Tag: Bonobos

Innovation

The future of retail will not be evenly distributed

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If you follow retail at all you’ve no doubt read multiple recent stories claiming that we are in the midst of a “retail apocalypse.” Like Chicken Little, these journalists and pundits see the sky falling on physical stores and a veritable tsunami of store closings, mall foreclosures and bankruptcies. I imagine they also expect a plague of locusts to descend upon us at any minute, as darkness covers the land.

Of course, this is all nonsense. The reports of traditional retail’s death are, to paraphrase Mark Twain, “greatly exaggerated”–as several of my esteemed colleagues have rightly pointed out. Barring an asteroid hitting Earth, the vast majority of retail will still be done in brick & mortar stores for a long, long time. Most of the major retail brands we know and love will remain household names. Hundred of regional malls will not only survive but continue to do quite well, thank you.

While the disaster scenarios are fake news, one can’t be too sanguine either. Yet, at the other end of the spectrum, we now have an emerging cadre of apocalypse deniers, who counter the claims of the alarmists with their own equally false narrative. Let’s take a look at their most common arguments.

Retail is still growing. This is true, but very misleading. First, the tepid growth in physical retail is not keeping pace with inflation, contributing to a profit squeeze for most players. Second, the main thing that nudges the number into the positive is the concentrated out-sized growth in a few categories, most notably off-price and dollar stores. So the growth in retail is good for a few–and pretty much sucks for everyone else.

Overbuilding of stores is causing a one-time correction. I’d rate this one “true-ish.” The US has been over-stored and over-malled for more than a decade and eventually, the bubble had to burst. But the rationalization and consolidation of commercial real estate go beyond a mere correction, however deep. We are witnessing a fundamental re-structuring of both the number of retail locations and the size and configuration of those boxes. Certainly, a big whack to the stores counts of flagging retailers was (and remains) overdue. And I do expect that the pace of store closings will subside substantially after the first quarter of next year. But anyone who doesn’t see the profound shift is missing the big picture.

Besides lots of new stores are opening. Yes, and this is one of the reasons that physical retail is far from extinct. But–and it’s a big but–while thousands of new stores are opening, they are, almost across the board, much smaller footprints than the stores being shuttered AND they are typically located in very different types of real estate. Hundreds of TJ Maxx and Dollar General stores don’t come close to offsetting the impact of hundreds of Sears, J.C. Penney and Macy’s closings. And while the store openings of  “disruptors” like Bonobos and Warby Parker get a lot of press, not only are their stores tiny, they are very likely to slow their pace substantially unless they can begin to demonstrate profitability.

Malls and retailers are re-inventing themselves with an emphasis on experience. Without question, the most successful malls are reformatting, adding restaurants, theaters, hot specialty formats and other experiential elements to differentiate themselves and drive foot traffic. The problem is bulldozing a mall anchor and/or replacing failed retail tenants with a steak house, juice bar or art show may be smart business for the developer, but it doesn’t necessarily help the retailers that are struggling. As far as retailers themselves, yes, a few are investing in experiential improvements, but for every cool Nike or Apple store there are dozens of retailers that haven’t invested a bit in innovation (or have limited themselves to some gimmicky shiny object that has an immaterial impact on customer relevancy).

The issue is that the future of retail will not be evenly distributed. Far from it.

Even a small shift of spending online (or failure to maintain real growth) can cause a great deleveraging of physical store economics. The closing (or massive re-purposing) of lower quality malls will be highly disruptive to particular major tenants. Online is growing disproportionately, affecting certain categories far more than others. Customers’ continued willingness to trade down and shop for discounts puts greater pressure on retailers with weaker value propositions and poor cost positions. And on and on.

Apocalypse? No.

But the suggestion that most retailers are not seeing their world’s rocked mightily is both misguided and dangerous. Similarly, the blanket notion that the sky is falling on everyone is equally wrong-headed.

Yet the harsh reality is that few retailers will escape unscathed from the seismic changes affecting the industry. Indeed we stand at a precipice. Without radical change and heretofore unseen levels of innovation, many major players are in for a world of hurt.

The clock is ticking. I’d hurry if I were you.

william_ford_gibson

A version of this story recently appeared at Forbes, where I am a retail contributor. You can check out more of my posts and follow me here.  

