The Thin Line to Retail Success: Insights from AI Expert
-In today’s competitive landscape, AI presents an opportunity as much as a pitfall for any physical retailer. In this part of Adaptable Category Management series, host Simon Hernaus talks with Helen Kom, Inventory Optimization Product Director at Leafio AI, to uncover the thin line between AI success and failure. In the interview with…
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From Idea to MVP with Innovation Consultant
-A transcription of an interview on corporate innovation between me and host Luka Pregelj (Quantifly). First published on podcast Code & Culture which stands at the intersection of technology, HR strategy, and corporate innovation.The conversation is part of Season 2 and explores the nuances of fostering innovation within the organization, emphasizing the balance…
Innovation Interview on Code & Culture Podcast
-“Innovation is a risk. And the risk is not something to be avoided, rather something we should accept.” “Still, the probability that you will succeed in innovation is better if you make some steps in the right direction, if you consciously seek opportunities for new needs. Or, you can wait, but that’s a…
How to Reinvent Category Management in AI Times
-How will megatrends reshape category management? Special emphasis on AI in retail. Fierce competitive battles, disruptive forces and diminished profitability call for changes in retail category management. Revitalize, reinvent, reingeneer Category Management and turn iron clad into a vital force of future-proof retailing.
Lean Pilot Projects Are the Wind of Organisational Growth
-Organizations that don’t innovate inevitably decline. Words of a wiseman who invented management – Peter Drucker. Yet true innovation is always a journey into the unknown. In this respect, innovation efforts resemble exploration ships, taking risks and crossing rough seas from the bloody but familiar red oceans to the distant but calm blue…
10 Communication Strategies for Sustainable Brands
-Environmentally friendly brands need to find communication messages that justify a higher price than the “dirty” global brands of misleading competitors. The article lists 10 succesful marketing communication strategies independent brands can use for their differentiation. Sometimes innovative and creative communications overcome the huge promotional budgets.
Remarkable Retail: Winning Strategies for the Age of Disruption
-How to win and keep customers in the age of disruption? Why do retail business strategies need to be bolder than before? The customers are pulling options away from the retailers and this book serves as a roadmap for survival in the pull economy. Remarkable Retail – review of a book by consultant, strategist, speaker Steve Dennis.
Leverage Destination Categories to Increase Store Traffic
-The number of store visitors – the footfall in physical stores – is a crucial success driver of every retail business. To increase the number of visitors, retailers often leverage prices and promotions (heavy advertising included). In saturated markets with pressing competition, both instruments are often played too heavily – eroding profitability whilst…
Turnaround Business Strategy: A Thin Line Between Failure and Success
-The tale of JCPenney could be a successful retail turnaround example. It has everything. A venerable retailer with over a hundred years of tradition. Big trouble. And someone daring to tackle it. A hero manager – an Apple guru even. A transformation vision. A brand promise. A turnaround strategy built around A big…
In-Store Customer Decision Making
-Customer decision tree is a powerful tool for retailers. It allows them to better understand customer behaviour and optimize the shopping experience. Machine learning can inform the proccess with striking new capacities, but there is also a trap. Past data must be complemented with creative insights.
By combining machine learning with creative input, retailers can reach new levels of assortment optimizations, store layouts innovation and overall customer satisfaction.
How To Engage Customers In Retail Stores?
-— STORIES MEET AND VIOLATE THE LISTENERS EXPECTATIONS Remember a good crime story, maybe a detective tv series? It goes according to your expectations – it provides a crime, a smart detective, his method, cunning villain, etc. Then there are twists. Some surprising turns. The story goes against your expectations. Your heartbeats increase,…
Modes of Shopping Behaviour
-As a consultant I usually ask my clients about their customers. “Who are your customers?” It’s not unusual to get an answer – at least in a semi-big retailing organization – like this: “Oh, yes, we have a research somewhere. Well, according to the market research company, 45 % of them are female,…
Category management ne prime več – in sedaj?
