They were the straws that finally broke this camel’s back. An accumulated build-up of 30 years of some really inane statements from underperforming shop-keepers – representing all different kinds and sizes of retail business – topped off by a couple of bleats I heard this week from retailers who are scratching their heads at their lack of forward progress at present.
My belief is that well run retail businesses are a lot like a solid family structure. But just like parents of today, there are far too many retail leaders who want to be friends with their kids rather than the parents the kids really need and the social cost of that approach is obvious to all of us.
Technology has changed everything. The recent coverage of Michael Jackson’s sad demise was a stark example. As his ambulance was on its way to UCLA Hospital in Los Angeles, TMZ had spread the news globally that he had suffered a heart attack and could not be resuscitated. It took less than 30 minutes for the word to reach television news in every country in the world.
The United Kingdom has roughly sixty two million inhabitants. The leading full service department store in the world – Selfridges – currently possesses just four stores and it’s website and direct / catalogue operations to service the segment of that sixty two million people who shop at full service department stores.
At the 2009 World Retail Congress in Barcelona there were many different uses of the current media and political view of the world economy as an excuse for poor retail business performance. What became patently obvious from delegates dialogue was the power of repetitive propaganda to emerge verbatim from their mouths as a mantra affecting their thought processes, behavior and communication.
I love the World Retail Congress. I love it enough to put my business on hold and dig deep into my own pockets to pay for myself to attend. I consider it an investment in thinking. A precious moment to take time out to sharpen my view on the world of retail. Mind you, like all these kinds of conferences, you have to work hard to get the most out of it. This year Barcelona was particularly hard. It started with the opening mood of the conference.
