nickshanagher

Malcolm Gladwell is famous for his books explaining how the long tail works in e-retailing and that you need to spend 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything. His new book, David and Goliath, is about how we misunderstand the true meaning of advantage and disadvantage. His thesis goes to the heart of a major dilemma facing wholesalers, how to leverage their scale to help independent foodservice and retail businesses beat the multiples. My review: “David came running toward Goliath, powered by courage and faith. Goliath was blind to his approach – and then he was down, too big and slow and blurry-eyed to comprehend the way the tables had been turned. All these years, we’ve been telling these kinds of stories wrong. David and Goliath is about getting them right.” This is how Malcolm Gladwell ends his short, pacey and myth-busting introduction in his latest book. Gladwell is famous for his ability to capture ideas and tell compelling stories that illustrat...

Where do independent retail stores shine? Wholesalers know that their customers do well in troubled, lower income neighbourhoods but they don't tend to share this knowledge widely. Evidence of this is rarely published but some interesting numbers emerge in an FT article on up-market US grocer Whole Foods plans for a store in Englewood, a poor Chicago suburb. City analysts agonise at whether Whole Foods can go down market. But consultant Mari Gallagher shows the potential gap. Of the 87 stores in Englewood that accept food stamps, 85 are "liquor, dollar or convenience stores that specialise in candy and soda." A spokesman for Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel says it is investing $10m in subsidies for this Whole Foods store because some communities "have been ignored by companies that want to expand." There is plenty going on in this story for independent operators in poorer areas to think about: Are you close enough ...

“I have an idea for a new product but I don’t know how to build it,” Josh Kaufman writes on the first page of his book: TheFirst 20 Hours: How to learn anything fast . So do I and so probably do you. So why are we not doing it? “How much free time do you have each day after all your work and family obligations are complete?” asks Kaufman. “Do you feel like you’d need 36 or 48 hours in a day to finally sit down and learn something new?” In 2008 another US author Malcolm Gladwell wrote Outliers in which he argued that you needed 10,000 hours of skills training to become better than other people at something. You may notice that the England football team has just used the 10,000 hours idea as the basis of its skills work with young England footballers. So now you have a new barrier to not learning something new. “Not only do you have to make time for practice…but now you have to put in 10,000 hours.” Kaufman’s book, which will help any business owner looking to grow and develo...

How to grab attention in a busy world? Pay attention to what the world is focused on and share your ideas where they are likely to be found. Judy Cortstjens has a book to sell about how only 5 per cent of people who diet achieve success. I know nothing about it and you are welcome to investigate here if you are interested. How did I hear about it? Because she wrote a letter to the FT on a subject that I am interested in: how shoppers respond to promotions. Her thoughts however were in response to a John Kay article about an important idea: how competition actually works against consumers by encouraging misleading price offers. What Ms Cortstjens, who used to help advertise packaged goods, noted was: "I buy cherry tomatoes, family bottles of Diet Coke and seedless grapes every week, yet I have little idea of their prices per kilo or per litre. It is also beyond me to compare these prices across my regular stores. "Fortunately, in my case, this matters little as I h...

The headline caught my attention Underdog businesses are more likely to post fake Yelp reviews. The full article is a useful resource to explain how you might use social media to build your shop's reputation and business. Don't be tempted to cheat. More on www.betterretailing.com .

Online businesses don't pay local taxes, Sainsbury's boss Justin King argues in a big CityAM interview spread. Unlike the web retail businesses, Sainsbury's  "pay business rates at a local level" and "employ people locally" and "pay people locally" and "they spend their earnings locally". "If we are seeing a shift in consumer behaviour towards purchasing online rather than their local store then the government will have to address that the tax system is being usurped by a change in behaviour," he adds.  The point to notice here is that connection of Sainsbury's with "local shop". It is spin. But very effective spin. As any independent retailers who have talked to their MPs about competition from multiples will know, the grocers are very successful at projecting the "local" benefits that they will bring. Perhaps 10 years ago this was true. But supported by a better supply chain, independent...

I was passing a branch of Waitrose in London last week and as I glanced through the front door I saw this excellent floral display. How inviting it looked. How many independent retailers can match that? (Vim Odedra is one, having been at his Canvey Island Nisa Local.) But at least, you may say, people will know this is a multiple retailer and they may like a local shop. Not if you proceed to read the marketing on the shop’s windows, which I reproduce in full: “The first Waitrose branch in Gloucester road was opened in 1912. It was part of a small chain of specialist food shops founded eight years earlier by grocers David Taylor, Wallace Waite and Arthur Rose. “After Mr Taylor left the firm in 1906, the remaining two partners combined their surnames to produce the name Waitrose. “The original branch traded for 76 years and was thought of locally as Kensington's village shop. It ran a popular home delivery service and many customers called in every day. “Back in 1...