Retailwire.com prompted a discussion on what, if anything, should grocers and other stores be doing to accommodate the growth in stay-at-home dads?According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the recession is putting more men out of work than women, which has led to an increase of stay-at-home dads who are increasingly taking on the traditional women's roles of childcare, housework, school life, and shopping. Here's my contribution to the Dad wishlist: salespeople who don't look down their noses when asked a ("stupid") question Mom would never have dreamt of asking. (Also, considering this is the gender that apparently never…
Advertising Age recently carried an article titled "The Death of Customer Segmentation", by Michael Fassnacht. He questions the traditional marketing hypothesis that the better we segment consumers, the better we know what is relevant and the better we can market to them. Fassnacht argument is that: Segments are becoming more volatile [totally agree!] Consumers are never part of just one segment [fashion companies discovered that a few years ago, and began marketing to "purchase occasion segments" rather than plain-old consumer segments defined by demographic and static psychographic profiling], and Consumers are preferring to choose what information would be relevant and…
The Austin American-Statesman asks: Is a purpose-driven company more likely to profit? The idea is that, no matter what product or service you are selling, successful companies often have a deeper purpose beyond making a profit. It's a moot point or loaded question or just a load of [fuzzy-thinking], depending on your point of view. We're likely to get sucked into a debate about whether businesses should just focus on business (i.e. making money) or should they be governed by a "higher" purpose than that. Someone wise once wrote: we need to break away from the tyranny of "or." Having a…
By VISHAL KRISHNA Businessworld Issue Dated 14-20 April 2009 Kishore Biyani took on a huge debt to expand Pantaloon Retail very quickly. Now the slowdown has made his life difficult Rapid rollout of new stores has been Future Group founder and CEO Kishore Biyani’s major focus area. In the past two years, the country’s largest retailer has thrown open 7 million sq. ft of new shopping space across 24 formats in over 63 Indian cities, often at the rate of one store a day. The day BW met Biyani, 26 March, was another of those days. He was preparing to…
The recession is taking a toll on the business models of premium and luxury retailers. According to the Los Angeles Times, faced with sales declines at their full-price stores, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom are lavishing more dollars and devotion on their outlets which are performing better than their traditional stores. According to Robert Wallstrom, president of Off 5th, Saks Inc.'s outlet division, "These days, customers are saying they want a brand, customer service and a deal." Outlets may just be the lifeboat needed by some of the brands to get through the current downturn, with the mix…
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
