Globally the retail landscape is undergoing a dramatic restructuring and shake out due to familiar underlying drivers which many commentators are pronouncing a crisis:

• Online has hit critical mass substituting traditional propositions and changing price, range and service expectations…
• …which combined with the protracted economic downturn has changed consumer attitudes to shopping and consumption behaviour
• Destination malls and retail parks have a maturing role in the retail landscape…
• …with the traditional high street retail offer perceived as in decline…
• …driving a vicious circle of pocketed declines in catchment footfall and sales density with proliferation of voids, notably in second tier locations

…however, the smart money is seeing opportunity:

• Windfall share from collapse of a rival is an opportunity to adapt and grow
• Development of new propositions for Consumer 2.0
• Multi-channel sophistication is yielding powerful consumer insights, loyalty opportunities, product optimisation and cost savings
• Unique retail space opportunities and commercially attractive deals
• Race to uncover location insights from the phased census data releases

Such evolving market places, distribution channels, competitive disruption, demanding consumers and rapid trending require propositions to move with the times to retain competitive advantage. In addition to our retail location strategy work, we work with retailers on a range of challenges across all points of interaction with markets and consumers to maximise long-term profit density from both digital and physical real estate:

Digital:

• Digital target market identification
• Online channel launch
• International online rollout
• Multi-channel to omni-channel integration (online, mobile, social, physical)
• Fundamental economics - cost of acquisition vs lifetime value
• Delivering acquisition / retention / conversion
• Online range architecture design (categories, pricing, SKUs, options, colourways, sizes etc)
• Big data analytics – shopping habits, conversions, drop-outs, ranging economics, returns patterns, social interactions etc
• Digital real estate optimisation – driving profit per pixel
• Marketing ROI from integrated touchpoints (including social), technologies, venues, channels, times etc
• Digital fulfilment strategies
• Online / physical interaction and optimisation

Physical:

• Store segmentation to catchment demand dynamics and typologies (leveraging geo-spatial demand databases)
• In-store proposition design (market strategy, target customer needs, format, layout, experience, mission-orientation etc)
• In-store range architecture design (categories, pricing, SKUs, options, colourways, sizes etc)
• Store-specific grading and ranging allocation strategy
• Loyalty card analytics and customer segmentation to define loyalty-driving marketing strategies in attractive customer segments
• In-store execution (excellence in merchandising, trade-up potential, valued service provision etc)
• Location & customer behaviour science