This week, online retailer Play.com took the decision to shelve its direct retail business in favour of its now established marketplace model in the light of the ending of the Low Value Consignment Relief (LVCR) loophole.
In physical retail, marketing is either non-existent (high street rent obviates the need for marketing) or is a fixed annual spend. As one retailer told me recently, “our marketing strategy is deciding how much we will spend on TV at the beginning of the year”.
A common complaint of the retail CEO confronted with the veritable tsunami of customer data is “Now what?”
Retail is about thousands of small decisions – so the question should be: what new or different decisions should we make given this data? Three things make this difficult:
Retail today is about thousands of small decisions – so the question should be: what new or different decisions should we make given this data? Three things make this difficult: