What I’ve found interesting in all my discussions is how the tougher times have caused people to re-think their business strategies – some because they won’t survive if they don’t; others because they are adapting to changing customers.
It’s been particularity interesting for me because my industry – media – was “smashed” by the digital era well before it affected other industries, especially general retailing.
While all industries have now been impacted by the internet some sectors within an industry are affected much later, and I believe this is the case for jewellery retailing.
Watching and listening to how everyone is dealing with these changes is a fascinating exercise in human psychology. For example, I recently had a long chat to a multi-store jewellery retailer who told me how he is “de-branding” his stores.
No, he is not removing the high-profile brands from his stores; he’s simply removing their dominant in-store marketing material and displays.
He wants any relationship to now be between the store and the consumer, and not only with the brands he carries. To achieve this, he wants customers to feel like they are shopping at their very own jewellery store, not just any old shop-front full of many brands.
Maybe this retailer has the same view as another person with whom I spoke, who said, “Retailing someone else’s product with no customer service or in-house design and manufacture is a hard game to play, especially as more of your in-store brands open their own shops and become your competition.”
Embrace change
Or what about this comment? “Things are shifting and always will, so are you going to be the one who evolves and changes, or the one left behind? ‘Survival of the fittest’ is really ‘Survival of those willing to embrace change’.”
It’s true and just as relevant to suppliers too. They can’t stand still either.
Last month a supplier told me that he is now training his staff to consider the retailer’s business more than ever. He explained that if his brand represents some 25-30 per cent of a store’s turnover but the remaining 70 per cent of the business is not in good shape, then he might not have a store to service unless he can help the retailer with that other 70 per cent.
I asked why he hasn’t always had that view and his answer was that no one worries in the good times – it’s only when times are tough that these issues come to light. He’s right!
In another discussion about the changing industry, a person made the following observation: If jewellers and designers spent as much time having conversations with their clients as they do complaining to their peers, the world would be a better place!
Again it’s true; too many jewellers complain that things were better in the good ol’ days. Those days are gone and to survive you need to view these as the new, good ol’ days!
Traditional bricks-and-mortar retailing will not disappear. It is changing, perhaps faster than we can imagine but the idea that all shopping will one day be done only online is ludicrous.
It belies the fact that people don’t shop just to acquire goods but to fulfill deeper social and communal needs. Or, as someone else has written, “We don’t shop just to get stuff any more than we go to restaurants purely for nutrition.”
Same same but different!
Having said that, online shopping has contracted the traditional retail market by offering consumers other options and, in a shrinking market, there is no room for sameness, mediocrity and monotony, which is why shopping centres can no longer afford to have multiple retailers selling the same items.
As markets shrink, or more likely, larger markets fragment into smaller markets, there is an increasing need to differentiate yourself and your business.
Sameness doesn’t cut it anymore because sameness is everywhere and worse, sameness will most likely be cheaper on the internet.
This leads me to something else I recently read: “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”
In this era, personalisation is becoming increasingly important and retailers must ask themselves, “Am I selling why I do things or am I just selling ‘things’?”
And as tough as business might seem right now, you should consider yourself fortunate that you’re in an industry that thrives on relationships and emotion and that you still have the ability to differentiate yourself from competitors.
Unlike many other retail categories, jewellers can offer unique products and services and also tap into the emotional connection between the consumer and the jewellery; sell why you do it!
It could be much worse; imagine owning a business where you can’t differentiate your product offering. For example, where would you be today if you were in a sunset business like a newsagency, music store or worse ... a video store! (Are there any left?)
Now that would be something to complain about!
Some businesses have a limited lifespan
While traditional bricks-and-mortar retailing will not disappear, retailers in “sunset” industries - an industry in decline because it passed its peak or boom periods – stand no chance of survival regardless of what they do. Whether the business is large like Blockbuster or Video Ezy, or a smaller operator like Palm Video and many others, the retailers in a sunset industry will disappear.
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