Digital · e-commerce

Walmart’s E-commerce Strategy: Pure Genius Or Venture Capitalist Bailout Fund?

stevenpdennis3 Comments

Some believe Walmart should be pilloried for its laggard status in e-commerce. Many of these same folks are now cheering the company’s decision to put all e-commerce under internet wunderkind Mark Lore, as well as its new aggressive strategy to acquire online brands (Jet, ModCloth, ShoeBuy, MooseJaw and–apparently any minute–Bonobos). At last, they say, the company is serious about taking on Amazon.

The contrarian view is that Walmart was right to go slow in online shopping because of how hard it is to make money, and that encouraging too much volume to shift from physical to digital channels would de-leverage brick & mortar store economics unnecessarily. Moreover, spending billions to acquire brands that seem to have little prospect of ever being cash positive may appease Wall Street, but it is throwing good money after bad. More than a few folks have also intimated that Walmart is mostly bidding against itself in these deals as the “smart money” now sees how crazy many so-called digitally-native brand valuations have become.

I tend to side with the latter camp. And, full disclosure, I’ve never understood how Jet.com could ever make any real money. I’ve also been on record for some time in my view that much of e-commerce is profit proof and that most digitally-native brands will never turn profitable. Of course, the jury is still out on most of this, but the collapse of the flash-sales market and recent big write-downs of some high-fliers should give investors pause and encourage them to see past the hype and to dig deeper.

Either way, there are a few important things to consider as Walmart’s strategy unfolds:

  • Shopping behavior is morphing dramatically. While e-commerce remains small to the total, it is growing much faster than physical store shopping. More importantly, most shopping trips start online. Any retailer that fails to have a strong digital presence and does not offer a well integrated shopping experience will be at a distinct competitive disadvantage. Walmart, like every other retailer, needs to respond to this trend aggressively even if the marginal economics aren’t always so favorable.
  • A digital-first mindset is critical. Here is where most “traditional’ brands get stuck. When a culture is rooted in the old way of doing business and holds on to product-centric thinking and siloed organizational structures, much needed innovation is thwarted and vast numbers of opportunities are missed. Arguably, the greatest value from Walmart’s new acquisition strategy is that they are injecting a new mindset into the organization and jump-starting a cultural transformation that can pay vast dividends.
  • Demographics are destiny. The core Walmart model is rapidly maturing. Walmart has never done well with more affluent consumers and they are likely not doing particularly well with acquiring increasingly important Millennial customers. One way or another, to sustain growth Walmart needs to figure this out and scale it quickly.
  • Organic growth is hard and time is not our friend. Most large companies struggle to move the needle on growth in any material way through their own internal efforts. If anything, the pace of change is accelerating. Clearly, a smart acquisition strategy is one way to address both of these challenges.
  • E-commerce valuations are mostly irrational. I have consulted to multiple investment firms and conducted due diligence on quite a few e-commerce deals–including one of the brands that Walmart acquired. In every case the prices that were being discussed at the time either proved to be ridiculously high (as evidenced by subsequent write-downs) or the company could not present a compelling roadmap to profitability. Clearly there are, and will continue to be, exceptions. But irrationality does not last forever. Bubbles eventually burst.

As skeptical as I am, Walmart needs to do something big and bold. Minimally, their culture will get shaken up, likely in a very good way. Managing a portfolio of innovative brands should give them plenty of useful learning. And, in the scheme of things, a poor ROI on a few billions dollars will hardly bring them to their knees.

Yet mostly I am struck by the words of a venture capitalist who has been struggling mightily with how he was going to salvage a multi-million dollar investment in a “disruptive” online brand that has garnered gobs of good PR but is burning through cash with no end in sight.

As he reflected on Walmart’s most recently announced acquisition he told me this: “Now I wake up every day and thank God for companies like Walmart.”

A version of this story recently appeared at Forbes, where I am a retail contributor. You can check out more of my posts and follow me here.  

Digital · e-commerce · Omni-channel

An inconvenient truth about e-commerce: It’s largely unprofitable

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The disruptive nature of e-commerce is undeniable. Entirely new business models are revolutionizing the way we buy. The transformative transparency created by all things digital has revolutionized product access, redefined convenience and lowered prices across a wide spectrum of merchandise and service categories. The radical shift of spending from brick & mortar stores to online shopping is causing a massive upheaval in retailers’ physical footprint, which looks to continue unabated.

