Areas of Practice
Food
Whether it is dry center of the aisle, refrigerated or frozen, the roots of our consulting journey has been food. Even though the industry is growing slowly, we see great opportunities in better-for-you, convenience and channel-specific products. The shift from traditional grocery to on-line and non-grocery formats is creating opportunities for emerging brands to grab share and shake up the industry.
hard goods
Hard goods are probably the segment most affected by the emergence of on-line retailing. Every hard goods brand we’ve worked with has faced the question of how to deal with Amazon. At the same time, shelf space at Best Buy, Wal*Mart and Target has never been more valuable. Getting your brand’s message out to consumers in this channel environment is critical, especially in an on-line world that can carry enormous variety.
grocery retailing
In a world of increasingly segmented consumers, grocery continues to be an old school industry where geographic proximity still wins. Despite this, our research shows that consumers use multiple stores for grocery with each format playing a different role depending on shopping occasion. Surviving in today’s grocery environment means winning and owning the right occasions, since no retail can be all things to all people.
beverage
From bottled water to craft beer to juices, we have advising on the shifting sands of the beverage categories for two decades. While DSD distribution has consolidated around a few global systems in CSD and beer, we continue to see opportunities in grocery warehouse, foodservice distribution and independent distributors for mid-size players to impact the market.
retail services
We think the future of retailing is the combination of products and services, especially for retailers with a major bricks & mortar investment. We have worked with retailers to build services business that increase trip frequency and customer stickiness that cannot be matched by on-line only competitors.
specialty retailing
Whether it’s apparel, drug or crafts, specialty retailing remains a space where highly differentiated formats can win. Specialty retailing will have a strong on-line component, especially for its ability to manage the long tail of niche inventory. Therefore specialty retail stores need to be more than small warehouses of inventory. They need to get an ROI on their real estate by becoming hubs for the social and educational interaction of customers.
FASHION, APPAREL & TEXTILE
Our decade with Kurt Salmon immersed us in world of soft goods. Whether luxury or discount, we see apparel as fragmenting around more and more microsegments using digital and DTC solutions to communicate with consumer tribes to deliver authenticity and community.
health & beauty
Beauty is leading the move from mass merchandising to micro targeting as brands increasingly target tribal consumer groups through social media. On-line retailing is a great fit for these niche markets, but the traditional channels of specialty and drug will always have an advantage with physical customer interaction. Beauty and wellness as increasingly overlapping as a healthy body and mind are redefining beauty.
digital commerce
While retailers have been investing heavily in creating a last mile that can match Amazon’s service levels, we believe the next frontier will be winning the first mile of the customer journey. That means getting your brand involved at the first stages of discovery and felt need. Finding a way to identify customers entering the purchase journey means leveraging your own customer information as well as partnering with the Googles of the world for their customer insights.