John’s Blog

Over the Christmas break one of the books I read was “The Retail Revival” (ISBN 978-1-118-48979-6) by Doug Stephens a futurist in retailing from North America. The book is published by Wiley. The title is self explanatory, this book looks at the future of retailing in a changing world. It is upbeat, but points out that […]

There are so many trends taking place at present. One of them is Brand denial that is coming from the Millennial generation. They are promoting the fact that they are not hooked onto specific brands. Having said that 90% of iPhone users express loyalty to Apple, up from 73% in 2011. (ref: Morgan Stanley, March

One of our stops was at Sillico a small village of less than 100 people in the Apennines at the back of Lucca in Garfaganana, Italy. Like many small communities it needed to focus on an identity to survive, many small villages in this part of the world are literally dying as the young people

During this tour I have seen a blending of autumn displays blending into Christmas promotions and wonder if this will continue to be a trend. Pumpkins are an ideal product for getting the autumn feel across, at our hotel in Torino they were used as part of an autumn floral decoration.    

The main reason Linda and I wanted to be in Torino in late October was to visit “Salone Internationale del Gusto…Terra Madre” which is organised by the Slow Food Movement. This organisation has come a long way since Carlo Petrini objected to McDonalds setting up a store in Rome and felt something needed to be

Those who read my October newsletter will remember the Dutch retail food offer I mentioned that was being developed based on an Italian model. That retailer was Eataly. One of the top food retailers in Italy is Eataly, which is located in a old warehouse next to the Fiat factory complex in Torino close to

Research conducted in 2013 by Gallo wines indicated that 32% of growth in sales come from new products. It would be interesting to find if this relates to all products retailed, it does show the “power of new“.  

An associate of mine, Trevor Cochrane from Western Australia, brought to my attention an article that came online on the BBC in September. It looked at the future retail High Street and shows the changes we could be in for. Interesting to note they believed that small boutique retailers would still flourish as the consumer was

This is a message that I have been promoting of late and I have come across two new suppliers to the garden industry that were not part of the industry and hence did not know what the box looked like. As a result they invented unique products for the market. One supplier comes from Oregon

I do believe a study of what is happening in the UK supermarket industry is an indicator of what could happen in other retail sectors around the world. Twelve months ago Tesco’s was looked upon as the innovator in retailing, not only in the UK , but around the world. This company seems to be