July insights

“Imagine in two years time, you will walk into a retailer and there is an interactive wall. Instead of getting products off the hanger, you can see how different things might look on you. Then you send it to the dressing room or home or add to your wish list.” Deborah Sharkey, E-Bay in Australian Business Magazine, 16 June 2013. Times are changing at a rapid speed, this is already the norm at Kate Spade stores in New York (called touch screen store fronts). It has been a busy few weeks for me, I actually visited 8 countries in five weeks, hence I was not sure what day or time of day it was. I managed to be in Wales for the most perfect weeks weather. I led a New Vision workshop for retail farmers from the UK and Ireland. This was a great success and you can see a video of what some of the delegates thought of the session. The workshop was held at Bodnant next to one of my favourite gardens in the world, this gave me the chance to film under the famous Laburnum walkway. Let me go back to Deborah Sharkey comments whose quote I used at the start of this newsletter, in the same article she mentions that the successful retailer of the future will read the customer and know what are their likes and dislikes. They will provide “Personalised Offers” that will encourage the consumer into stores. I believe it is a “bricks and clicks” future, it is interesting to see a leading clicks retailer see an opportunity for “bricks” retailers. During the last month I also had the opportunity to have dinner with Gary Wilburn from HPW, Gary is one of the leading sustainable architects in the world that understands retailing. He has clients across the globe and he and his team are doing some impressive projects, I have asked him to provide some thoughts for the July newsletter, read his comments in Adopting a sustainable approach to retailing.