Retail is Competitive - so the Leaders Innovate

When consumer spending falls, as it has recently, retail becomes a desperately competitive business. The natural reaction is to compete on price with sales, customer discount coupons and special offers. However, there is always scope for innovation and as we walk down the high street we can see imaginative retail approaches to the business of attracting customers. Here a couple of striking recent examples.

IKEA in Australia has experimented with a section called Manland. It is basically a creche for husbands and boyfriends with low retail attention spans. It has table football, video games, sports channels etc. A woman can leave her man there and take a buzzer to collect him when she is at the check-out. It is corny and sexist but it is getting a lot of media coverage.

Tesco faced a tough challenge in Korea where they had far fewer retail outlets than the market leader. So they created virtual stores in subways. They have large poster displays that look like retail shelves. Each picture of an item carries a QR code. Busy commuters, while waiting for their trains, can use mobile phones to snap the QR codes and order the goods online. The shopping is delivered to the home later that day. More details in this video.

Proctor and Gamble and Mall.cz are trying a similar idea in Prague. I expect we will see many more examples of mobile retail creativity and innovation in shopping generally.

Paul Sloane writes and speaks on Innovation. He is the author of The Innovative Leader published by Kogan Page.

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