UK Retail Consultant
Our retail consulting service is all about leveraging expertise to enable your retail systems to support the growth of your online retail enterprise.
Retail Consultant: David Mitchell and the Evils of Online Retail
Retail Consultant has plenty of time for David Mitchell's comedic and occasionally political output, but is the dwindling high street really a matter of our misplaced loyalty?
Posted 15th September 2011
Those of us doing retail consultancy with a keen interest in the retail and ecommerce industry were given the rare treat of a Zeitgeisty piece by comedy actor, writer and this week's honorary retail consultant, David Mitchell, in last Sunday's Observer. As one would expect from someone with his wit and knowledge, it's an enjoyable read, well argued with a good laugh or two. That he is getting into the blame game, and at whom he's pointing his finger, is evident from the very outset, albeit in the headline words the sub-editor.
The argument is simple enough: ecommerce success is at the expense of the high street, and if the high street is to survive, it's up to consumers to make informed purchasing decisions based on whether or not they want to keep it, and ultimately "embrace incovenience". This is not only the inconvenience of refraining from online purchases, but also of abstaining from "the second prong to the pincer movement of doom" - out-of-town shopping centres like Westgate in Mitchell's native Oxford.
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Retail Consultant: Making (Non)Sense of August's Retail Figures
Strange things are happening on London's high streets. In the retail doldrums we're currently experiencing, is it possible that there could be gaping holes in our knowledge?
Posted 9th September 2011
It's Monday, 5th September and Bloomberg Businessweek reports on research carried out by Springboard suggesting that “Footfall in London Weathers Violent Riots.” Springboard, which monitors footfall across the UK, concluded that London saw a year-on-year rise of 0.9%, with around half of the city's high streets recording improvements on August 2010, apparently.
This, however, is in spite of the fact that August was, in retail terms, the worst month the industry saw for two years. Indeed Ben Sillitoe, editor of the industry publication Retail Gazette, also reported on Monday that the now well documented riots across the country had significantly impacted on retail sales.
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Retail Systems: What we think at Retail Consultant
This week for our UK Retail Consultant post we'd like to share a few thoughts on the industry publication Retail Systems. It is up our street, to say the least
Posted 2nd September 2011
Retail Consultant got our first delivery of Retail Systems magazine to the Open Plus head office in Edinburgh this week, and we were quite impressed with what we found within. “The Vanity Fair of Retail” was, if not the most accurate, the comparison everyone laughed at the most.
But there is a grain truth in this. Retail Systems is replete with rich articles and lengthy analysis, accompanied by interviews and of course decent news pieces. Whereas a publication like Retail Week fulfils a particular industry need – for up-to-date, accurate and concise information about the retail industry as a whole – Retail Systems has some room to manoeuvre and try something different. The result is a wealth of in-depth opinion and analysis.
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Retail Consultant: Will Retail Giants Change the Face of eCommerce?
Retail giants like Tesco and Asda are moving up a gear in their ecommerce operations. Should independent online retailers be worried?
Posted 24th August 2011
We heard last week that retailer Tesco is rolling out an 'Amazon-style site' in January which, according to cheif executive Philip Clarke, will facilite the giant's move into non-food offerings such as clothing in their ecommerce operation. Should such online expansion, which for many other large retailers is becoming a primary means of survival in these tough times, be a concern for independent online retailers?
Think about the model of your old-fashioned grocery shop, from the post-war years and to the current domination of retail giants. We had a plethora of local shops with friendly faces, first-name terms, delivery to your granny's kitchen shelf, and one of these on practically every street corner in every village in every county.
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Retail Consultant: Is the eCommerce Bubble Bursting?
This week saw the worst UK ecommerce figures in 19 months, prompting fears that online retail was to join its high-street sibling in the dumps
Posted 18th August 2011
Online retail has been the star performer of the industry. As the like-for-like figures from each month have come in, many of us have been close to cringing at the shocking difference between the performance of the high street versus its younger, online sibling.
Granted, not everything online was selling amazingly. One of the key elements in the massive growth we've seen in online sales has been the ability to shift high volumes of smaller goods like clothes, books and alcohol to vast amounts of customers well beyond the traditional high-street hinterland. This combination of cutting out high-street rents thus working from a lower cost-base, and the ability to employ technology and efficient delivery systems to reach a potential market-place vastly larger than the in-store experience can attract, has clearly been a winner.
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Retail Consultant: So much loss, but try to remember there are winners too
For the retail consultant, tough times, interesting times, whatever you want to call them, are times for innovation as well as grief. It's all a matter of perspective
1st July 2011
The proverbial Middle of it. That's where we seem to be right now.
We're in the retail consulting business after all, not banking. If we were in banking maybe we'd get to say we were on the rise again. Maybe we'd say the worst is over, we hit the bottom of the trough, the nation bailed us out what seems like a decade ago now, and we're clawing our way back to the top, albeit with job losses.
Retail is not banking. Retail is not the crash and burn industry; it's the sector in which the rot creeps slowly through our businesses and streets. It is the area of our economy about whose problems we continue to hear, years after the dramatic catalysts of recession.
Retail Consultant: Facebook Bombs on Customer Satisfaction Index
Facebook's bad reputation among users has deep implications for its role in people's lives today and Retail Consultant suggests that its market share is more vulnerable than previously thought
15th July 2011
Surely Facebook is stratospherically popular? It's in the news and on the silver screen, as well as the screen of every Mac, PC and portable device in every pocket in and around the world. It's theoretically free. It's useful and widely utilised.
