Some ideas borrowed from Dido Harding, who heads up Sainsbury's Local, the c-store chain. Before talking to an FT journalist she ordered the windows of the store she was visiting to be polished because she wanted them to look perfect. Looking perfect should be the starting point for all shops. With 280 outlets, she needs to support two propositions: one for the neighbourhood shopper and one for the city centre food-to-go shopper. Local shopkeepers will be in the catchment area for one or the other. Check out her stores to see what the differences are. Within the neighbourhood proposition, Dido has three options for upmarket, mid-market and "more challenged" shopper needs. How does this work? Fresh and chilled food at the top? Chicken wings at the bottom? I don't know but it is simply a case of knowing your customers and getting your offer right. And always polish your windows...
“Twenty years ago I was driving boxes to the post office in my Chevy Blazer and dreaming of a forklift,” says Jeff Bezos in his most recent letter to shareholders. A blink later and he points out that the company has grown from 30,000 employees in 2010 to 230,000 now. But his ambition is the same. “We want to be a large company that’s also an invention machine. We want to combine the extraordinary customer-serving capabilities that are enabled by size with the speed of movement, nimbleness and risk-acceptance mentality that is normally associated with entrepreneurial start-ups.” Amazon is great at disruption because of its customers focus and the fact that the internet means it needs none (or very few) people between its warehouses and the shopper. The threat of Prime, its membership service, is the biggest challenge facing the UK retail market and the wholesale market by extension. It is both a direct threat and an indirect threat in that is inspiring countless numbers of othe...
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