Guido is a brand & retail manager who has worked for 30+ years for small and high profile brands in Europe, Asia, US and the Middle East. Throughout his career he has assisted entrepreneurs and managers to successfully grow their brand distribution. He currently coaches start-ups on their strategic growth path.
“2025 retail rents will be like 2020 flight routes: back to the 1980s.”
“The future is social commerce, digital market places are an interim hype, for brand industry’s e-com latecomers.”
“In five years, an office workspace and business travel will be recruiting incentives.”
“Grandpa tells me, his company used to pay for sourcing travel to adventurous rural locations.”
How are these snapshots for a future in brand distribution? If you think that’s outrageous, how did your 2020 forecasts from around this time last year pan out?
22,144 readers, 3 new authors, updates from China, India and Europe, and 14 greatly diverse posts. It is great to be back with our best quarter ever. Thank you to all for contributing, reading and promoting. Post Covid, the best read in brand and retail.
We are living in-between most interesting times
As we wrap up our post-lockdown publishing, we realise the industry mood is somewhat in-between. In-between first and second lockdown. In-between a return to office or of stay at home office for good. In-between going on international travel or staying put. Slowly we start to see, in-between could be the new normal for some time to come.
The Covid-19 pandemic is devastating for those with pre-existing conditions. But it also mobilises the best in all others: unforeseen creativity, outstanding personal engagement, true loyalty and support among many more qualities.
There is no way around acknowledging that the situation is grim wherever you look and listen across the brand and retail industry, in parts even online. But if we pay close attention, we can also observe new brand industry best practice emerging.
This is about an expert pandemic, future pacing, a little bit of motivation and no bad news at all. From your blog’s curators.
Before this post reaches you, it went through five different incarnations in six weeks of lockdown. It started out very German in tone ‘this will get very dirty before it is over’, to shift to ‘how to stop your cash bleeding’, until it gradually reached its current Italian mood, ‘andrà tutto bene’.
This story is about earth beauty and why engaging in sustainable fashion makes for beautiful brands. It’s not a romance story, we are talking serious brand strategy business!
We have 2020, pre COVID 19, online and multichannel have long become your daily bread and butter, and building sustainable fashion brands is the next big brand strategy priority. (more…)
Please excuse the pun, I just had to make it to grab your attention. I want you, and I want your engagement – to read and perhaps share this article, but much more importantly, to make sustainability a wholehearted top priority in 2020.
International Sales Growth remains mostly dynamic in 2019. But as financial reports show, growth rates have decreased for many. Be it in the US or in Europe, especially domestic-bound retailers and brands stumble.
Global expansion in sales and distribution competence has become a lifesaving strategy feature, but allow me a personal question first:
The speed of global brand growth has been slowing down. While fast-movers pay a high price for restructuring, successful brands continue to grow with brand best practice management.
Whether Tommy Hilfiger wins over Zalando buyers with a digital showroom, Rapha thrives thanks to their tight-knit membership community, or Lululemon enters new markets on grassroots values – brand best practice management enables brands to outgrow competitors. (more…)
Shoppers love unique products and great brand stories. If on top you sell upcycled products, are a niche company from a small country, that makes all the ingredients for a great brand story. For us that delivers great learning on strategic brand management.
If someone had told you in 1993 that someone would manage to turn truck tarps into it bags in Seoul by 2019, and create a best practice brand development story in the process, you may have questioned their judgement.
How does a small UK cycling apparel brand become the global benchmark for brand community management? Here’s why brands around the world use Rapha as a best practice case study.
In case a cycling jersey isn’t yet part of your casual wardrobe, this story about brand community management may change that when bike apparel may well set trends in mainstream clothing by 2025.
The likes of Amazon and Alibaba open tech-heavy brick & mortar stores, but best practice commercial brand retail still happens elsewhere.
Early sales reports indicate that 2018 was a good year for large parts of the lifestyle brand industry. Almost 4/5 of the top 100 European and US American lifestyle brands had a growth year, and for the most part did better than in 2017. This was despite a global department store fallout and online growth and was largely based on store growth.
Brand growth management already has many KPIs. What omnichannel measurement do you use to determine the payback of your investment?
Summertime is brand strategy planning time, when brand managers prepare for battle with their KPIs to prepare for new recruiting and securing a higher share of next year’s investments for their channel. But consumers have fundamentally challenged that profit centre logic. Perhaps it’s also time to rework your brand investment planning and the KPIs that measure brand growth success?
While most brands and retailers are building and expanding their online stores, Amazon is investing in brick & mortar: a surprising update on Amazon’s omnichannel retail status.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you’re running a billion-dollar brand. Last year’s net expansion of stores was negative (not counting a recent acquisition) and your share in online sales remains below 5%. Can you already feel how analysts and journalists rip you to shreds over your unconvincing omnichannel retailing?
Aiming for the world’s most affluent consumers in highly competitive environments: Adidas’ ‘Top City Strategy 2020’ is at halfway, what is best practice and what can you learn for your business?
It’s widely known that consumer markets and brand distribution channels have fundamentally changed over the past 25 years in more ways than anticipated. Fact is, the internet as a brand distribution channel grew from 0 to commonly 8-15% of sales. But far more relevant from a commercial and strategic perspective is that many formerly emerging countries, especially China and countries in the Middle East and Central Europe, grew to 30-40% of total sales and profits in lifestyle brand distribution.
Affluent tourists are sought after shoppers and a retail market’s most attractive segment. What does it take to grow your tourist retail sales?
Those of you working in travel retail know Global Blue. The company services tourist retail around the globe with VAT refund services. In this way they collect valuable information about a very precious consumer group. With more than 30 years in that business, they have collected a lot of valuable consumer information. Global Blue have shared some of their insights together with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). This post takes an in-depth look at an example of these insights: the habits of Brazilian consumers and their luxury spending. (more…)
Your KPIs, dashboard and performance management are in place, but your retail operations are missing that final touch? This best practice story shows how new technologies can help you win at associate engagement too.
Put yourself in the shoes of a senior vice president of outlet retail for a lifestyle brand in Europe who runs a few stores across several countries. Your stores are commercially successful, and your brand is an anchor tenant for many landlords. But you observe that you could do even better by becoming more engaged in retail operations. Are you tempted to push that old KPI and performance management button to reach your full- and part-time store associates? And, how well has that worked out for you in the past?
A unique brand story from a small Berlin Brand and inspirational example that excellent retail flagship are not just created by multi billion corporations.
A couple of decades apart, two designers cross Berlin streets and leave their mark. The first designs a lasting cultural icon for a nation behind the iron curtain. The second saves it from oblivion by turning it into an iconic brand.
Pick the brand retail best practices from 24* cities and 6 topic areas that will work for you. To a good start and comp growth in your new business year!
It was a good year for the brand lifestyle industry in Europe and the US. Reading interim reports suggests that the majority of top brands have grown despite challenges in wholesale and full price retail distribution. While not true for all, this goes to illustrate another year of beautiful distribution complexity and financial challenges.
Thanksgiving in the US, Ramadan in the Middle East, Christmas, or simply next Saturday: high traffic days define the brand store operations winners. Here’s how UGG does it.
Brand store operations is not a complicated job. As a sales clerk in lifestyle retail, it comprises three core processes: 1. receiving and displaying merchandise, 2. serving customers and 3. removing goods from the shelf to make room for the new season.
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