But the inconvenient (and oft overlooked) truth is that much of e-commerce remains unprofitable–in many cases wildly so–and many corporate and venture capital investments have no prospect of earning a risk-adjusted ROI.

While it was once thought that the economics of selling online were vastly superior to operating physical stores, most brands–start-ups and established retailers alike–are learning that the cost of building a new brand, acquiring customers and fulfilling orders (particularly if product returns are high) make a huge percentage of e-commerce transactions fundamentally profit proof. Slowly but surely the bloom is coming off the rose.

Despite the hype–and a whole lot of VC funding–it’s increasingly clear that most of pure-play retail is dying, as L2’s Scott Galloway lays out better than I can. We have already seen the implosion of the flash-sales sector and the collapsing valuations of once high-flying brands like Trunk Club and One King’s Lane. Just the other day Walmart announced it was acquiring ModCloth, reportedly for less than the cumulative VC investment. A broader correction appears to be on the horizon and I suspect we will see a number of high-profile, digitally native brands get bought out at similarly discounted prices. And, ironically, we will continue to witness a doubling down of efforts by many of these same brands to expand their physical footprints, some of which is certain to end badly.

The challenges for traditional retailers and their “omni-channel” efforts are even more vexing. Walmart, Pier 1, H&M and Michaels are among the many retailers that have been criticized for their slowness to embrace digital shopping. Yet I suspect their seemingly lackadaisical approach owes more to their understanding of e-commerce’s pesky little profitability problem than corporate malfeasance. Alas, more and more retailers are increasing their investment in online shopping and cross-channel integration only to experience a migration of sales from the store channel to e-commerce, frequently at lower profit margins. Moreover, this shift away from brick & mortar sales is causing these same retailers to shutter stores, with no prospect of picking up that volume online. The risk of a downward spiral cannot be ignored.

Given the trajectory we are on it’s inevitable that more rational behavior will creep back into the market. But with Amazon’s willingness to lose money to grow share and investor pressure on traditional retailers to “rationalize” their store fleets, I fear it will take several years for the dust to truly settle.

In the meantime, e-commerce continues to be a boon for consumers and a decidedly mixed bag for investors.

A version of this story appeared at Forbes, where I am a retail contributor. You can check out more of my posts here.

 

Being Remarkable · Digital · Omni-channel · Personalization · Retail

The fault in our stores

stevenpdennisLeave a comment

Last week Target became the latest retailer to report weak earnings and shrinking physical store sales. They certainly won’t be the last.

As more retail brands disappoint on both the top and bottom lines–and announce scores of store closings–many may conclude that brick-and-mortar retail is going they way of the horse-drawn carriage. Unfortunately this ignores the fact that roughly 90% of all retail is still done in actual stores. It doesn’t recognize that many retailers–from upstarts like Warby Parker and Bonobos, to established brands such as TJMaxx and Dollar General–are opening hundreds of new locations. It also fails to acknowledge the many important benefits of in-store shopping and that study after study shows that most consumers still prefer shopping in a store (including millennials!)

Brick-and-mortar retail is very different, but not dead. Still, most retailers will, regardless of any actions they take, continue to cede share to digital channels, whether it’s their own or those of disruptive competitors. To make the best of a challenging situation, retailers need a laser-like focus on increasing their piece of a shrinking pie, while optimizing their remaining investment in physical locations. And here we must deal with the reality that aside from the inevitable forces shaping retail’s future, there are many addressable faults in retailers’ stores. Here are a few of the most pervasive issues.

The Sea Of Sameness

Traditionalists often opine that it all about product, but that’s just silly. Experiences and overall solutions often trump simply offering the best sweater or coffee maker. Nevertheless, too many stores are drowning in a sea of sameness–in product, presentation and experience. The redundancy in assortments is readily apparent from any stroll through most malls. The racks, tables and signage employed by most retailers are largely indistinguishable from each other. And when was the last time there was anything memorable about the service you received from a sales associate at any of these struggling retailers?

One Brand, Many Channels

Too many stores still operate as independent entities, rather than an integral piece of a one brand, many channels customer strategy. Most customer journeys that result in a physical store visit start online. Many customers research in store only to consummate the transaction in a digital channel. The lines between digital and physical channels are increasingly blurred, often distinctions without a difference. Silos belong on farms.

