Review: Re-Engineering Retail

Boy, let’s take a second here to appreciate I’m typing this in the middle of a pandemic that will alter retail beyond recognition. There are some who believe retail will simply bounce back to way it used to be. They’re wrong. Oh so wrong. We need to adapt. To overcome. And more importantly we need to do it a few years ago.

It May seem Like a “hindsight is 20/20” situation but the truth is we had the road map right there the whole time. Doug Stephens, also known as the “Retail Prophet” told us perhaps not specifically about a pandemic but a sickness in retail itself. A call to action to change the way we did things.

Mr. Stephens lays out step by step with examples how retail wasn’t dead but needed to change the way it measured success, the way it utilized its brick and mortar locations. To treat the store as media, as he would put it. It’s funny how floor space and sales per square foot were such strong staples management clings to. Knowing what we should provide is customer experiences.

As part of this review I’ll tell a story. I took the lessons in this book to heart. I worked for a company in a prime location but we were losing foot traffic. quickly. We weren’t providing an experience to draw folks from the numerous surrounding businesses. We were heading into the holiday season, and again, for perhaps the tenth year in a row I pleaded with district to sacrifice a bit of floor space to bring in a Santa. While I won’t say the name of the company I will say a Santa would’ve fit right in. The main Difference this time around was I had Mr. Stephens’ words to back me up. And yet still no dice. I watched as the company I had worked for for more than a decade and a half refused to adapt. They even shut down the online component of sales, they’re left with no avenues of revenue now. I left that company for one that seems to value the experience Of customers.

Mr. Stephens gives us examples where what he’s saying has been applied, such as the company STORY. A Concept with ever changing experiences for shoppers.

With Covid being the death knell for traditional retail Re-Engineering Retail is perhaps one of the single most important retail books of our times. Did I mention it’s funny? Because it’s also really funny and not dry statistics and boredom.