Global Industry Outlook 2011 - Retail

By M. Isi Eromosele

The year 2011 will pave the way to innovation, opportunities and new ways of delivering products and services to the empowered retail consumer. To maintain sustained profitability, retail companies will need to rely on innovative ways to attract new customers, even as they strive to retain the ones they have already acquired. Slow recovery from the recent recession, consumer doubts about the direction of the economy and tightening credit have combined to curtail consumer spending, presenting a mildly uncertain climate for the Retail industry.

This year will produce smarter retailers who will strive to establish consistency in sales and strengthen loyalty among their varied and segmented customers. The sustained provision of impeccable customer experience is imperative for retailers who want to succeed in a marketplace that has become highly competitive.

A major conduit to growth would be to find ways to be more competitive. This would require concerted efforts at differentiation from competitors and full utilization of multi-channel marketing approaches, including heavy use of social media marketing. Expect empowered consumers to be much more selective in their shopping this year, as they seek detailed product information as well as consider other factors before making purchase decisions. These factors include whether the product is environmentally correct and whether a private label version of it is available with comparable quality at a reduced price.

The ability of consumers to instantly obtain information about any product through the Internet has upbraided the relationship between brands and their customers. Control has shifted to the newly empowered customers and this new paradigm has created a highly competitive retail marketplace. Retailers must adapt by proactively providing product information in wholesomely transparent ways. An excellent method to accomplish this is through social media conversations with consumers themselves. Engaging their customers this way will reassure them about the retailers’ product integrity, brand personality and company reputation.

The following are other actions retailers would need to implement in order to have a most profitable year in 2011:

• Build stronger connections with their customers and realign their marketing with customer preferences in order to enhance delivery of customized services


• Establish a social marketing platform that would facilitate customer interaction with particular brands.


• Improve online presence with social communities that capture customer profiles, gaining insight into customer buying patterns


• Deliver impeccable shopping experience for customers


• Optimize product information management with multi-tiered data storage strategy


• Accelerate speed to market of new products and services


• Monitor sales and gross profits for all divisions and channels of customer delivery


• Enable predictive analysis methodology to predict products that customers are most likely to buy


• Assure inventory accuracy with high-value product tracking systems


• Implement an integrated view of all sales channels, enabling better maintenance of inventories


• Streamline order fulfillment processes to eliminate inefficiencies that result in excess inventories


• Provide a seamless and pleasing experience to the customer in the store, Web and on the phone

There are considerable opportunities available for revenue growth for those retail organizations that utilize transparency, analytics, multi channels and social media marketing to create and maintain excellent customer experience.

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M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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