Speed Bumps On The Way To Purchase

How often is the product we wish to buy out of stock? How difficult is it to find a store associate when we are ready to checkout? Can I order online and pick up in a store? If a store doesn’t have my size or the color I want can I easily get it shipped to my home quick and for free? Most of the struggling retailers have obvious and long-standing friction points in their customer experience. When in doubt about where to prioritize operational efforts, smoothing out the speed bumps is usually a decent place to start.

Where’s The Wow?

As Amazon makes it easier and easier to buy just about anything from them, retailers must give their customers a tangible reason to traffic their stores and whip out their wallets once there. Good enough no longer is. Brands must dig deep to provide something truly scarce, relevant and remarkable. Much of the hype around in-store innovations is just that. For example, Neiman Marcus’ Memory Mirrors are cool, but any notion that they will transform traffic patterns, conversion rates or average ticket size on a grander scale is fantasy. Much of what is being tested is necessary, but hardly sufficient. The brands that are gaining share (and, by the way, opening stores) have transformed the entire customer experience, not merely taken a piecemeal approach to innovation.

Treat Different Customers Differently

In an era where there was relative scarcity of product, shopping channels and information, one-size-fits all strategies worked. But now the customer is clearly in charge, and he or she can often tailor their experience to their particular wants and needs. Retailers need to employ advanced analytical techniques and other technologies to make marketing and the overall customer experience much more personalized, and to allow for greater and greater customization. More and more art and intuition are giving way to science and precision.

Physical retail is losing share to e-commerce at the rate of about 110 basis points per year. While that is not terribly significant in the aggregate, this erosion will not be evenly distributed and the deleveraging of physical store economics will prove devastating to many slow to react retailers. This seemingly inexorable shift is causing many retailers to reflexively throw up their hands and choose to disinvest in physical retail. The result, as we’ve seen in spades, is that many stores are becoming boring warehouses of only the bestselling, most average product, presented in stale environments with nary a sales associate in sight.

The fault in our stores are legion. But adopting an attitude that stores are fundamentally problems to be tolerated–or eliminated–rather than assets to be leveraged and improved, makes the outcome inevitable and will, I fear, eventually seal the fate of many once great retailers.

PurpleCow

A version of this story appeared at Forbes, where I am a retail contributor. You can check out more of my posts here.

Customer experience · Digital · Omni-channel · Retail

Pure play e-commerce’s fantastic (and unsustainable) consumer wealth transfer

stevenpdennis4 Comments

“Retail disruption” has been a popular buzz phrase for several years now. In fact, most of the retail brands that have received out-sized mentions in the business press–and commanded the adoring attention of industry conference attendees–for the past 5 years or so are somehow or other leveraging digital innovation to fundamentally re-work the consumer experience, gobble up market share and attract truckloads of venture capital.

Amidst this transformative reshaping of the retail landscape three things are clear:

  • Consumers have benefitted substantially from the introduction of new business models through more convenience, greater product access and lower prices.
  • This profound shift in the consumer value equation has put enormous pressure on industry incumbents that lack either the cost structure or agility to respond effectively.
  • A dramatic rationalization is gaining momentum as traditional players are being forced out of business or pressured to close and or shrink the foot-print of their stores, make huge investments in “omni-channel” capabilities and lower costs across the board.

Unfortunately what is lost in tales of this evolution is that most of the “disruptive” pure-play e-commerce brands have completely unsustainable business models and mostly what is happening is that venture capitalists (and other investors) are funding a transfer of wealth to the consuming public. So, on behalf of my fellow consumers, thanks venture capitalists.

Alas, this is unlikely to last much longer.

While many people think digital retail is some sort of license to print money, it’s becoming clear that e-commerce is virtually profit proof in categories with low transaction values, owing primarily to the substantial supply chains costs (particularly when brands offer free shipping and returns). Moreover, while it can be relatively easy and cheap to build an initial following online through public relations,  social media and other forms of peer-to-peer marketing, scaling an e-commerce only brand turns out to be extremely costly. Many of the buzziest pure-plays are now investing heavily in expensive branding efforts (as well as opening their own stores) in the hopes that size engenders profitability. Accordingly, initial expectations of break-evens are now being pushed out several years.

As the ROI of these efforts starts to come into sharper relief, my bet is many funding sources will lose their patience.

