The Blog

Simple yet effective

Attend any retail conference and you’ll find a plethora of high tech solutions designed with one thing in mind: increasing sales. Solutions for tracking shoppers and customers. BI tools for analyzing all your KPI, dash boards, portals. There are replenishments systems, highly sophisticated Automated Markdown suggestions. At POS there are suggested selling, and client loyalty schemes.

I believe I have discovered a tool to boost sales, that costs a fraction of the price of these technologies, and they don’t require super users to manage, no long term relationships with vendors, and unfortunately for people like me, no systems consultants to help choose and implement hem.

I came across this effective solution, not from dealing with hundreds of ladies specialty retailers, not from dozens of trade shows, nor from reading the pile of retail magazines that arrive at my door or in-box. Rather I learned this by spending time with my wife. The way most things are discovered, I learned it from real life experiences.

The idea is based on a long known principal. The longer a shopper remains in the store, the more likely they are to make a purchase, and the more items they are likely to select. Like most men, I am not fond of spending the day shopping, unless its at a Best Buy, Barnes and Noble or perhaps a Home Depot. So when I am asked to spend some time with my wife choosing an outfit for an upcoming event, I am not the happiest of people. This unhappiness is enhanced even further by standing around, pacing the aisles until my wife appears from within a changing room. I inevitably find myself feeling miserable and doing my best to make sure my wife notices. If I do my job well enough, it always results in a quick exit from the store.

I realized my pain is lessened considerably by those stores that provide some sort of pain relief for husbands like me, with the simple use of , get ready… CHAIRS!! I find if I can sit, and perhaps read, or amuse myself on my iPhone, then I dont mind the wait nearly as much. If I don’t mind the wait, my wife feels more relaxed to shop, try on and make that all important purchase. I now find myself suggesting shopping locations that are husband-friendly. And bless those stores that have even thought of providing magazines or a TV for the shopper’s husbands to pass the time. Pure GENIUS.

It amazes me everytime I visit a specialty apparel store, and there are no seats next to the changing room. Its the simplest, most effective and least expensive way to extend the time your shopper stays in the store to browse. When the husband is happy, the wife is happy. When the wife is happy, she shops more. When she shops more, the retailer is happy.

All for the price of a chair!

In the last 2 months, I have been involved in producing a number of RFP documents for new software products and realized there are some very basic suggestions I could offer,  that might help most of you who are now going through the same process. There is a significant amount of preparation and work that goes into producing one of these requests. and getting it right at the start will go a long way in improving the quality of your decision.

An RFP, by its nature, is a very detailed document. It is the primary tool for assessing the fit of a vendor’s product, and the viability of the vendor. The response must offer the organization  all the information they need in order to make that decision.

1. The RFPs will need to be objectively scored once they are completed by the vendor. The most common approach is to give each question a Value score (say 1-5) with the higher score being the most important. The vendor should not see this value (so their responses are not “embellished”).

A negative response to a requirement would be given a 0 score, and a positive result a value of say 5. In this way some responses can be scored 1-4 if it is partially acceptable.

The score for the entire RFP is then merely the sum of each question’s Value weight times the response score.

2. In addition to the Value score, I suggest having an “Importance” score that the vendor can see. This allows you to indicate to the vendor which are must haves and which are “wish lists”.

The first thing a vendor does when an RFP is received, is to  review it in order to determine whether they will take the time to respond. RFPs, if done correctly, are very time consuming to complete. If they see too many requirements they can not satisfy, they may decline to respond. If however they understand that these are wish list requests only, they can make a more informed decision.

3. The biggest trap that companies fall into is the blurring of requirements and specifications

There is a tendency to indicate “how” the system should behave, rather than “what” the system needs to provide. That is, Requirements vs Specifications.

This is best illustrated with a number of examples.

If your current SKU has a Dept/class prefix, ask yourself why? If it is only for sequencing reports then indicate the sequencing as a requirement, not for style coding.

Do you want to see 8 weeks of history so you can calculate a sell-thru, or should you just ask for the statistics you need?

Are you asking for every report you have today, or for the data fields and sequences they come in? There may be other ways to do the same thing in other systems.

Asking the wrong question may lead you to expensive modifications, or worse, rejecting the right vendor for the wrong reasons.

