Why Department Stores are Failing
Dear Department Store Management,
If you want to survive in the online consumerism culture, you need to change your hours. You have to understand how your client has changed and change with them. Your target audience is the shopper who needs instant gratification. The shopper who needs the item "this hour," not "twelve hours from now." Which means, you need to change your hours.
Personally, I shop before work and after work. Guess who is not open? The department store. Gone is the day of casual wandering of stores... at least during the work week.
A large department store is going out of business and is having huge sales. I drop the kids off at school and then stop by the department store on my way to work. Oh wait, the store is not yet open!
As a sales industry it is time to think differently. Target the person who forgot the birthday party this evening, and needs to pick something up on her way to work. Target the person who gets off work at 10 p.m. Don't think of your hours as a solid flow, but more as shifts. Be open during shift changes.
This means your store should be open between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. Then again from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.. And a third time from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. This way you wouldn't have to be open 24/7, just 12 hours every 24 hour cycle.
Think differently. Use your time affectively. Market to the idea of your availability for people on their way to and from work. Play to your strengths! We want your buildings to stay open.
Sincerely,
A consumer.
If you want to survive in the online consumerism culture, you need to change your hours. You have to understand how your client has changed and change with them. Your target audience is the shopper who needs instant gratification. The shopper who needs the item "this hour," not "twelve hours from now." Which means, you need to change your hours.
Personally, I shop before work and after work. Guess who is not open? The department store. Gone is the day of casual wandering of stores... at least during the work week.
A large department store is going out of business and is having huge sales. I drop the kids off at school and then stop by the department store on my way to work. Oh wait, the store is not yet open!
As a sales industry it is time to think differently. Target the person who forgot the birthday party this evening, and needs to pick something up on her way to work. Target the person who gets off work at 10 p.m. Don't think of your hours as a solid flow, but more as shifts. Be open during shift changes.
This means your store should be open between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. Then again from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.. And a third time from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. This way you wouldn't have to be open 24/7, just 12 hours every 24 hour cycle.
Think differently. Use your time affectively. Market to the idea of your availability for people on their way to and from work. Play to your strengths! We want your buildings to stay open.
Sincerely,
A consumer.
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