I’ve been an on-the-record skeptic for several years now, going back to when I called into question the sustainability of the flash-sales market well before the meltdown. More recently, I’ve been pointing out E-commerce’s pesky little profitability problem. So I’m not suprised that recent valuations of several once high flying players have collapsed. And more folks are starting to take notice. Professional smart guy (and noted wise ass) Scott Galloway agrees and has been on the “pure play doesn’t work” train for some time. Expect more to join us.

To be clear, a few digital-first brands will likely emerge as sustainable value creators. Brands with high enough average order values to overcome high delivery costs are better positioned (though Net-a-porter’s inability to make money after all these years underscores how difficult this is). Those that deftly merge online and offline experiences–think Warby Parker and Bonobos–also improve the odds (though, side-note, don’t be misled by the high productivity of their initial locations and comparisons to other brands’ productivity stats. We need to understand the four-wall profitability of these new stores and make comparisons to traditional retailers averages in like locations, not overall chain averages).

Mostly, however, we need to be careful to declare a brand successful without defining what we mean by success. If we define success as having grown revenues quickly and having been able to raise gobs of capital from investors to enable subsidizing consumers on a massive scale, than clearly Amazon and dozens of others are wildly successful. If we define success as creating enormous pricing pressure and raising the cost of doing business so as to push traditional players into a double-bind than, yes, mission accomplished.

But if we determine success as having demonstrated the ability to deliver a new and better customer experience AND earn a risk appropriate return on capital than I’m not sure any pure-play E-commerce player of any size is yet successful.

I will go on the record as saying far more pure plays will go bust in the next three years (or get sold at valuations well below their most recent funding) than will emerge as truly successful.

Until then, enjoy the low prices and the free shipping, and if you get some time, send the nice folks funding Jet.com and others a sincere and heartfelt “thank you” note.

 

 

 

 

 

Being Remarkable · Branding · Digital

Creating meaning at scale

stevenpdennisLeave a comment

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a whole lot of bifurcation going on. And in many markets, the middle is all but collapsing.

bridges_down_01

At one end are the Walmart’s, the Home Depot’s, the Amazon’s–the low price, vast assortment guys. Their pitch is easy to understand. We have just about everything you could possibly want, virtually anytime you want it, at the low, low price. Operationally this is incredibly difficult to scale. But from the customer’s perspective, it couldn’t be more simple to grasp. Dominance and value (defined by price) creates meaning.

At the other end of the spectrum are the brands built around market niches, product differentiation and the somewhat intangible “brand personality.” What defines meaningfulness here is built on deep customer insight, emotional connection and, more and more, the ability to treat different customers differently.

Historically, luxury brands thrived by merchandising exclusive products in spectacular settings delivered face-to-face by well-trained sales associates. To the extent companies could replicate this model as they added stores, they could continue to create meaning and deliver it at scale. Yet, as all things digital become increasingly important, the notion of what constitutes a meaningful one-to-one “luxury” relationship is being challenged.

The best specialty stores have succeeded by curating merchandise for a particular “lifestyle” and presenting it in a distinctive environment that reinforced a unique brand image. These companies created a business model that was simple to replicate and led to the ubiquity of many of these brands in affluent malls and upscale shopping areas of most major cities. Now, with product choice and availability exploding and new micro-niche brands emerging online, the concept of “specialty” is being redefined.

The hyper-growth, venture-backed “pure-play” brands that have launched over the past few years–think Gilt, Bonobos, Warby Parker–found it comparatively easy to scale at first. They exploited many of the advantages of a direct-to-consumer model and employed low-cost acquisition techniques to build an initial base of customers–what I like to call the obsessive core.

But it turns out that creating meaning at the scale that will lead to profitability isn’t so easy (or economically viable). Too many newer customers of these high-flying brands have started to equate meaning with discounts. Others, it turns out rather predictably, need the meaning that comes from a physical presence to derive theirs. Many see this hybrid-model as an exciting new area of growth. Others see it as clear evidence that most e-commerce only brands are finding it very difficult to deliver meaning at scale.

In an anything, anytime, anywhere, anyway world, it’s getting harder and harder to break through the clutter, to win the battle for share of attention, to create the all essential meaning that matters for customers.

If you seem to be stuck in a sea of sameness, selling average products to average people, relentlessly promoting just to stay even, it’s time to get off the bridge. The collapse is near.

