a seminar called "Generational Expectations: Eating vs Cooking, Shopping vs Networking." In it, Tim Woods of Michigan-based management consultancy PocoLabs shared the company's 10 years of research into how technology has changed the way we live and buy. He reported that in 2000 company research showed that the vast majority of women said it was the men in the household who made all the technology related decisions. Five years later, their research showed that the majority of women now considered themselves as the technology decision maker in the household. To that you can add the fact that the generation of women hitting their 20s now is fluent in technology.

Of course, this means that retailers should be looking at recalibrating their arsenals of marketing devices: Flyers might give way to Facebook postings; announcements about new product arrivals might be made via Twitter tweets; and customers might become reviewers, posting their opinions about products on your website. Figuring out the new ways to communicate with our core customer is essential. Is it on your priority list?

Posted by Lori Smith on September 21, 2009 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Is there a "New Consumer"?

Cleaning up my office last week, I came across a blog titled "Re-Imagining Retail: Meet the New Consumer," which I'd downloaded from The Huffington Post in February. Its author, Jeffrey Hutchison, is a Manhattan-based architect who specializes in retail design. In the blog he contends that the economic crisis has created a new consumer and that retailers have to create "compelling environments" for this new consumer.

He writes that consumers are increasingly drawn to [product] "longevity and quality"; that "all brands must communicate a lifestyle that is in keeping with the evolving value system of today"; that the "new consumer is drawn to a humanistic connection to their retail environments rather than Starchitects' glitz and glam." The New Consumer, he states, wants "to feel that there is a purpose, that they are in some way making a contribution."

According to Hutchison, retailers interested in appealing to this new breed of shopper should consider the following six ideas:

1. Breathing Room, Not Just Changing Rooms - According to Hutchison, too many stores have "crammed" too much merchandise in to too small a space. They should "provide more space for people to congregate and relax."

2. Trendy is a Dirty Word - Hutchison says that trends don't last and that they "send a wasteful and frivolous message to the new consumer." "Instead of constantly reinventing surroundings, the shelf life of these environments will necessarily be longer due to increasingly scarce capital. It is doubly important to make sure that store's design is timeless, eschewing trends that have no durability."

3. Reject Rigidity - "…flexible design is critical to the ability of the store to adapt and adjust to the shifting marketplace. For example, fixtures that allow merchandise categories to move from one part of the store to another will be essential to making the environment feel like a living, breathing organism," he writes.

4. Consumer, Serve Thyself - Decreased staffing means that a store's design should allow for and promote more "self-shopping," he says. As a result, "designers will have to be creative with graphics, technology and visual display to allow the customer to clearly see and understand the product."

5. So Green, So What? - "We will move beyond environmentalism-chic, by which brands promote a green agenda as a way to connect with consumers. Going forward, going 'green' will be the ante just to get in the game," he writes.

6. Locally Grown - "Stores can nurture and communicate a culture by connecting to their local community," he states.

These are all good points but I am stopped by the notion of a "new consumer." Has this "new consumer" really come to be? Have consumers really changed? I say, they haven't. What do you say? Have your customers changed?

Posted by Lori Smith on September 28, 2009 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Editorial Blog

Commentary on retailing, shopping, consumers and the gifts and tablewares industry today by G&T editor Lori Smith

September 2009 Archives

September 8, 2009

The Magic of Mom & Pop Businesses

September 21, 2009

Communicating in New Ways with our Core Customer

September 28, 2009

Is there a "New Consumer"?

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