But it's apparently 'hated'. Why?
Retail Consultant has been watching carefully as the social networking saga lately been rolled onwards and upwards. Initial uptake of Google+ would seem to have seen reasonable succesful.
Hardly a day passes now that we don't hear one thing or another about the new network: either predicting the doom of the upstart Google service or that of Facebook, but, prophetically, all talking about Google+ either way.
Retail Consultant: Habitat Retreats to London
There was sad news today for Habitat's nationwide customer base as it was announced that all but three of the retailer's stores would go into administration
24th June 2011
It's those high-ticket items again. We're just not shifting them in the current economic climate. And why would we when we're not buying the houses to put them in?
Combine this lacklustre buying pattern with the deleterious effect that consumer slow-down in general is having on the high street and it surely can't bode well for those businesses combining the two. And it doesn't.
Today Retail Consultant encounters yet another retailer contracting its operations with gusto. But this isn't like Comet, with the unfortunate closure of 17 of its stores and a freeze on new openings; nor is it like Mothercare, which recently announced a retreat from some of its high street locations towards a predominantly out-of-town and online presence.
Announcement: UK Retail Consultant is moving to Friday
20th June 2011
Thanks for popping by and we hope you've been enjoying our UK Retail Consultant series. This is just to let you all know that the feature will appear on our site every Friday from this coming Friday 24th June, and no longer on Mondays.
This is because a) we think you'd prefer Friday to Monday (who doesn't?) and b) well, WE prefer Friday too!
If you're new to this feature of our blog, it's all about retail, retail technology and retail consultancy. We look at what's going on at the cutting edge of the retail industry across the UK and beyond. Mobile commerce, augmented reality and e-commerce share online space with discussions about sales figures, multi-channel, the high street and plenty more.
Retail Consultant: Mobile App or Mobile Site?
Slowly but surely UK retailers are moving towards mobile commerce strategies. Today we ask which in the better strategy: mobile site or mobile app?
13th June 2011
M-commerce advances, and consumers are tugging at the leashes of retailers. And while the latter often lag stubbornly behind demand when it comes to their supporting their customers' smartphone-enabled shopping aspirations, more and more UK store chains are nevertheless entering the fray and committing to a mobile site or an app.
But the emergent picture is still mixed when it comes to businesses' preferences and priorities regarding mobile platforms and choosing between an app and a mobile site.
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Retail Consultant: BRC Data Cast Positive Light on E-Commerce
While the latest British Retail Consortium (BRC)-KPMG figures are yet more bad news for the high street, e-commerce is still the growth frontrunner
14th June 2011
Throughout March and April the UK retail community was on the edge of its seat anticipating the latest BRC figures. The big questions back then were whether the horror of March sales was as bad as it seemed and whether April's feel-good wedding weather was a blip of positivity or whether we were just back on track.
March was a fairly despondent time with like-for-like sales dropping partly on account of a late Easter, but commentators had to wait until May to get to grips with the data properly: because Easter migrates between March and April from one year to the next, the two months naturally need to be analysed together to read anything meaningful into their sales figures.
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Retail Consultant: Bringing you retail consulting, news and more from Open Plus
Retail Consultant is our latest regular feature, combining our knowledge and experience from the field of retail consulting with our zeal for spreading sound advice
30th May 2011
Hot on the heels of our most recent regular feature, the Friday E-Commerce Showcase, Retail Consultantwill now be brought to you from the Open Plus team every Monday.
We've set ourselves the challenge of beginning each new week with a new article specifically about the retail world. Whether it's our view of the latest market trends, the most recent technological innovations or views and advice gained from our experience in the e-commerce world, there's a lot we want to get off our shoulders and out there for discussion, so expect insights and analysis.
Want to Speak to a Retail Consultant? Do It Directly Through Our Site
We know that online retailers are busy people, so we thought we'd share a few facts about what happens when you contact us
Posted 8th June 2011
How do we work? To be honest, in many some ways we work like other IT and retail consultancy companies. We have developers and project managers in the UK and overseas, we have a marketing department, a service delivery centre providing support, a head office and many of the usual structural features of a business.
But one of the things that many people don't know about Open Plus is that when you get in touch with us via our contact page on this site, we don't have a sales person waiting at our end.
Retail Consultant: Mothercare's Departure from the High Street
As Mothercare announced departure from its traditional high-street position, the retail community had plenty to discuss
6th June 2011
Last month Mothercare announced that by March 2013 the chain's stores will have reduced from 373 to 266, with 102 of those remaining earmarked as large, out-of-town parenting centres, leaving a mere 164 to occupy the retailer's traditional high street position.
The decision has caused a conversation which is still rippling through the ranks of retailers, retail consultants and commentators alike.
Not one, but two major, ongoing points of discussion seem to have made their way to the forefront: the decline of the high street and the related strategic advantages of multi-channel retail.
Our Retail Consultancy and Your Business
Open Plus provides six broad retail consultancy services, but there are three principal ways in which we offer them
Posted 31st May 2011
We put a lot of thought and effort into our consultancy services at Open Plus, so it's worth taking a moment to think about things from our customers' point of view and explain just how we engage with the businesses we work with.
After all, as much as we're aware of what we can offer in terms of retail expertise and services, each customer has different needs and almost always a different way of working.
Your personnel, time, facilities and any number of other factors can affect how you can work optimally with an external consulting company. For these reasons, all the services we offer retailers are available in three ways, depending on how you want, and are able, work.
