Being declared nonessential during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns perfectly captures the literal truth about mall-based specialty retail. In fact, specialty stores only exist in the first place because they are magic. They invite us into beautiful stage sets, create new aspirations and help cater to our most refined tastes. Les Wexner, the one-time owner of over a dozen specialty retail chains, frequently reminded his executives that they were in the "wants" business, not the "needs" business. His most scathing (and still printable) …
Five Forces Shaping Retail’s Post-Pandemic Future
This is a precarious time for all retailers, but particularly those deemed non-essential: Inventories are piled up and on-orders slashed; relationships with suppliers, landlords and employees are fraught; cash is scarce and the timelines for stores opening and customers responding are murky. Many, if not most, are focused only on short-term survival. Multiple Scenarios As we plan for the post-pandemic future, we'd do best to plan for multiple possible scenarios. For over a decade now, we assumed steady consumer spending growth, some jockeying …
True Stories: Strategies from Seven High-Growth Specialty Retailers
There is not much "new" to write about when it comes to specialty retail. How often can we talk about the inexorability of Amazon; the metastasizing of dollar/value retailing; the exigency for experience; the hotness of young, unproven business models; the hard march to AI and automation? And let's re-mention the digital-native darlings. What I've never seen remarked upon is that there is a small group of quite traditional, offline-native specialty retail chains, focusing on things that specialty retailers have always focused on, who are …
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Target’s New Business Model is Still a Work in Progress
No retail segment is more competitive than the mass segment, where retailers sell many of the same SKUs and must therefore compete based on differentiated consumer perceptions of value, access, convenience and customer experience. In 2016, the Target Corporation -- facing scorching competition from Amazon and Walmart and saddled with negative comps -- decided to check "all the above," including product selection. In early 2017 the company launched a major, multi-year set of initiatives to remodel stores, improve store operations, expand …
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Victoria’s Secret: On a Precipice or a Platform?
With its U.S. sales, earnings and customer affinity deteriorating, many analysts are questioning the future of Victoria’s Secret. In his article “Behind the Curve,” Robin Lewis credits Les Wexner’s historic ability to predict big shifts in the market, but wonders whether the brand’s unmoving, sexy positioning – long an asset – might be the primary cause in the brand’s current troubles. In fact, the brand’s marketing has long been criticized (even in internal debates among company executives) for making sex too overt and overly objectifying …