-Daljnega 2019. sem na konferenci Prodaja na policah spregovoril o tem, da category management, kakor smo ga poznali v zadnjih tridesetih letih, postaja kot antibiotiki. Zaradi preveč intenzivne uporabe pri napačnih problemih v trgovinah ne prime več. Še posebej v svetu, ki se hitro spreminja in potrebuje bolj fleksibilne odgovore. Novinar časnika Finance…
Successful Retail Store Spaces In 5 Steps
-FIRST PUBLISHED: MAR 17, 2021 — LATEST MAJOR UPDATE: MAY 15, 2023 Floor space management or organization of product categories decisively impacts buyers’ decision-making within the physical stores. Well-organized store layout provides not only easier store navigation but also increases shopping basket size accelerates inventory turnover guarantees store profitability raises overall customer satisfaction…
Planograms Meet Inventory Management
-— THE CORE OF RETAIL Let’s start with the basic question. What is a physical store? A possible answer: a place where an assortment of select product categories is arranged in space so that it provides value for many customers. How about virtual products, like a lottery, betting, money transfers, and other retail services? Sure,…
Decrease Inventory Level by 50%, Increase Store Sales & Profitability
-Inventory levels should reflect customer shopping behaviour and expectations. The article shows how a retailer can leverage tactical shelf space allocation for lower inventory levels and higher retail sales. Recent remodeling supports our hypotheses which are part of the Omnibus #leverages space management system.
Efficient Retail Floor Space Management 2.0 (Macroplanning)
-The way retailers organize and arrange product categories within their floor space crucially impacts customer shopping behaviour.
In 2022, a commisioned project gave us opportunity to test bolder hypotheses for store layouts. We combined data science & workshops specially designed for store remodeling.
Result? The pilot grocery store became the most rapidly growing grocery store in the whole network of our partner retailer.
No Time for Business Strategy
-To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Time to compete. Time to improve & to optimize. Time to innovate. Time to plan & strategize. But what if you just don’t have time for developing and implementing the right strategy. Why? Because the foundations of…
Moč prodajne strategije v trgovini
-Mali pastirček je svoje ovce varoval s fračo, ki jo je spravljal v malho. Toda v pokrajino je prišla vojska, ki je kraljestvo ustrahovala 40 dni. Na njenem čelu je bil strašljiv, bojevit, srdit, močno oborožen in s ščiti zavarovan velikan. Nekega dne je pastirček velikana izzval na – dvoboj. Velikan se je…
Strategy Quote
-Citat je iz Rumpeltove knjige Good Strategy, Bad Strategy (2011). Avtor z dolgoletnimi izkušnjami iz različnih panog na samem začetku opozori na bistveno: dobre strategije temeljijo na jasnih diagnozah ključnih izzivov, ki jim sledijo enostavna vodila za soočenje s temi problemi. Dobre strategije tako…
Inovacije med rdečimi in modrimi oceani – primer Lego
-Zakaj bi se borili v zmešani konkurenčni borbi in do zadnje kaplje krvi spuščali cene in klestili stroške, ko pa lahko ustvarimo trge, na katerih sami postavimo svoja pravila? To je povzetek strategije iskanja modrih oceanov, ki je postala množično popularna kmalu po izidu istoimenske knjižne uspešnice Blue Ocean Strategy (2004). V njej…
#vzvodi za prepričljive prodajne prostore
-PROSTORSKI VZVODI ZA PREPRIČLJIVE IN USPEŠNE PRODAJNE PROSTORE Uspešno upravljanje s prodajnim prostorom je eden od ključev uspeha vsakega prodajnega mesta. Razporeditev blagovnih skupin v prodajnem prostoru namreč neposredno vpliva na nakupno obnašanje, vključno s ponakupnim zadovoljstvom kupcev. Od taktične zrelosti razporeditve blagovnih skupin so odvisne zaloge, profitabilnost, velikost nakupovalne košarice in številni…
Generacije – povezane inovacije in optimizacije
-Letnik 1974. Večno mlad. Golf. Zgornji slajd je vzet iz Omnibus predavanja na temo razvoja novih produktov za množično uporabo. VW Golf služi kot neprekosljiv primer razvoja “produkta” skozi čas. 8 generacij, od katerih je vsaka sestavljena iz niza izboljšav in inovacij. A še pomembnejše je tisto, kar se zgodi med generacijami. Za…
Category management ne prime več – in sedaj?
