Surviving in the New Retail Marketplace


Book Description

The retail marketplace has undergone mind-boggling change in the way it functions. Retail businesses are experiencing the biggest shift in their business paradigm in more than 60 years. Online shopping presently accounts for about 70% of all retail sales. Prospects and customers to have more choices than before. The retail marketplace is now consumer oriented. So a new kind of consumer has emerged with a very different way of making buying decisions. Perceptions of companies and their products held by consumers are the only things that matter. Increased sales are only achieved if you understand your prospects’ and customers’ perceptions of both your product and your company. Marketers must realize that these new consumers want to feel engaged with your business on an emotional level. They are not interested in one-off transactions with conventional retailers. Astute marketers create relationships with their customers because human nature tells us that people desire relationships not just transactions. Many things may change, but people will always seek relationships and do business with people and companies they like. This book is about why they like certain businesses and not others. It’s about people as consumers. I can almost guarantee that after reading this book you’ll never see the world the same way again.




The New Rules of Retail


Book Description

In The New Rules of Retail, industry gurus Robin Lewis and Michael Dart explained how unprecedented consumer power, enabled by technology and globalization, is revolutionizing retail. They warned that survival in these dynamic times called for a business model based on three distinct competencies: preemptive, perpetual distribution; a neurological customer connection; and total control of the value chain. In the years since that book published, many of their predictions have come true. Now, they revisit timeless case studies like Ralph Lauren and Sears, as well as new additions like Trader Joe's, Lululemon, and Warby Parker, to assess how retailers must continue to evolve in the era of e-commerce, data mining, and tiered distribution. They also identify the five current trends that are currently driving consumer demand, including technology integration and channel consolidation, as exemplified by Jeff Bezos at Amazon. This is a fully revised and updated guide from two proven retail prognosticators.




The Secret Life of Groceries


Book Description

In the tradition of Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, an extraordinary investigation into the human lives at the heart of the American grocery store What does it take to run the American supermarket? How do products get to shelves? Who sets the price? And who suffers the consequences of increased convenience end efficiency? In this alarming exposé, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on this highly secretive industry. Combining deep sourcing, immersive reporting, and compulsively readable prose, Lorr leads a wild investigation in which we learn: • The secrets of Trader Joe’s success from Trader Joe himself • Why truckers call their job “sharecropping on wheels” • What it takes for a product to earn certification labels like “organic” and “fair trade” • The struggles entrepreneurs face as they fight for shelf space, including essential tips, tricks, and traps for any new food business • The truth behind the alarming slave trade in the shrimp industry The result is a page-turning portrait of an industry in flux, filled with the passion, ingenuity, and exploitation required to make this everyday miracle continue to function. The product of five years of research and hundreds of interviews across every level of the industry, The Secret Life of Groceries delivers powerful social commentary on the inherently American quest for more and the social costs therein.




Surviving in the New Retail Marketplace


Book Description

Many things may change, but people will always seek relationships and do business with people and companies they like. This book is about why they like certain businesses and not others. It's about people as consumers.




Documents


Book Description




The Bear Market Survival Guide


Book Description

The book provides an excellent guide to avoiding bear markets. It also provides new asset allocation techniques that demonstrate methods to outperform the general stock market averages over time, with less risk.




Strong Towns


Book Description

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.




Tales from the Marketplace


Book Description

'Tales from the Marketplace: Stories of Revolution, Reinvention and Renewal' is a highly innovative approach to building an understanding of the realities of market-led strategic change in companies. It provides an engaging, honest, and effective understanding of real market strategy in major organizations by focussing on the forces behind value-driven strategy. Nigel Piercy provides new and incisive insights into strategy and marketing through business "stories" that are contemporary and provocative. These new "stories" depict how major organizations have experienced revolution in their traditional markets - created by new types of competitors with new business models. The search for superior value is overtaking traditional brand and relationship strategies. The challenge to companies is reinvention and renewal and the alternative is obsolescence and decline. After all, did the major banks really expect to be competing with supermarkets, car companies, Virgin and internet-based companies to provide retail bank services? The book is based on the author's view that: · Business is exciting, turbulent and unpredictable - the "stories" we read and study should be too! · From Dell Computers and easyJet to Amazon.com and Skoda Cars, it is the most innovative companies that have most to teach us about reinvention and new business models · The inflexible analytical frameworks of the past no longer apply - "stories" of reinvention and renewal show the creative strategies developed by companies to cope with threats and exploit opportunities around them. 'Tales from the Marketplace' is essential, timely and designed to be highly readable for managers. It also provides an innovative approach for undergraduate and MBA level teachers and students, and for participants on executive programmes in marketing and strategic management.







Market failure?


Book Description

The Committee undertook this inquiry into traditional retail markets to determine whether local authorities and central government should be doing more to support them. The Committee has come to appreciate the complex and diverse nature of the traditional retail markets sector. A significant number of all types of markets continue to thrive, but the number in decline appears to be greater than the number that is not. There are a number of reasons for the decline, the most significant being increased competition from supermarkets, other alternative cheap retail outlets and the internet. Nevertheless, a growing number of markets are adapting successfully to change. Local authorities and central government should care about markets, because of the multi-faceted nature of the benefits that successful markets can bring to local towns and communities. The report identifies five key benefits: economic; social (eg in encouraging social cohesion); assisting the regeneration of town centres; promoting healthy eating; and reducing environmental impacts in the retail sector. On finance and management the report notes lessons from elsewhere in Europe; identifies best practice, and recommends that councils consider using prudential borrowing, market champions at a senior level within the council, and co-operation with the private sector. The report also addresses; the challenges facing medium and small town councils seeking to keep smaller, local markets alive; the need for better promotion and recruitment and training for existing traders and market managers; the strategic role of central government.