If your customer is choosing you mostly on price, you had better be the low-cost provider. Otherwise you will lose the inevitable race to the bottom.

If you believe you have the ability to be meaningful to a well-defined set of customers who choose you over the competition for specific, sustainable reasons, good on you.

Just remember, as Bernadette reminds us, it’s not so easy to create meaning at scale, particularly if you need that scale to stay in business.

Being Remarkable · Customer Growth Strategy · Omni-channel · Personalization

Omni-channel: Myths, distortions and, yeah, that’s just silly

stevenpdennis3 Comments

Let me be clear: I’m pretty into all things omni-channel. Get me started talking about creating a single view of the customer, silo-busting, frictionless commerce, creating a seamless experience, etc. you might want to order a pizza. We could be here for a while.

I was named the VP of Multi-channel Integration at Sears way back in 1999. I led multi-channel initiatives and enterprise customer analytics at the Neiman Marcus Group from 2004-2008. I’ve written dozens of related posts and given numerous speeches on the topic during the last few years. I’m a believer.

Yet much of what passes as inspired strategy on the part of brands extolling their new-found “omni-ness” is, well, let’s just say it ranges between being disingenuous and outright foolhardy. And then there are the legions of analysts, pundits, consultants and software providers peddling a guaranteed path to customer-centricity nirvana. Much is hype. Some is just plain dumb. Here’s an attempt to move toward more “truthiness.”

  1. You don’t really mean “omni.” “Omni-channel” means “all” or “every” and typically refers to both channels for communications and for transactions. Do you really intend to sell on cruise ships? In airports? How about door-to-door sales? Are you going to do infomercials? I didn’t think so. What you really mean is expanding your marketing and sales channels to those essential for the acquisition, growth and retention of key consumer segments–and being really good at doing it. A rush to invest in omni-channel without an actionable segmentation–and without understanding which levers are really the most important to hone in on–is a license to lose money and waste precious time.
  2. Omni-channel customers are not your best customers. Chances are it’s the other way around. And causality matters. A lot. The customers that already trust your brand are often the early adopters of new media and new places to buy. There is a dangerous false narrative that suggests that simply by becoming omni-channel a world of new sales will open to you. As Kevin Hillstrom has pointed out, many companies that have gone omni-channel have failed to improve their business. This is usually because the brand’s core is weak and merely adding more places to research and buy does not fix the underlying issues (see Sears). The best multi-channel strategies are rooted in a deep understanding of current customer behavior–and prioritize opportunities to stem defection, address new customer acquisition barriers and build add-on sales. A sensible growth strategy has clear building blocks, not a mad rush into e-commerce or rolling-out the next bright and shiny mobile or social media application.
  3. You say you want a revolution. Yet, organizational and data silos abound. Yet, analysis of most promotions still have a single channel focus. Yet, much of your marketing remains mass, rather than personalized. The underlying move to omni-channel is about customer-centricity. As long as you hold on to traditional metrics, silo-ed organizational structures and rely on fragmented data and batch, blast and hope marketing programs, not much is really changing.
  4. Confusing necessary with sufficient. To be sure, more and more customers are becoming cross-channel shoppers and, particularly with the rapid growth of mobile devices, the distinction between e-commerce and physical retail is blurring. Certain “omni” capabilities like order online, pick up in the store are becoming base expectations. It’s hard to imagine that many retailers will survive, much less thrive, without robust integration capabilities and compelling web and mobile offerings. But far too many brands think that by adding these newish features they are doing enough. They’re not. Many of these capabilities are becoming table-stakes. In other cases, they are expensive and complicated “nice to have’s.” What you need to do to keep pace is not the same as what you need to do to become differentiated and remarkable. Confuse this at your own peril.
  5. New hybrid-models are genius. The press is eating up Warby Parker’s, Bonobos and many other e-tailers move into physical locations and raving about their productivity numbers. First, this isn’t new (see Williams-Sonoma). Second, the move into actual stores had to happen. Over 3 year ago I was sitting with the CEO of one of these companies and asked him when they would think about opening stores. He answered: “we will never have physical stores.” Now he’s on CNBC singing their praises. Did I have the gift of prophecy? Of course not; the move was totally foreseeable given the known economics and limitations of pure-play e-commerce. Lastly, what would be remarkable about these hybrid-models’ sale productivity in their initial forays into the physical realm is if they did NOT do huge numbers. Bear in mind, they have opened stores in trade areas where they already have a density of customers and are in very small locations. Comparing their initial results to more mature specialty stores is silly. Comparing them to say, the top 2 or 3 bays of Neiman Marcus’ beauty counters in the Beverly Hills, Bal Harbour and Michigan Avenue stores is more apt (hint: it would be well over $3,000/sf). I am a repeat customer of the two brands I mentioned and believe they have bright futures. But let’s be careful of false positives. There is much more of this story to play out.

