By Tony Chapman
The platform economy is being constructed at a frantic pace over the current marketplace. Many legacy businesses, operating models and supply chains are starving for air or being suffocated.
‘The Mobile Phone is a Trojan Horse’
Players in the Platform Economy use data fuelled algorithms to digitally matchmake sellers to consumers with highly-personalized offers that are delivered with precision. They treat the mobile phone as a Trojan Horse to carry their app and bring the world within arms’ reach of desire, and often they do it without carrying inventory.
The most famous include airbnb, Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, Facebook, Google, Linked In, Microsoft, Netflix, Shopify, Skip, Spotify, Uber, and within 15 years they have combined for a market cap in excess of $7.1 trillion and a concentration of market share. Amazon is approaching antitrust scale with many experts predicting they will soon control 50% of North American online spend. Their only saving grace might America’s paranoia to the global ambitions of Chinese competitors, led by Alibaba and Tencent.
And each day the Platform Economy become faster, better, stronger and populated by new apps.
“Retailers must pivot from selling merchandise to selling into moments’
To survive and thrive retailers must pivot from selling merchandise into selling into moments. Let me explain why and how.
The physicality of your store – your location, merchandise, decor, mass promotion, pricing and service that were all instrumental in driving profitable traffic and basket. No longer are they firing on all cylinders and I would argue much has been neutered by personal phones becoming the world’s biggest vending machine. Even your omnichannel strategy is under pressure.
‘Clicks are fast but Bricks have Heart’
To counter you need to change the criteria by which the consumer values your offering by identifying the areas or territories that are relevant and that matter, and ones that you can offer and your competitors can’t. In the case of ‘bricks’ versus ‘clicks’, what you have is a heart. Clicks might be fast but they don’t beat with emotion.
I spent three decades as the Founder and CEO of two internationally renowned advertising agencies and a research firm. I can tell you with certainty that most people are social creatures, we are wired to connect, and the vast majority are on a series of continuous quests to improve their and their families life and livelihood. Some want more safety and security, others a greater sense of belonging and validation, or a desire to accomplish or become a better being. Many chase more than one and some all and then more. Our collective efforts are what have advanced our race.
Most human adventures are taken to satisfy unfulfilled needs so many are baked with uncertainty, insecurity and a sense of trepidation at the unknown.
‘Conventional retail – help consumers be what they want to be’
And that is what Conventional Retail can stand for and stand out.
Your role is to take the ‘in’ out of their insecurity, the ‘un’ out of their uncertainty by helping each consumer be what they want to be.
Newcomers to your country want to be accepted. Instagrammers want to be famous and patrons of a local business want to be known and remembered. Parents want to be role models, small business owners want to be a success, exhibitionists want to be noticed, leaders want to be followed, Grand Parents want to be relevant with their gifts, lonely people want to be connected, some to be capable with technology, be fashionable, and treasure hunters want to be the ones to find the Picasso in the Attic etc.
Your best sales people intuitively know how to sell into a customers’ moment versus sell merchandise. Anyone and any site can sell a pair of skinny jeans but someone who is amazing no the floor will find out that their customer is going on a ski trip, and instead of a pair of jeans they sell an Apres Ski Outfit. The same holds true a home improvement center. You can sell front doors and windows and hope to survive another year by price matching online, or you can take the time to understand their motivation to buy. A buyer might be concerned about the increased crime in their neighborhood. They aren’t buying a door they are buying a solid oak drawbridge and security system that when locked will prevent anyone from breaking in. A young couple buying their starter home might be looking at a door to make the first impression. They can’t afford a full renovation but know that every time they or family or friends open your door they are opening their mind to possibilities. A great butcher sells into a family gathering and a local coffee offers a neighborhood oasis.
‘This pivot isn’t a skip in the park or a perfectly paved speedway’
This pivot isn’t a skip in the park or a perfectly paved speedway. It requires a major shift in strategy from selling transactions to enabling transformations. To do so you have to move the conversation and consideration from ‘mass’, now owned by clicks, to ‘my’ which can be perfected inside your bricks.
In my new Keynote, From a Place to Buy to the Place to Be, which I will be debuting at Store 2019 I share my thoughts on how you any retailer can pivot from trying to move merchandise to selling into personal moments.
I use best in class case studies from retail, tourism, and hospitality to illustrate and prove my point.
I also map out the pivot and the leadership mentality and the steps required.
The humility and honesty to identify who you are, and who you are not.
The ability to profile the consumers you want to target, with the empathy to map out their quests and unfulfilled needs.
The importance of changing your marketing and omnichannel strategy from a drift net hoping to catch a depleted pool of consumers to fly fishing with solutions.
The opportunity to be part of the Age of Storytelling as your consumers share their moments that you helped make possible.
‘The Platform Economy is here’
The Platform Economy is here and much of what made you successful has been stripped away.
You need to pivot and focus on bringing each consumer more and less. More of what matters to their individual journeys with less friction and effort.
‘Beat to their emotion’
When you focus your physicality
on helping consumers discover and find their Be’s you beat to their emotion. You find your rhythm which also guides your investment in staff training, merchandise selection, and in-store technology.
And instead of being buried by the platform economy you stand above it by focusing on helping the consumer be all they want to be.
Tony Chapman is a Keynote Speaker, Conference Host, Moderator Interviewer, TV and Radio Personality. React with him on Linked In or through his web site.
