Reading the telltales of trends

I am learning to sail, which means I am coming across terms that we use every day in business and finally realising where they came from.

Telltales on the sail tell sailors where the wind is coming from and how to harness it to take the yacht where they want it to go quickly and efficiently. My apologies to sailors reading this…you can tell that I have a lot to learn.

There are always telltales in business that help us to spot early trends. They are usually observable across a wide range of business sectors or geographics.

Once you spot them and link them, or have them pointed out to you, you can see where the change came from and get an indication where the trend is heading.

Product developers and designers in manufacturing companies, often working with buyers, usually select and harness, or create and drive, trends that end up in stores and dealerships in front of shoppers.

We can walk into some stores, owned by the best retailers, and see the increasing presence of online retailing growing apace. Most of the evidence is seen through reported results and anecdotes in conversations with people.

The best retailers are using in-store media to tell shoppers that if they are pressed for time, or just want the option of shopping for items away from the store, they can. That is a convenience position for the retailer’s online retailing, not a pricing position.

I have two anecdotes that show price trends are not the only thing driving adoption of online retailing. Service, convenience and choice are three factors that matter just as much.

A friend of mine has an online store selling niche gifts sourced from around the world and sold in Australian dollars. She’s ridden the ups and downs of currency rate moves during the four years she has owned the business and during the past three months she has enjoyed her best ever sales.

Her shoppers, who are predominantly Australian, love her eye for unique gifts and the highly personal service she offers.

All orders are packed and sent within 24 hours and each order is gift wrapped in the colors of her brand – red and white – with a handwritten note.

Her store has a very high re-order rate from her 294 customers and she knows there are 294 customers because she uses a simple email solution called Mailchimp to talk to her customers every six weeks.

Service, convenience and quality are the positioning for her online retailing, not pricing positioning.

A colleague sat on a board that runs a regional courier company. Two years ago that  business managed shipping of predominantly low value, high bulk freight from one business address to another. Now almost half of his business deals in high value small bulk freight items being shipped from business addresses to home addresses.

The higher freight rates his business is enjoying are being paid directly by online shoppers within the cost and service of the items they buy online. That is a service and convenience position for online retailing, not a pricing position.

The telltales seem to be pointing to quality of service, choice and convenience as three key attributes that online shoppers are seeking, perhaps even as much as low prices.

I hope I am reading the telltales correctly and not taking you towards the rocks.

In his role as CEO of CROSSMARK, Kevin Moore looks at the world of retailing from grocery to pharmacy, bottle shops to car dealers, corner store to department stores. In this insightful blog, Kevin covers retail news, ideas, companies and emerging opportunities in Australia, NZ, the US and Europe. His international career in sales and marketing has seen him responsible for business in over 40 countries, which has earned him grey hair and a wealth of expertise in international retailers and brands. CROSSMARK Asia Pacific is Australasia’s largest provider of retail marketing services, consulting to and servicing some of Australasia’s biggest retailers and manufacturers.