Where to from here for retailing?

What a wonderful job retailers have done training the public to hang off buying for Christmas. The New Year’s sales are now where it is all at. Many businesses who hang out for that last month of the year to do over half of their annual turnover have managed a ‘not so clever shift’. Instead of having the big month with full margins in December they have pushed purchasing back a month and slashed their profits. So they have maintained sales but they have done so at the expense of profits and don’t we consumers appreciate it.
They thought they would have their cake and eat it; a big Christmas and a big start to the New Year.
Well it doesn’t quite work like that. The public has said you can have one or the other, but since you insist we will take the cheap option
Retailers have blown their bolt.
This ploy has been their response to an over subscribed market place and an obsession with ‘sales’ as the ‘no brainer’s’ marketing plan.
So that just leaves another eleven months and the question “what will retailers do now?”
Good question. I’d say they have a monumental problem. Eleven months of sales sounds like Chinese water torture.
Watch for the closing down sales this year folks because there will be many retailers who just won’t make it through to January of next year.
So who will the survivors be?
Those retailers who add value rather than dropping their prices; the retailer who becomes a brand builder.