4. Give everyone the same opportunities. Each vendor should receive the document at the same time. A conference call with all vendors to ask questions should be organized, all at the same time. (so every vendor hears the others questions). If an extension date is granted to one, then all should receive it. Each vendor should then be given .5-1 day to present their solutions. Specify the deadline for each vendor to indicate their intention to respond.

5. Send the documents out via email, in an excel format, with password protection and fields hidden as necessary. This will allow easy scoring when returned, and ensures everyone gets it at the same time. Ask for a return verification of receipt.

6. Finally, call ahead and let the vendor know they will be receiving an RFP and to whom to send it. This sounds obvious, but many vendors will lose the RFP in someones in-box and then ask for extensions and that upsets the evaluation process.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or comments (contact page). I will be more than happy to help.

Lewis

More and more often, service sites and hardgoods retailers are using live chat software to deal with consumer inquiries.

Live Chats is a web alternative to sending email or phoning a support line. Its a window that opens on your screen, and allows you to instant message with a person, in live mode, at the site you are on. In the soft-goods sector, it does not seem to be catching on the same way.

I think its time that fashion retailers take a closer look at this technology. Especially if you now provide phone support for the same purpose. Why?…

1. Live chats allow your Personal Shopping Assistant to handle more than one call at a time. Where as telephone calls require complete undivided attention, Live Chat allows you to respond to more than one person at a time. This fact will probably go unnoticed to the customer you are serving, and you, the retailer, will require less staff.
2. Live Chats have the “feel” of instant gratification. There is no reaching for the phone, dialing a number, answering phone prompts and listening to Musak. The consumer is already on the site, and needs only click a link. Their frustration is significantly reduced.
3. While waiting for an operator to join the chat, the shopper is free to do other things on the web site, reducing inconvenience of holding a phone and watching the time.
4. Live Chat, allows the support person to send documents to the shopper. Photos of products, item reviews can be sent and viewed while the conversation is still taking place, suggestions for alternate styles can be made in real time.
5. Languagae and accents become less of an issue. Retailers can outsource without as much worry about language barriers, or the communications being misunderstood.

There are many good products available that will provide a positive shopping experience for your customer. Other than the obvious cost factor, there are many features to consider. I suggest having a look at this chat review site for a list of chat software providers, as well as complete list of features to consider. One other that I like, that is somehow not on that list, is Live Person.

I have been very fortunate in my career to have had the opportunity of working with some great people and great companies. Many of them stars in their area of expertise.

I have done my best to listen and to observe, and tried to take away a little from what each has had to offer. A consultant, after all, is only as good as the sum of their experiences.

I would like to make note of one very special person whom I have known for some 27 or 28 years. We worked together in the early days of retail at STS Systems, and little did we know how much the world of retail systems would change, or where our professional careers would take us two and a half decades later.

Last week RIS News announced its top 10 most influential people in Retail. My good friend and former colleague, Diane Randolph, CIO at Reitman’s,  is on that list.

Now, amongst the people whose paths have crossed mine, many were visionaries, many were intelligent, were mentors, gifted speakers, or just generally nice people. Diane is among the few that I can say shines in each of those categories. And as a friend, she is warm, humorous, generous, patient and sincere.

I have learned much from Diane over the years (and hope she might have learned a thing or two from me), and I want to congratulate her for all she has accomplished.

Well done Diane, its been a joy watching your successes. There is no doubt, more to come!

Unusual word pairings have always intrigued me. George Carlin spoke of a few of his, including “Defense Forces” and “Jumbo Shrimp”. Demitri Martin warned of adjectives you never wanted to see on merchandise packaging, such as “High-Voltage Toy”. Dave Barry cited man’s favorite words: Electric and Guitar, which he said became even more seductive when put together.

Wet Seal

I have always been attracted to the elusive… Retail Innovation.

When ever a unique or clever retail concept is developed, many in our industry sit up and take note.

Wet Seal is an apparel retailer of girls clothing for teens. Back in 2008 they developed an application called “Runway”. It takes advantage of the social web to involve the shopper and begs them to show off their fashion sense. Any time you can get your target audience involved, you have made huge strides in converting them to customers.

