It’s amazing to see all of these people in one place basically saying:

1. Companies aren’t listening.
2. Customer-centric initiatives are second to bottom line driven strategies.
3. Employees aren’t empowered to help customers.
4. Technology is lacking in the space of customer relationship or the feedback collected isn’t being used.
5. All of the Above

Hopefully, we’ll make a little wave out of San Diego to help some of these companies out

You’ve once again put your finger on the core problem – most retail industry employees are shielded from the customer. Sure, retail researchers and marketers themselves are extremely savvy. We work with them all the time and their knowledge is deep & nuanced, with all the nearly-intimate customer information increasingly available.

It’s too often that the critical customer information seems to stop at the researcher’s door. The rest of their retail organization is largely out of touch with the ultimate customer. Many retailer’s other employees consider segmention and target marketing as a cost item. They dwell on the limits of customer-specific products and placement.

Meanwhile, look at Amazon’s latest quarter and see how they have leveraged their direct customer connection to deeply understand their customers.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s that legend running around that WalMart is so sophisticated in its product placement and timing that it stocks up certain stores on cherry pop-tarts just days before floods and hurricanes. They anticipate what their buyers want – and when – even down to the safety food hoarded by the pre-disaster crowd.

You couldn’t have said it better. I’ve worked as a graphic designer for retail giants before and it disturbed me that we were always working on sale catalogs, signage and such, 6-8 months prior to the season! I know it takes time for publications to print and so on, but it seemed like the buyers were pushing us into 2 seasons ahead.

What I want to know is who established this schedule of seasons for consumers? And why is it across the board and not related to the climates we live in? Like Southern California won’t be needing sweaters or jackets until December and they are already in our stores. I cringed when I saw Autumn/Halloween decorations in Rite Aid yesterday.

Why can’t we just live in the moment?

Thanks for this post. I hope it brings more awareness to the people deciding what goes in our stores and when.

Pam

I am seeing the beginning of Halloween candy appearing now and it is still July. Back to school has almost come and gone.

No wonder so many stores are having trouble surviving.

There doesn’t seem to be any common sense here.

Perhaps my company the Maver Management Group will start a chain of stores called SEASONAL MERCHANDISE IN THE SEASON.

Would you shop there?

Thanks for the article.

John