John’s Blog

If you look at the research coming out, it indicates that consumers are going to be spending less and looking for a discount. Put this together with the “fear” of crowds and social distancing practices and the result is fewer customers spending less money, not a formulae for success. What is retailer supposed to do?

Retailing has never changed so rapidly as it has in 2020.Prior to 2020 I was presenting “Ghost Town, Clone Town, Home Town” workshops for small communities around the world. The emphasis of the workshops was that there were three types of communities and that success meant you had to be a “Home Town” to engage

The key to retailing today is to provide an experience, for the whole family. If the children are happy, then their parents are happy. If you can get all age groups to want to linger longer then your average sale is bound to go up. Read the full article here

2017, I believe, will be looked on as the tipping year as far as the Amazon Effect is concerned. I came across businesses that were simply ignoring the power of online shopping and told me that it would not affect them. I have been told customers will not buy “x” online. I find this approach

The Customer Experience Impact Report is now 7 years old, but still has some interesting research. 40% of consumers switch stores because of a store having a greater customer service reputation 55% of those that switch, say greater customer service, not product or price, are the primary reason they changed retailers 66% say they spend

I am a great believer in the convergence and divergence theory and the food industry is really showing this in action. At one level with have 3D Food printers now moving into the restaurant scene. Food Ink are doing a world tour where guests can dine on food that has come out of a 3D

The “Waitrose Food and Drink Report” was released in early November. This indicated that 50% of consumers decided at lunchtime on what they would have for an evening meal and 1 in 10 made the decision just before the meal. Many consumers were claiming that this helped them reduce food waste at home. This trend

One of the challenges is keeping up with trends…a recent trends worth following are Fico Eataly World, Bologna, Italy. Many of you will know I am a great fan of this retailer, Eataly, they provide an excellent experience. Now they have created the Disney of Food theme parks in Bologna. This could be one of the

Launched in November 2017, this could be a game changer. BuzzFeed and GE have developed a smart cooking appliance that retails for $149 US. The cooker is Bluetooth enabled and the consumer downloads the Tasty mobile app and gets video downloads of recipes that sync with the cooker and auto adjust the temperature as the