Very simply, the Runway participant can review the Wet Seal catalog, and co-ordinate outfits that they feel are the best. Others can then review and comment on them.

This is a twist to the classic web approach that has the merchandisers suggesting outfits that they think the buying demographic might like. The strengths of the Runway app are:

1. Bringing the shopper back to the site to view comments on their selections
2. Bringing the shopper back to see other matches
3. Bringing the shopper back to see new additions to the line.
4. Lending credibility to the co-ordinates, because they were selected by a peer group.

I see the innovative retailer taking advanage of two huge strategies/technologies in the short term: Social Web and Mobile computing. Wet seal understands that their niche customer is perfect for Web 2.0 applications. SInce its introduction, Wet Seal has used the other social media, such as Facebook and Youtube to promote its application. I believe they have just scratched the surface with where this can go.

Kudos to Wet Seal for being a leader.

See it for yourself: http://www.wetseal.com/outfitter/community.cmd

If you attended NRF 2010, you might very well be tempted to think so!
Just a few years back, RFID was the buzz. NRF dedicated an entire room to the store of the future. Automatic checkouts, intelligent shopping carts, customer profiles pulled up automatically… It was reminiscent of the “Car of the Future” we saw back in the 60’s. You know, the ones with the doors opening towards the sky, a big glass bubble for a roof, like on the Jetsons?

This year, hardly a whisper was heard. Sure, there were still RFID vendors, software products, readers and tag makers, but no great hype.
Several reasons for its apparent demise come to mind.

1. The recession. With budgets being stripped bare, there is tough competition for the IT dollar. Retailers are spending on mission critical products, and are avoiding the “state of the art” purchase. There just isn’t the money available to spend on projects that aren’t a “sure thing”.
Further more, the additional on going cost of the RFID tag, cuts into already tight margins.
2. Lack of a Successful model. Walmart was going to show the world how it was done. They had the dollars and the clout to enforce vendors to comply to their sandards. Time has shown us that that project was something less than an unqualified success. Retailers are thinking, if Walmart couldn’t do it, what are my chances?
3. Technology. Many feel its just not there yet. The dream of RFID is based on a belief (and a requirement) that scans are 100% accurate. That there are no missed tags, that they are read acurately and that there are no duplicates. Some, like Staples have achieved this, but with a very expensive (reusable) $8.00 tag. Inspite of this, it seems even Staples is not rolling out the technology.
So, is RFID dead? Will it go the way of OCR-A, when that was the next big thing?
No, not likely. Unless its replaced by something even better, I believe RFID will ultimately be a viable technology for the retail industry.
There is too much potential in the technology not to spend the R&D dollars to get it working. And with the financial situation improving every day, its time is coming.

This year marks the 99^th annual NRF conference. And my 32^nd. Hard to believe l have attended almost 1/3^rd of them.

As this is the first blog on my new website, it feels appropriate to look back, at a time before “blog” was even a word and reminisce about where this industry has been and how far it has come.

My earliest recollection of the retail conference was back in the late 70’s when the association was called the NRMA. The first shows were at the Hilton on Avenue of the Americas, and they took up several floors and the hallways as well. It wasn’t just technology at that time, but included vendors of DC equipment, hangers, blank credit cards and so on.

Retail technology was just emerging. The big players were Island Pacific, Creative Data, Concept Systems and an emerging STS Systems. Today, only Island Pacific remains, and as a very small player at that.

It was pre-PC era, so POS devices were proprietary, which allowed you to collect category summary information. SKU collection was still a dream for most retailers. Some retailers collected the tickets, and entered them back office to collect lower level sales data. But this was for the smaller organizations. Larger ones couldn’t handle the volume.

Merchandising systems were at the core of the emerging technology. The vendors who could produce a basic OTB, were the leaders. Planning was beyond anyone’s dream, until Arthur Planning was introduced, and even then, only for the sophisticated users. They were the only game in town.

Today the NRMA, for some reason that still escapes me, has become the NRF. Decision support, planning, BI, RFID, and ecommerce, are the new exciting technologies.

Gone are the paper bag vendors.

Tomorrow I attend conference # 33. I will enter the Javitz center once more, thinking nostalgically of my first show. I once again will enter the exhibit floor with anticipation of seeing a new emerging technology that will excite us all, at least until next years show.