Performance Management

Engaging Associates: Best Practice Retail Operations at Polo Ralph Lauren

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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?

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Inspiring Brand Retail Best Practices for 2018

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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.

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Brand Store Operation Best Practice

That One Perfect Day: How UGG Solves the Ice Cream Problem

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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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Retail Performance: I Like Like for Like – I don’t Like Like for Like

KPIs & Benchmarks, , ,

H&M gave up their monthly reporting in July. An indication of an ailing retailer? Debatable – Zara never did it in the first place.

Three years after H&M gave up on like for like reporting, they stopped publishing monthly sales figures altogether. H&M follows the path of other well-known retailers that no longer publicly report monthly details of their like for like retail performance. (more…)

Clothes line (photo: Zeitgeist Handeln) - The Necessary Fashion Retail Revolution

Have We Forgotten the Customer? The Necessary Fashion Retail Revolution

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8 Excellent Weekend Reads for Brand Growth Strategy

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Our Q1 blog visits are +99%, bounce rate -41%, subscribers doubled, likes & recommendations +100%, there couldn’t be a stronger feedback  the “Brand Growth Inspiration” blog is on the right track. Thank you to all authors, our readers & supporters.

In case you missed one of the valuable posts, here’s our bespoke selection of best weekend read for you. (more…)

Retail Lease Management in Stormy Weather

Brand Strategy, , ,

Retail management without lease control management is like sailing in a storm but leaving the essential navigation tools at home.

How many of your global leases are about to expire this year and you missed the date to opt for an automatic extension or substantial renegotiation last year? How many leases would you have loved to leave last year, but overlooked the date for early contract termination? (more…)

Brand KPI,

Disarmament of Brand Performance Metrics – a Small Task Creating Big Impact

KPIs & Benchmarks, ,

L4L, Share DTC, Mark Downs, Space Density, 4W-Contribution, … there were far too many brand performance metrics to manage brand distribution easily. And now with social media & the internet arriving, another set of 10 KPIs are supposed to be important.

Next year’s planning arrives soon with many new priorities for your business agenda 2018. It’s likely you have already far too many topics to focus easily, but allow me to suggest one more topic. I promise it will be done after a day, or will create you some enlightenment towards your true needs & priorities. All you have to do is ask 10 members of your team one question. Their answers will give you the key to a year with better focus, an increased performance and potentially 50% less management reports.

So what do you have to do?

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24 Thoughts on How to Benchmark Retail Windows

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Retail windows are expensive advertising spaces and often miss their commercial potential. We share 24 thoughts to inspire great window performance.

Our 2016 retail term of the year is ‘loss of traffic’. Internet competition brought another year of loss in consumer footfall. Many of our retail friends struggled to keep momentum and to motivate for improvements in sales.

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Driving Brand Growth with Private Equity

Brand Strategy, ,

Brand private equity investments have increased, but not all have been success stories. So how can PE & brands work together successfully?

Over the last couple of years, brand private equity (PE) investments have increased strongly. Brand investments were very attractive, PE investors had a positive influence, but not all PE investments have been success stories. Working as a CFO in that environment, I’d like to share some learnings on how brands can grow successfully within that environment. (more…)

One of the Top 5 Shanghai Shopping Malls Almost Empty

Managing the Impact of Double Digit Footfall Drops

Distribution Excellence, , , , , ,

How a new retail KPI can help to keep store performance on track and retail staff motivated when footfall drops.

Retail business always has been tough – but today’s challenges for bricks-&-mortar retailers seem to reach unprecedented heights, with footfall dropping up to 20% compared to last year, even in prime locations.  (more…)

6 Ways to Engage Consumers to Drive Store KPIs

KPIs & Benchmarks, ,

Store KPIs are going public in Times Square, New York. We share 6 creative ways to engage consumers in your store KPIs. Ideas on next generation reporting.

There are many ways  to report inventory turns and as New York is an expensive retail place, retailers there have to be more creative about how they do this. Nygård’s Times Square store for example, communicates stock turns on a live ticker (similar to those at the NY Stock Exchange) in their store window. “We sell a pair of leggings every 45 seconds!” tells consumers that stock turns fast and you had better hurry up if you want to participate. (more…)