Posts by Tim Dodge
The Origin of Retailing: The Natural Selection of Shopping Experience
If Charles Darwin were an economist today rather than a 19th Century naturalist, he may have discovered the same principles of evolution through the study of 21st century retailing as he did in the Galapagos Islands Dogma hd more than a century ago.
Fear X movie Demon Hunter download
Retailer evolution
For many years, small retailers have bemoaned the category-killing efforts of the Big Box stores. WalMart and Home Depot have been blamed for the quick death of many a local retailer. The new retail powerhouses are also blamed for driving the profit out of manufacturing and putting brands out of business. As a result, the weak and unprepared have died off. The retailers who banded together and dug their heels in to prevent Walmart from opening in their towns have quickly become extinct. Conversely, a new breed of specialty stores have been born — stores like Trader Joe’s and the Apple Store. These stores identified what the big box stores couldn’t offer — unique product choice and high-touch service — and did it better than anyone else.
Manufacturer evolution
The same is true on the manufacturing side. The behemoth retail chains continually shave off profits while manufacturers fight to hold onto market share of commodity product categories. They’ve been blamed for chloroforming many beloved brands. At the same time, some brands have emerged from the ashes and strengthened their position through this retail blood bath. Legendary and emerging brands alike have been able to minimize the discounting and commodification of their wares. Brands like Bose stereo products and Weber Grills
have been able to grow their revenues while protecting their pricing strategies and the perceived value of their brands.
What these successful manufacturers and retailers have in common is that they all learned to adapt to their environment and evolve their businesses accordingly. The winners have not been those who banded together to prevent the erosion of their way of doing business. The winners innovated and reinvented themselves in a way that brought the most obvious value to the customer.
Sales evolution
The Last of the Mohicans download
Which brings me to the next major storm in retailing — direct e-commerce. I continually hear from independent retailers that manufacturers should be driving business to their stores. The SnowSports Retailers’ trade group recently sent a newsletter to members suggesting that they put their foot down and insist that manufacturers let them participate in online sales opportunities. The implication was that we, the retailers, helped build their brands. They owe us that.
On a recent visit to the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show in Salt Lake City, I had the chance to hear the story from the other side of the fence. In conversations with manufacturer after manufacturer, I heard them voice concerns that, with eroding margins at retail, their best opportunity for revenue and profit growth may be in taking control of their online sales. Many companies whose margins have been dramatically reduced by downward retail price pressure and rising overseas manufacturing costs are realizing that they can triple or quadruple their gross margin if they can fulfill the orders directly online. Add to that the long-term value of being able to build a relationship with their end users and, of course, provide an online experience that pleases their customers, and these manufacturers are really left with little choice.
In order to help this transition, software service providers like Shopatron and Reshare
have emerged. They offer the retailer the chance to gain some incremental sales while offering the manufacturer the chance to optimize selling opportunities on their brand sites. It remains to be seen whether these are truly sustainable business models or simply a stopgap while reality settles in.
Value and the survival of the species
In the long run, consumers enjoy the convenience of shopping from the comfort of their living rooms while most retailers don’t provide enough value to justify the effort of seeking them out. And, I suspect that programs like Reshare that reward retailers for online sales through brand manufacturers’ sites is grasping at straws.
Unearthed full I predict that, over the next few years, we will see a dramatic shift of product brands stepping up to provide customers with increased choices in how to do business with them. If the independent retailer is going to survive this transition it will be because they learn to focus on expanding their value-added services, not because they’ve banded together to force manufacturers to pay them their dues. Retailers need to build their brands. They need to step up to an entirely new level of improved service, expanded choices and shopping convenience. They need to demonstrate to customers that it’s worth seeking them out at the mall and online.
Product and retail brands that do this very well will coexist peacefully in the online world. Those who refuse to change will become part of the Intenet’s natural selection process.
The brightest and strongest will continue to evolve and flourish while the rest will simply fade into the digital wasteland like dinosaurs sinking into the tar pits.
I think Darwin would have loved the internet. What do you think?
(Image via
)
Sustainability: That's what I'm talking about.
Soul Assassin film Lava Storm 
We spend a tremendous amount of time in business talking about global sustainability issues — like what practices do our firms put in place to save trees and use less oil? Unfortunately, I fear that most sustainability discussions are little more than lip service; more marketing hype than anything.
We worry, too — what about the sustainability of our own neighborhoods, our schools, our future work force, our health care services?
At Hanson Dodge Creative we’re trying to bring sustainability discussions closer to home and, as a business, get involved.
A Scanner Darkly dvdrip That’s why, as of yesterday, Hanson Dodge Creative stands proudly as one of the first businesses in Milwaukee to become a founding member of Common Ground, a powerful new force for community change in Southeastern Wisconsin. Common Ground is founded on the principles that: 1) if we don’t engage, change can’t happen, and 2) if we unite to demand change in our community, anything is possible.
Over 2,300 people from over 60 regional churches, non-profits and other organizations — representing the wonderful and diverse ethnic and faith groups that are Southeastern Wisconsin — came together yesterday at Milwaukee’s Midwest Airlines Center to launch the founding of Common Ground. Together we will work to tackle issues like job creation, health care for underserved populations, central city crime and skyrocketing unemployment, among other issues.
E-commerce Makes It To the Boardroom
According to Michael Lombardo, author of “the Leadership Machine,” “There is enormous complexity at the leadership level of organizations today.” Lombardo’s work suggests that in addition to setting goals, building strong teams and keeping an eye on cash, today’s CEOs and company presidents need to be more sensitive to diversity issues, learn to think differently and drive innovation, and they need to be more directly involved in managing the challenges of e-commerce.
E-commerce? Wow! Part of me thinks it’s about time. After all, Forrester Research has been projecting continued double-digit growth in e-commerce for years. They go as far as to say that, on average, e-business will represent 10-15% of the typical business’s revenue opportunity within the next three years.