Woolworths launches pick n’ mix on line today

Woolworth's Pick n' Mix

Shop Direct Group launches the new Woolworths website today complete with a very cute Pick n’ Mix selector. Whether pick n’ mix on the internet will really take off remains to be seen. You have to choose 99p’s worth of each option and it costs £1.50 to deliver orders of under £5 and £3.50 for orders of over £5. Also where’s the instant, mouthwatering gratification… but you couldn’t have Woolies without Pick n’ Mix!

The other categories for sale are a main shop with kid’s clothes, toys and technology, an entertainment shop with DVDs, Games and Books and a party shop (self explanatory).

Interesting to see how this brand fares on line. Woolies has left a gap on the high street but does the online offer fill this gap?

Store Communications – Learn from the best

While not necessarily the best at store communications, mobile phone retailers certainly have a lot of communicating to do! There is lots more communicating required with complex phone features and tariffs than there is with loaves of bread so I was really interested to read about Carphone Warehouse’s approach. Carphone is also currently changing its customer approach to be much more service oriented and less overtly sales led to fall in line with the Best Buy philosophy, and of course to improve customer service – even more communicating required.

So, in summary, here’s how they do it. General communication goes through a company intranet CPWtouch, a new platform for operating procedures called How2 is launching and there is already a task management system call Customer First Companion. There is also a weekly update on the company called Chalk Talk. These systems are used in combination for maximum effect. Carphone Warehouse is also using external help to measure service scores for each store.

Of course the Carphone Warehouse is a large retailer selling an exceptionally complex product so they need sophisticated and comprehensive communication systems. It is all about horses for courses. You need the level which is right for your business.

Store Communications – what level are you at?

There are probably four levels of communication systems:

1. Phone, fax and post – Can be friendly and its slowness means that stores are not overwhelmed with tasks and information but is slow, expensive and reduces business agility.
2. Email only – Vast improvement in speed of communication but is uncontrollable. Tasks and information for stores proliferate at an alarming rate and it is hard to see who has done what.
3. Email with an information only intranet – As per email but with the added advantage of ensuring that everyone can findto up to date information.
4. Full store communication system – Systems which manage tasks in stores, collate feedback and ensure access to the right information. Our store communication system RAPID  falls into this category.

There is a general trend over time for retailers to be moving up these levels. The speed of movement depends on the size of the retailer, the level of central control exerted by head office, the propensity towards the use of systems and the complexity of the product sold.

Which approach is right for your business at the moment?

Is the recession just what your business needed?

One of the themes from number of speakers at the Future Focus was exactly that question and I thought that this was exactly the right time to stop and take stock. If you take the start of the recession from the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in September 2008, we are 9 months in now, time enough to review the success of strategies.

This is relevant to retailers, retail technology suppliers and consultants alike. In fact any business.

What are you doing differently? Is it working? Are you doing enough differently? What were doing before the recession which you look back on now as crass extravagance (you can rest assured that many consumers are doing this one!)? How can you make sure that when things pick up, you don’t become complacent again? Have you changed so much for the better that, the challenges of the recession have been valuable lessons which will stand you in good stead for the future?

Joules Clothing – email marketing at its best

Congratulations to Joules for coming up with such a great idea for their email marketing! This gave me enough of a laugh to forward to friends and with a prize of a chicken coop, it fits perfectly with Joules’ country image and the new “back to basics” mood of the public.

You have until the end of today to be in with a chance of a chicken coop!

Future Focus London… and WordPress

I attended the Future Focus event hosted by the Telegraph Business Club and IBM yesterday. Not surprisingly, one of the themes was DIY media, blogging, twittering and using social media. Twitter was monitored through the day and descriptions of the event were put up on the Future Focus blog as it happened. The url of the blog was given in the event and I looked it up today. I was most impressed to find that the blog is hosted here at WordPress.
Another theme was that of cloud computing. I was trying to think of cloud computing services which I use in my working day and I could only come up with this blog and Google Analytics. So well done, WordPress does it again!

Maybe Retail Answers could benefit from using the cloud a bit more? Or should we market our retail intranet Rapid as a cloud service?

By the way, the best bit of the event was the live voting on topics such as when will the recession end using hand held terminals and the results being displayed on screen immediately afterwards. It was great to have the interaction.