[…] the customer is firmly in control in the driver’s seat, it may be too late for you. In 1990, Sam Walton said, “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman […]
[…] why a number of analysts believe that Costco is asking for trouble by dragging its feet on curbside pickup. As Chris Walton put it in Forbes, \”At this point, rejecting curbside pickup is like rejecting gravity. It\’s the retail equivalent of […]
[…] leadership succession. With the appointment of Doug McMillon as the new CEO of Walmart in 2014, the Board and the Walton family knew they were \”betting the house\” by unleashing a brilliant, visionary change agent who would risk everything by […]
[…] record straight. It’s astounding how quickly this enormous “battleship” has changed course. If you understand the theory put forth in Chris Anderson’s book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, you will acknowledge that […]
In its recent review of A Bit of a Stretch, a prison memoir from filmmaker and ersatz tax fraudster Chris Atkins, The New York Times reports on his observation that sexual pornography isn’t the primary tool of gratification and anticipation […]
[…] more than ever, radical change is what traditional retailers need. These three radicals — (clockwise from upper left in image, Chris Duffy, VP of In-Store Environment, Home Depot, Daren Hull, SVP Technology, Stores and West Elm Digital at Williams-Sonoma, Inc, […]
[…] history. In much of the rest of the have-not world, the struggling is against the forces of downward mobility. Sam Walton knew that his most important customer was the single mother raising her children. Our global lower classes are faced […]
[…] Institute and the Museum of Contemporary Art, both in Chicago, are my personal favorites. I get more points from the Christmas and birthday gifts bought at museum gift shops than any other venue. There I find curated, interesting merchandise. Everything […]
[…] you come to multi-brand retailing, that means this country has an apprehension just like in the U.S. when Mr. Sam Walton was building the big boxes; no one wanted him to put the little mom and pop elderly couple’s store […]
[…] factors are important but none of them would be worth much if the store’s merchandising strategy hadn’t been reframed. Mrs. Walton—not to mention Mmes. Target, Amazon and eBay—didn’t raise any dumb retailers. All you have to do is look at […]
