Boston Days — Part 9

The Store That Spoke to Me. After I Had Already Left.

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims. This article covers frontline culture — and what two factory outlets in Somerville taught me in ninety minutes.)

Assembly Row in Somerville is one of Greater Boston’s more interesting retail destinations. Open-air, mixed-use, genuinely alive on a warm August afternoon. I was there for two names: Nike and Puma.

Same street. Same concept. Ninety minutes between them. A very different education.

The Nike Factory Store is impossible to miss. 

Strong footfall. Unmistakable brand energy. Categories demarcated, range broad — everything that a factory outlet of the world’s largest sportswear brand should signal.

But something was off.

Merchandise was scattered. Shelves in various states of undress. Replenishment appeared to be an afterthought. Staff were few and visibly stretched. Customers were entirely on their own — not by design, simply by default.

The billing queue was long. Not the kind of long that means a great trading day. The kind that makes a motivated shopper quietly calculate whether waiting is worth it.

Footfall without conversion is noise. Brand strength got them through the door. What happened inside was another matter entirely.

Across the street stood the Puma Factory Store.

Fewer customers. Calmer energy. But immediately, noticeably different in composition. Staff were present — not just physically, but attending. The floor was managed. The store felt considered.

I spent over thirty minutes inside. Browsing, trying on, thinking. I stepped out without a purchase.

That is when it happened.

A Puma associate walked up — calmly, without rehearsed enthusiasm — and asked a simple question. Had I found what I was looking for?

It was an unremarkable interaction on the surface. Except it hadn’t happened inside Nike. And it happened here, after I had already left.

Someone had noticed that a person spent thirty minutes inside, walked out without buying, and was carrying unresolved intent. That is not a trained reflex. That is a culture.

A few kilometres away, inside an HBS classroom, I had spent an entire session the previous week discussing the Walmart case. 

Doug McMillon’s conviction — that Walmart’s greatest long-term competitive asset was its people — had generated sharp debate. His bets on frontline dignity and training were not HR policy. They were strategic capital allocation.

Standing on that Somerville sidewalk, I had just watched the same case play out. Not in a classroom. In real life.

One store had the crowd. The other had the conversation.

Ninety minutes at Assembly Row. No slides. 

No framework. Just one street, two stores, and a reminder that the greatest competitive advantage in retail has always been the person standing closest to the customer.

Boston was teaching me. Just not always inside a classroom.

(I am writing “Boston Days” as a series of articles for quick reference for myself and other retail pilgrims.)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9 here.

C for Conversion (Footfalls to Customers)

One of the biggest challenges for Retailers is customer conversion. In large formats such as Malls, Department Stores & Hypermarkets, the opportunity is huge but in reality the conversion rates are quite poor. It’s a completely different story at supermarkets and fashion retail stores. The conversion in E-Commerce is a completely different effort altogether. In this article, we explore various opportunities for Retailers to engage with customers for better conversions.

Drive footfalls

One of the most important things for a Retailer is to drive footfalls in to their store, no matter if they are located on a high street or a shopping complex such as a Mall. This could be done through creating interesting visual displays on the shop front, attractive shopping offers, images of brand ambassadors, new launches of products (and services), “Happy hour” shopping boards, to name a few. The key here is to drive footfalls in to the store and leave the Conversion to the shop staff, which is of course, easier said than done. Retailers should look at various ways through driving more and more potential customers to the store as well as get back past customers to shop repeatedly with them. In E-Commerce, potential customers leave a digital footprint and most of them do not know that, however e-tailers follow the trail and repeatedly reach the said potential customers through various ways such as Re-Marketing through Google & Facebook. You may wonder how does the same product that you saw a few days back on a popular website still shows up on your Facebook screen – this is it. Indeed, its eerie that our digital footprint is captured, but hey, when you get a product for free, you are the product, remember!

Tie-Ups with other Retailers

Many times, Retailers collaborate with each other and co-promote their products and services. For Ex., when I launched my Hyperlocal venture Oyethere.com, we gave away free vouchers for beauty treatments from Naturals Salon, India’s largest Salon chain along with each purchase. At times, the Gift Voucher value was the same as the shopping value of customers and they were really glad that they actually got back their money back. During Diwali 2016, a clutch of Retailers in Chennai got together and created Chennai Shopping Festival where more than 300 retail stores participated and promoted the event driving footfalls to each other’s stores. It is quite common to see larger international properties such as Dubai Shopping Festival, Singapore/HKG Shopping Festival and so on where Retailers come together and distribute store traffic to each other. Ecommerce giants like Snapdeal create Shopping Days which bring together thousands of retailers together and offer best deals to customers.

In-store Experience

Once the potential customers enter the retail store, that is where the magic of converting passers by to customers lies. Through store props, product displays and discounts or promotions, Retailers encourage customers to buy the products or services then and there. It is important to remember that the conversion period is very limited since customers might be in a hurry or may lose interest if the offering is not attractive. Therefore it is important to ensure Customer Conversion efforts are looked into carefully and continually by Retailers.