Prepare to Thrive

As Advertising Age pointed out in a cover story, year 2012 marked the golden anniversary of a quantum change in retailing: Fifty years prior, in 1962, Walmart, Target, Kmart, and Kohl’s all opened their first stores.
     Selling name-brand items at everyday low prices—thereby channeling customer loyalty from the merchandise brand to the store brand—was around long before 1962. Exactly six decades before then, James Cash Penny opened his Golden Rule general store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
     The fears of business death among smaller retailers when facing large-footprint discount chains aren’t new either.
     Retailers that do survive and thrive use the shopper psychology lessons from the history of Walmart, Target, Kmart, and Kohl’s:

• Consistently project your image. The spirit of frugality permeated the public image of the four discounters. Kmart let it be known that all corporate employees, including the top executives, went to the company dining room for lunch. Walmart used employees and their children as models for the clothing in circulars. You may find that the store image which works best for you is something other than frugality. Whatever that image is, project it consistently.
• Experiment, then learn from the results. Target has tried out pop-up stores, themselves an experiment, to assess the popularity of new merchandise lines. Walmart, Kmart, and Target each tried out adding supermarket merchandise to the mix in the store. Not all the experiments have been successful. Kmart fumbled repeatedly and had to file for bankruptcy protection. They did not seem to learn well from their failures. Walmart’s decision to tidy up and widen the store aisles contributed to a succession of setbacks in year-to-year same store sales. In your store operations, always look for opportunities to innovate. But limit the probability of damage by, for instance, doing the experiment in a well-defined area of the store. Then be sure to track the results so you can determine in what ways it’s working, how well it’s working, and how to adjust or abandon it so the profitability for the store will be even better.
• Plan for the long-term. This is another aspect of change management. Large companies naturally think about cultivating and recruiting the talent that will allow for the extension of their influence into the years ahead. Small to midsize retailers often don’t. Whether your long-range plan includes selling the business or handing over management to the next family generation, prepare.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more:
Project Your Brand Positively
Turn Your Image on a Dime
Experiment
Set Your Sights on Doing Even Better
Cultivate a Life Outside Your Business