-Lani sem na konferenci Prodaja na policah spregovoril o tem, da category management, kakor smo ga poznali v zadnjih tridesetih letih, postaja kot antibiotiki. Zaradi preveč intenzivne uporabe pri napačnih problemih v trgovinah ne prime več. Še posebej v svetu, ki se hitro spreminja in potrebuje bolj fleksibilne odgovore. Novinar časnika Finance Nicolas…
Inovacije kot mreže za sveže pogone
-Seveda, brez inovativnosti organizacije danes ne morejo dodajati vrednosti, pardon, preživeti. Slovenija ima na tem področju zaskrbljujoč primanjkljaj, kar potrjujejo kazalci kot je Evropski inovacijski semafor. Tudi drugi kazalniki opozarjajo na padanje uspešnosti slovenskih inovacij skozi čas (največje zmanjšanje v EU od leta 2011 poleg Romunije). Zato je treba pozitivno sprejemati odločitve vodstev…
Blockbuster je optimiziral, Netflix inoviral
-Nekoč so bile videoteke. V garažah, prizidkih hiš, pod bloki. Izposojale so filme na kile. Cvetele so tudi po vsej Sloveniji. Bolj prefinjene – kakor je bila Video Archives so služile kot nadomestek za šolo režiserjem kot so Tarantino in Steven Soderberg. Med manj navdahnjenimi se je na ameriški vrh povzpela franšiza Blockbuster.…
V je za Vztrajnost
-Sredi osemdesetih je eden od smučarskih skakalcev navduševal otroke. Ni zavzemal prvih mest kot Nykannen ali Weissflog ali »naš« Ulaga. Nasprotno. Njegove uvrstitve so bile tako oddaljene od prvih mest, da smo jih v hipu pozabili. A bil je otroški junak, saj je redno padal (trikrat zlomljena rama) in sprejemal nase, da so…
Okretni category management – Cat Man 2.0
-Category management je v 1990. postal sijoča zvezda na področju trgovine. Trgovec, ki je želel z enim zamahom izboljšati učinek svojih trgovin in dokazati svojo usmeritev h kupcem, tega preprosto ni smel spregledati. Postopoma so se vsi nabavni in prodajni procesi zgostili okoli novo ustanovljenih oddelkov za category management (tudi UBS ali upravljanje…
Pilot Store As a Leverage for Efficient Space Management
-What is efficient store space management? Books and countless presentations in the retail environment have been written about this. Let’s try to make a simple enough definition which will help us get on track. Efficient store space management is such spatial layout of retail merchandise and services that fulfills following conditions: 1) convincingly…
Cut Down Your Assortment Babies!
-In writing one of the adages says: »Kill your babies!« Means you have to relentlessly cut down the particular scenes you like but don’t work as a part of the whole. Throwing away is hard to do because the writer invested a lot of time and emotions into it. But no one cares!…
SWOT Analysis – A Springboard for Succesful Projects
-Some things are so simple, yet efficient that they are destined to stay around. Like the game of noughts & droughts. Or SWOT – a business tool used for analyzing the situation and preparing a strategy for business ventures / models / products / brands / projects etc. More than half a century…
27 Secs But – Oh, So Many – Options
-Last year the Omnibus team has done the unique research. By using RFID technology we – anonymously, of course! – tracked the shopping carts and their movement around the supermarket store. We measured shopping times, discovered patterns of shopping missions (to go, quick meal, something for dinner, destination item …), found out the…
A Proper Test For Category Management 2.0
-Imagine tens of thousands of elements with different features. How do you manage and organize them? Especially, when the sets are dynamic, constantly changing by ingoing and outgoing elements? Large retail formats could be seen as containers of such sets of elements and ever since they came into the existence this was one of…
Dunnhumby – The Wizard from the Tesco’s Data Mountain
-Dunnhumby – The Wizard from the Tesco’s Data Mountain (estimated reading time: 9 minutes) For a long time, almost eons, Tesco – the biggest British retailer – was considered the most sophisticated proponent of Big Data Analytics. Its hailed success in collecting…
Improve ROI On Your In-Store Merchandising Budget
-THE COMMUNICATION NOISE While a typical grocery supermarket at any given moment holds up to 50.000 different products, a typical shopper buys only 300 of them at max. Not monthly, but yearly. Just think about house cleaning products, detergents and also the products on the shelves of every kitchen’s prince – the refrigerator. The…
Retailing as Evoking Emotions?