Omni-channel is a nice catch phrase, and there can be no question that we are witnessing an incredible transformation in how consumers shop and how brands need to do business. The status quo is not an option, but neither is a blind rush into all things “omni.”

The future of omni-channel will not be evenly distributed. The path you choose is critical.

Customer-centric · Me-tail · Multi-channel · Omni-channel

Why go to the store?

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There are some who think that most brick & mortar stores are eventually going away and that e-commerce can have a compound annual growth rate of 15% until the end of time. To which I answer, “don’t be silly” and “of course not.”

There are many powerful reasons for physical retail locations to exist. In fact, we are already witnessing the limits of pure-play models as online only players are opening more traditional store-fronts (Warby Parker, Bonobos, Amazon and many others). Well established direct-to-consumer brands like LL Bean are doubling down on a commitment to retail store expansion. And even with the explosion of online shopping, close to 95% of transactions still take place in a traditional store.

When you take out products that can be delivered digitally (books, movies, games and the like) in most cases, for most consumers, there is value in being able to go see, try on, or touch the actual product. Having a live conversation with a well-trained sales associate can be extremely helpful. Physical stores offer a social experience that can’t be readily duplicated via the web or smart phone. And, typically, you can take the product with you, rather than having to wait.

Having said this, digitally enabled business models ARE disrupting every category and chipping away at many historical advantages of bricks & mortar. Websites often have better information than in-store sales people. Assortments can be much wider and prices are often sharper. Next day delivery may be either good enough or simply more convenient than having to drive to a mall and deal with the crowds. And we can be certain that future innovation will further eat away at traditional store advantages.

The fact is, in most instances, the future winners will be retailers that blend digital and physical offerings. They will deeply understand customers wants and desires and build a tightly integrated, highly flexible hybrid model rooted in treating different customers differently. That means a transformation, but not the elimination, of physical stores.

By contrast, the losers will be those that blindly adopt all things omni-channel.

The losers will be those traditional retailers that continue to run a bolted on and siloed e-commerce channel.

The losers will be those who fail to see the interplay between digital and physical stores and close too many doors–and turn the remaining ones into boring museums of best-sellers and “me too” products.

The losers will be those who hold on to one-size-fits-all customer and marketing strategies.

Consumers will continue going to stores for many, many years to come. Whether they will come to your store is a different question.

Uncategorized

When the land grab ends

stevenpdennis1 Comment

There is no question that e-commerce has transformed the way virtually everyone shops today. And to say that digital marketing and online shopping has been disruptive would be an understatement.

Much of retail’s market value created over the past decade has been driven by Amazon and other pure-play brands. Dozens of once powerful retail names have been hammered or completely felled by the advent of e-commerce. Many are now closing stores and desperately seeking to re-invent themselves to stay relevant or merely survive.

The digital darlings have a huge advantage over traditional retailers. As they seek to scale their claimed game changing model and to build a brand, profitability is not only a secondary consideration it is often eschewed entirely. For most, there is a land grab mentality, a semi-blind quest to acquire customers at almost any cost for fear that a more measured approach will allow new entrants to emerge or established competitors to respond more effectively–or, more cynically, will cause investors to wise up to the limitations of the underlying business model.

The number of times investors have been seduced into a growth at any cost scenario that stalls are beginning to mount. Many piled into flash-sale deals when the shake-out in that sector was totally foreseeable. Fab.com’s recent collapse won’t be only major e-tail meltdown. A shake-out is starting to happen as it’s becoming more and more clear that too many customers are being acquired at costs well above their potential life-time value. And while many are lauding the move of Warby Parker, Bonobos and others into physical stores, this evolution is borne less of brilliant insight and more of the realization that their land grab marketing efforts were rapidly losing altitude and new customer acquisition strategies were needed to maintain expected growth.

