It’s an especially bad time to be boring for retailers, says Dallas-based retail consultant Steve Dennis, who has written a book Remarkable Retail: How to win and keep customers in the age of digital disruption.
The book will be published in April, but Dennis gave a group of local retailers a preview this week. The former executive at Dallas-based Neiman Marcus, and before that at Sears in Chicago, doesn’t think the retail apocalypse means all stores will close.
However, there are fewer and fewer forgiving customers these days, and Dennis explains in his book that “shift happens,” leaving many retailers challenged and struggling. There are “truths” in the marketplace that retailers can’t ignore, he said. These things are no longer scarce: information, access, choice, cheap and convenience.
The second half of the book describes characteristics of “remarkable” retailers.
Some people go to New York City to see Broadway plays and new exhibits at world-class museums. Students of retailing (like me) use their free time checking out stores.
Remarkably, I visited three stores last week while in New York that Dennis presented as examples of being “memorable.” That’s one of his eight essential characteristics for being a remarkable retailer.
Nordstrom just finished building a big store — seven stories and its first in Manhattan. But Dennis focused on two small, 2,000-square-foot satellite spots that Nordstrom also recently opened.
Nordstrom Local is a new concept with only merchandise that customers have ordered. They can pick it up and go home or stay and try it on and get it altered on the spot.
These smaller locations are closer to the customer, and they fit in where there’s no space or need for a big store, he said.
Last Thursday, the Nordstrom Local in New York’s West Village at 13 Seventh Avenue had a wall of orders ready to be picked up. People were trying on clothes in dressing rooms. The small storefront’s other services include personal stylists, shoe and leather repair, and gift wrapping.
Two more stores, Dennis said, fulfill the idea of “go big or go home.”
The multilevel Starbucks Reserve New York Roastery, at 61 Ninth Ave., has capacity for 588 people. It’s huge, and it was packed in the middle of the afternoon. The New York store is one of only six. Others are in Seattle, Milan, Tokyo, Shanghai and Chicago, which is in a former Crate & Barrel store.
The centerpiece is a giant coffee bean roaster and people were snapping photos of it.
Making another big statement was the rooftop restaurant at Restoration Hardware, which now goes by RH. The location in New York’s Flatiron District at 9 Ninth Ave. is similar to an RH store under construction on Knox Street in Dallas.
The restaurant has indoor and outdoor seating and is an example of food coming back into general merchandise stores. Dinner reservations last week were tough to get.
There’s no opening date yet for the RH in Dallas. It’s one of the two big construction projects on Knox now. The other is the new 12-story office tower that will house a Weir’s Furniture Village and other retail on the ground floor.
Dennis also mentioned a few others, including Dallas-based Neighborhood Goods, which sells goods but is also an example of “stores as advertising.” The store is a service to new online brands that want to find new customers in the physical world. Neighborhood Goods opened its second store in Chelsea Market in New York last month.
Getting back to his theme that stores aren’t dead, Dennis offered as validation the many brands that started out online and are now opening stores. As many as 1,000 digitally native brands, led by Bonobos and Warby Parker, have opened stores in the past few years.
Failure is part of succeeding in retailing and to make his point, he asked the group to take out their Fire phones. That was an Amazon failure, he said, and noted that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is also proud of his company’s flops.
Retail therapy explores new ideas for shoppers and the ways retailers are trying to stay relevant.
Twitter: @MariaHalkias
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