-Retailing as Evoking Emotions? A politician, a rock and roll band or a stage performer – they all must evoke the people’s emotions. So does retailer. The difference is the set of the variables (“means of expression”) at his disposal. In Part I of the article we’ve uncovered the magnetic force for all…
Choice – Danger Of Option Paralysis
-Mark Mechelse of the VP Insights has just recently published the Linkedin article Reinventing Retail: Average is Over! Key takeaway: the gap between traditional retailers and customer expectations is not closing but on the contrary, widening. While the retailers (mostly grocery super and hypermarkets) are still struggling with the constraints of the pre-internet…
Too Much Data Can Strangle Creativity
-THE RESPECTED BRANDS Some of the brands surrounding us are more than 50 years old. Some even more than 100. Think of the good old international brands like Coca-Cola (1886), Nike (1964), H&M (1947), Milka (1901), Nutella (1963), Wrigley, Porsche (1931) or take…
7 Things We Regularly Do in Supermarkets (as told by the Shopping Carts)
-Picture yourself in the supermarket store. You are approaching a 12-pack of milk or a 24-bottles crate of beer or diapers or an XXL pack of toilet paper rolls or something like this 6-pack of water x 1,5 litres => approximately 9 kilograms Pretty heavy or sizable stuff, right? And whatever the reason…
Coffee that lasts over time
-The article in the Slovenian newspaper Delo can be consummated in a relaxing atmosphere while sipping strong, black coffee. Namely, the story of Marija Tul – “Coffee Mom” – brings back the memories of 1960, the time of the birth of the only Slovenian national coffee brand – Barcaffe. One of the statements…
Old and New Pricing Models
-A solid pricing strategy is a key lever to any successful (retail) business. Currently, the retail pricing models are still set somewhere between a) EDLP (Every Day Low Price) that Walmart introduced in the already distant 1990s b) Hi-Lo -> Hi means regular prices while Lo is discounted sale price. If the regular…
Data -> Actionable Insights -> Aha! Insights
-It’s the time of the metrics. We can measure virtually anything. As in business so in football. INTRO So let’s have a look at the people running behind the crazy piece of round leather. Take the all-present metrics: distance covered by players on the football field. Everyone is talking about it: the commentators,…
Can a Supplier Survive Without Giving Rebates to Sultan?
-You know that ancient book of Persian folk tales Arabian nights. And you know the Sultan who on each new day demanded another virgin who was brought to him just to be…
Challenge For The Marketers
-“© Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)” Imagine the situation. All these girls want to win the pop song contest. And one of them approached YOU to prepare her for the challenge. OK? But the girl who would like your help is not the one in the top lef corner,…
Nakupne misije
-Okej, vsi vemo, da moramo poznati svoje kupce. Zato jih segmentiramo. Toda pregledane množice podatkov včasih – kar pogosto, prepogosto – pripeljejo do naslednjega odgovora: naš proizvod ali storitev v največji meri nagovarja npr. moške s srednjo izobrazbo, stare nad 50 let ali mlajše uporabnike do 30 let ali ženske med 30 -…
Actionable Insights – Fuel For Business Value
-Q: How would you describe the true insight that market research should provide? A: In the customer-centric environment insights should be seen as the main catalysts for the innovation. Means discovering new ways to create business value. Sometimes insights work on a tactical level. Two examples: a) A significant percentage of gas stations visitors…
Fewer Products More Buys
-We now know – or better, have all the means available to know – that less could be much more, in terms of choice. (see -> the books about customer’s choice and a famous “marmalade” experiment). But back then in the pre-millennium times, Slovenian retail was still in the transitional stage, on the…
Two Eternal Shapes – Only One Survivor
-This is a story of two cars. How they started, how they competed, how they thrived & died. But this is not necessarily only a story about two cars. Because cars are also products. Very special products, of course. It takes time to build them. Usually years. A lot of planning. And collaboration.…
The Discounters – Blitzkrieg Retailing
-It’s spreading fast. From Germany to Australia. Not missing tiny Slovenia. Of course, we’re talking about the blitzkrieg invasion of the retail (and real!) territory by discounters. And as described in my previous post, there is something in their offer that strongly connects to the new customer who is a) overburdened with information,…
Reshaping of the Retail Landscape
-WHAT’S EXCITING IN THE CRISIS All the negative aspects of the crisis aside, we shouldn’t miss some exciting moments of the situation. In the wild currents of turnover times, we suddenly have the ability to first-handly observe the reshaping of the industrial landscape. It’s like witnessing a huge building being renovated. Renovated, not…
Can Suppliers Become Category Management Partners?
-This article is Part 1 of an excerpt of the presentation prepared for Slovenian annual Sales on Shelves (Prodaja na policah) retail conference. The original title from 2011 was: How can a supplier persuade a retailer to become a category captain? The purpose of the presentation was to share the experience, gained on category management…
Colors, fragrances and product positioning
-(from an interview with Radio SLO 1) Question: And every color in stores has its role, isn’t that so? So, some promote hunger, some encourage courage, so does each person have a different influence on people? Answer: Each color affects the recipient differently, but colors can not really be easily translated into effects. Let’s…
