Brand Stores

“Flagship”, “lighthouse”, “high street store”, “community store”, “full price store”, “future store”, “factory outlet”, “concession store”, “outlets”, “brand experience shop”, “neighbourhood store … and many more creative terms exist in the brand lifestyle industry to describe one and the same location: A brand showcase to create a brand experience and generate sales and profits.

We saw far 1.000+ stores from inside, analysed financials of 10.000+ in close to 50 countries of all continents. And we learned over time, there are huge differences about good, bad, profitable or just huge expenses. At the end it all comes down to one important question: How much brand experience do you want to create, and how commercial you want it to be?

In this section, we share a little from our long journey in brand retail, and what differentiates successful stores from the others. Feel free to reach out and share your favourite brand store, your review or where you want us to take a look. We promise, if our travel passes that way, we take a careful look and share our observations.

How to Manage Successful Brand Post-Merger Integration

Far over 100 lifestyle brands are taken over every year. While a majority of post-merger integrations fail, here’s what the successful ones have in common.

As a seasoned experienced retail executives we have been part of my fair share of successful post-merger integrations. In our current roles, we advise family businesses and financial investors on growing their brands, organically or via acquisition. Although the backgrounds of individual companies, the company cultures as well as the strategic reasons for takeovers differed widely, clear patterns emerge for both successful and unsuccessful cases.

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