In our newly released Sophelle Focus Report on Boundaryless Commerce: Pop-up Retail, we outline six critical success factors that need to be addressed when considering a pop-up retail strategy. In this post, we’ll take a deeper dive into the first one: Customers. As discussed in this first Boundaryless Commerce report, some of the primary motivating…
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With all the different stimuli, options, mediums, and content available today companies are searching for better ways to connect and engage with their audience and potential customers. By some estimates individuals are now exposed to over 5,000 advertisements in a single day. So how best to reach customers with rich, relevant experiences that cut through…
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The Pop-up retail shop may seem like a new and trendy concept, but the fact is that it has been around for decades. What is new is that retailers and brands are finding unique and engaging ways to leverage pop-ups in an ever-evolving “boundaryless retail” environment. A term coined by Mindy Grossman, CEO of HSNi…
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For decades, retailers have held fast and true to the marketing mantra, looking for a 360 degree view of the customer. The rise of ecommerce and the big data that it produced, created a world of promise for an all-knowing view of the customer that could be combined with relevant CRM information. Data such as:…
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No one likes surprises at work. We want to make plans, execute against them, and meet or exceed our customers’ expectations. Nowhere is this more true than in retail. The pace of change is faster than ever. Mistakes can be more costly. With all this change and risk, the ability to execute without surprises is…
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Retail success is about creating a compelling customer experience and today it takes innovation to be compelling. Sophelle is a management and technology consultancy focused on retail. Over our 20+ years we’ve helped hundreds of leading retailers on thousands of projects. We’ve gone back and looked at the retailers which have demonstrated the most successful…
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In a recent podcast with Tim Parry of Bricks and Clicks, I had the opportunity to share my thoughts on the state of retail, beginning with the shift in shopping habits of the sporting goods sector. The simple fact is that although the space has always been challenged by big players such as Dick’s, Bass…
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Consumers now make purchasing decisions differently than at any other point in the past, standing in stores while using smartphones to compare prices and read reviews, posting pictures of potential purchases on social media to get instant opinions of family and friends, and selecting among an ever-growing number of online retailers to deliver products to…
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Despite the focus on the “age of Amazon” in the retail world, the vast majority of retail purchases still happen in physical stores. Because of this, bricks-and-mortar stores aren’t going away any time soon. For retailers that are heavily invested in physical stores, the good news is that studies show Generation Z prefers bricks-and-mortar shopping…
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Having just finished an amazing week at another NRF BIG Show and having a moment to reflect; I came home wondering “Has omnichannel turned into another 4-letter word?” The buzzword has been in our lexicon for several years now, and it has continued to evolve. What was once the definition of a retailer selling across…
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