Bong in big trouble

[Natho]

Ok Steve, here is a real life example. The Mrs went to Target today ( Target is a retail chain where you buy things). The Mrs went to the baby section only to find that about 60% of the goods that were supposed to be stocked on the shelves were out of stock on the shelf. In other words 60% of the shelves were empty offering little to no choice of product. When she tried to get some help in the store, there was no one around to help her. She ended up walking out, coming home and shopping on the Internet. That was a negative retail experience. Target just lost a customer for good because of this negative experience. In retail speak they call it retail experience. Sorry I think I have been around too many marketing people, but that is what they call it.

You see whenever you go into a shop to buy something you are entering some sort of retail experience, you just don' t know it.

Try and get service in David Jones or Myer as an example. Good luck if you can, but even if you do a lot of the time the staff have no idea about the products they are selling. Coles or Woolworths, same thing. Australian retail in general sucks big time, which is why more and more people are going online.

[Natho]

Retailers need to start thinking in terms of total dollars generated rather than set GP% per item. The big retailers are the worst. They think in terms of the minimum GP% that a product must generated rather than total dollars they could generate, say by cutting GP% a bit and generating more dollars through volume. The old saying is that you bank dollars not percentages. Many Australian retailers still don't get it.

[Natho]

Yep, competition is now global and Aussie retailers and consumers are now realising we have been getting ripped.

Why does the same pair of Maui Jim sunnies that I can get from many USA retailers for $170 retail here for close to $300 when the dollar is close to par?

[Natho]

Steve, as a fisherman if you ever head to the US, try and walk into a Bass Pro store. I guarantee you will buy something even if you didn't intend to based on the ' retail experience'. Their prices may not be the cheapest, but they will have a range of lures that will blow your faarkn mind. And the store staff could chew your faarkn ear off with everything you would want to know on every lure in the store. Retail experience. It's real.

[diggerdickson]

Steve, as a fisherman if you ever head to the US, try and walk into a Bass Pro store. I guarantee you will buy something even if you didn't intend to based on the ' retail experience'. Their prices may not be the cheapest, but they will have a range of lures that will blow your faarkn mind. And the store staff could chew your faarkn ear off with everything you would want to know on every lure in the store. Retail experience. It's real.

I use to be in retail, spent most of my life working in it, the last 5 years in the mobile industry. The way people shop has dramitically changed in the last 5 years and small businesses need to either adapt or die. A lot of time small businesses cannot compete with the online stores, its just a impossibility, the only way they can make a difference is the "retail experience". A store can be known for it and stand out from the crowd, but its getting harder and harder as the manufacturers cut commisions even more, driving profit lower for each sale, making your slice of the pie even smaller whilst they gleam the cream and watch their pie pieces get larger, you want to know why so many small business are going down, its because sometimes the struggle and long hours are just not worth it anymore, you start to lose enthusiasm, this rubs off on the "retail experience" shoppers recieve, and hey presto, you shoulda shut your shop whilst you were still making a profit.

[eel]

I went for a massage the other day in one of those dodgy chinese joints and got great retail experience. My shoulder still felts fxcked afterwards as it barely got touched but the overall retail experience made up for that.

Still can't get that online.

[offshore1]

yep, I went to the genius bar last night
.
priceless.

[steve shearer]

Steve, as a fisherman if you ever head to the US, try and walk into a Bass Pro store. I guarantee you will buy something even if you didn't intend to based on the ' retail experience'. Their prices may not be the cheapest, but they will have a range of lures that will blow your faarkn mind. And the store staff could chew your faarkn ear off with everything you would want to know on every lure in the store. Retail experience. It's real.

Back when there used to be a fishing shop in Lennox, run by a lovely english couple Paul and Deidre I would spend hours in there chewing the fat with Paul and gleaning info about where the gun jewie fisherman had been going.

Didn't realise I was having a retail experience.

Anyway, Paul went out of business when the new Cape Byron Marine Park included Lennox in the sanctuary zones and his business dropped into the gutter. He got a job driving buses but couldn't quite work out how to back a trailer and eventually got the sack after smashing into one too many parked cars.
Sad times.

I buy a lot of fishing gear on-line now from the States and they send me nice emails when specials are on.....but I'd still rather go shoot the shitt with Paul and Deidre.

Same goes for surf gear. There's two surf shops in the Ox, both run by top blokes. I'll try and support them because it's a better retail experience (thats a catchy phrase).

[Hollowed out]

Most surf shops/stores are staffed by either old surfers living in the 70's or young wanna bees who think their shite is perfume. All you get is attitude either way and that, sadly is what constitutes a 'retail experience' surfing wise.
Now off course there will be exceptions (like Noel at the OX that steve mentioned) but visiting the huge mega Bong store at Kirra (was Kirra surf) showed exactly why Bong are hurting retail wise. The experience I had was akin to paddling out at some deserted exclusive break where the locals (read staff) look you up and down, mumble amougst themselves then go about either ignoring you or playing games to see what they can sell you that is totally wrong size, style, age etc . These 30"boardies and this 5'11'quad should be about right for an old fella like you.
This aint a career for most , just a fill in between surfs and skate parks and getting ripped. An industry based on image and ego will always struggle to give any kind of service, and don't even start me on shapers/board retailing.