This is not to say that some of the highly valued and increasingly respected e-commerce brands don’t deserve our accolades and won’t turn out to be fantastic investments. But three things need to kept in mind as we move forward:

  1. Virtually no e-commerce only retail brands of any size have consistently made any money, including Amazon
  2. Most digital retailers will need a physical store presence to optimize their brand potential
  3. It’s comparatively easy to cost effectively acquire and retain early adopters in a digital-only model. It’s the marginal cost vs. the lifetime value of the next tranche of customers that provides real insight into the ultimate validity of the concept.

Adopting a land grab mentality is not inherently bad. In some situations it clearly is warranted. The problem comes when we don’t have a clear view of how far to push it and what we’re left with when it ends.

 

 

Digital

E-commerce’s pesky little profitability problem

stevenpdennis6 Comments

Online-only retailers have attracted huge amounts of investment capital during the past decade. Flash-sales sites such as Gilt and RueLaLa have collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Rather small, but rapidly growing, specialty players like Bonobo’s, Warby Parker, One Kings Lane and Birchbox have all recently raised tens of millions of dollars and now have valuations approaching $1 billion or more. Net-a-porter, perhaps the strongest global fashion e-tailer, was purchased by luxury powerhouse Richemont for more than $500 million in 2010 and is reportedly being shopped for a multi-billion dollar price tag.

And on and on.

The pesky little problem–the seriously nagging and increasingly pressing issue, is that the vast majority of even the most established players don’t make any money and few have any prospect of doing so any time soon.

The bulls say that all trends point to the eventual dominance of e-commerce and that these brands must invest heavily in critical infra-structure, acquiring new customers and building their brands. Today’s heavy losses will yield category dominance and ungodly riches just a few years down the road. While I’m fairly certain that this will be true for a handful of today’s industry darlings, for most it’s likely to end badly.

Aside from consumer preference shifting toward online shopping, e-commerce seems to have important economic advantages, most notably avoidance of capital investment in physical real estate. In addition, by centralizing inventory in a few locations–or having a “buy it only when you sell it” model–the potential to streamline logistics costs and generate very high inventory productivity is significant. Digital-only marketing strategies also create the opportunity to serve customers more cost effectively than traditional sales and marketing tactics.

But here’s where reality starts to set in and why many e-commerce only models are profit-proof at any kind of reasonable scale.

While fixed costs are lower for pure-plays, marginal costs can be very high. Most hyper-growth companies find it initially fairly easy and cost-effective to acquire their “best fit”and most loyal customers. Consumers that are prone to gravitate to a disruptive business model often “get it” quickly and are great at spreading the word. They tend to return fewer items and aren’t as likely to need a deep discount to spur a purchase.

Unfortunately, growing beyond what I call the obsessive core, tends to be much more expensive and difficult. Acquisition costs rise dramatically. Big discounts are needed to drive conversion. Return rates are much higher. Assortments need to expand to create greater interest. Cost and complexity follows. Many of the new customers that contribute to higher sales, never have the potential to be profitable.

In fact, one of the reasons we are seeing many of these high growth brands now aggressively investing in physical stores is that they are finding it too difficult and expensive to acquire and serve new customers purely online.

So while it’s true that fixed costs are favorable in a pure-play model, it’s the dynamics of marginal profitability (and the associated variable costs) that ultimately determine the long-term viability of an e-commerce brand. And this will prove to be the Achilles Heel for many of today’s highly valued players.

It’s easy to extol the wonderful customer service delivered by Zappos, the incredible marketing and design from Bonobos or the overall awesomeness of Amazon. But lest we forget, it’s not that hard to be awesome if you aren’t required to make any money. It’s one thing to love these brands for the experience they deliver (which I do). It’s an entirely different thing to earn a return for the risk you are taking as an investor.

So far, the only winners from the advent and rapid growth of pure-play online shopping have been consumers and a small group of investors and entrepreneurs lucky enough to cash out at the right time.

Certainly Amazon could be profitable tomorrow if they wanted to (well, more accurately, if they could deal with a collapsing multiple). And a few e-commerce only companies ARE building strong brands and appeal to enough target consumers to eventually make real money. For this short list it is, in fact, just a matter of time.

But for the rest, don’t believe the hype. And proceed with caution.