[steve shearer]

and don't even start me on shapers/board retailing.

Go on. Let it rip.

[Nick Carroll]

gladly, but out of pure curiousity I'd still love an explanation of what constitutes this retail experience.

OK.

A couple of years ago on one of these US expeditions my wife seems so keen on, we wandered into the jaws of South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California.

There are a lot of stores in South Coast Plaza and all of them are carefully, sorta quite ruthlessly, targeted at the type of person most likely to be interested in what they are selling.

The A&F store, for instance, is darkish in tone and smells quite clean but also a bit kid-expensive after shave (yes that's right, they control the store's actual odour). The clothes are given a lot of space but are segued into precisely chosen sections. A few mirrors but not many. Slick, large b/w images of young people in small groups or by themselves doing cool things are strategically arranged among the clothing layers. Trance and hip hop/soul dance music plays, just a little too loud for me.

EVERYTHING about the store says I, as a 50 year old man, do not belong in here, including the 23year old girls who roam around with a professional eye on the customers, assessing whether they need a helping hand etc. the girls have radio mikes which they can use to communicate with the back room crew to check on sizes and get the appropriate gear brought out. (They ALWAYS have everything available)

It fit my son down to the ground, he flirted with a couple of the girls and ended up buying two shirts.

That is a Retail Experience for ya shearer.

[Natho]

Apple's Genius Bars/ stores are also a good case study on retail excellence and how retailers need to change with the times.
The Genius Stores were always about serving a customers needs and educating them on Apple products way before it was about 'selling' you anything. The staffs number one job was always to answer your questions or fix your problems. The staff know their product inside out. Im pretty sure these stores still work on this basic principle today. Any wonder why the Genius stores are killing it around the world?

[ric_vidal]

Any wonder why the Genius stores are killing it around the world?

Might just have something to do with the product too. Remember that, 'product'.

[Natho]

True Ric but keep in mind that you can purchase Apple products almost anywhere these days, and often cheaper than what the Genius stores sell them for. Why are sales through the Genius stores going up and up?

[steve shearer]

Humanity is fcuked.

[Karlos]

A couple of years ago on one of these US expeditions my wife seems so keen on, we wandered into the jaws of South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California.

There are a lot of stores in South Coast Plaza and all of them are carefully, sorta quite ruthlessly, targeted at the type of person most likely to be interested in what they are selling.

The A&F store, for instance, is darkish in tone and smells quite clean but also a bit kid-expensive after shave (yes that's right, they control the store's actual odour). The clothes are given a lot of space but are segued into precisely chosen sections. A few mirrors but not many. Slick, large b/w images of young people in small groups or by themselves doing cool things are strategically arranged among the clothing layers. Trance and hip hop/soul dance music plays, just a little too loud for me.

EVERYTHING about the store says I, as a 50 year old man, do not belong in here, including the 23year old girls who roam around with a professional eye on the customers, assessing whether they need a helping hand etc. the girls have radio mikes which they can use to communicate with the back room crew to check on sizes and get the appropriate gear brought out. (They ALWAYS have everything available)

It fit my son down to the ground, he flirted with a couple of the girls and ended up buying two shirts.

That is a Retail Experience for ya shearer.

Yep there's that, where it is a bit like being stalked by some sort of predator trying to work out whether you're worth the trouble or not, or there's the old school type of 'retail experience' like Steve talks about at the Ox. Or there's the type you used to get when you were recognised as a regular customer &/or know the owners. Case in point, the old Waterfront Records where you could walk in the doors & have Frank, Steve or Chris accost you with something new that had just arrived that they'd know you would dig because they knew exactly the sort of stuff you were into by virtue of the fact you bought it off them. They'd give it a spin & they'd generally be spot on & you'd walk out with said platter tucked under your arm. Jules at Phantom was good in that way, but never Red Eye for some reason. Maybe because the staff weren't owners?

Anyway, that sort of thing was/is possible in that sort of small specialised store. It's a lot harder in the big chain stores in shopping malls. Actually I'd say it's impossible, despite the bullshit they throw at you with store layout, membership & all that 'building a relationship' horseshit that marketers bang on about. 'Friend us on Facebook'? Yeah right...

[spork]

Most women are genitically wired for shopping and they are capable of doing it for days on end without coming up for air. Hence the shopping destinations like Singapore and Hong kong etc. Some will refuse to go to a destination if there is no shopping available, Maldives for instance. Blokes on the other hand just want to walk in, buy what they want, and walk out. Being that most surf shops are simple clothing retailers for the female shopper, the experience is pretty much crap for us. The local surf retailer has his market wired I rekon, he has a clothes/footwear shop in the major shopping areas, a skate/trendy clothes shop in the main street and a board/wetty etc. shop on a main arterial road. I often hang out at the board shop while my misses is at Spotlight or some such. I am trying to talk him into a coffee machine lounge and surf vid creche.

[steve shearer]

There's a new little hole in the wall coffee shop opened up in Byron run by Rod.

does single origin coffee, nice brews.

I drive the bus up in the laneway and Rod gets me what I need and cuts me a heap of slack because I can send business his way.

I like that retail experience.