A quote that caught my eye recently was “Shopping is cheaper than a psychiatrist”. Apart from the obvious response that “it depends where you shop”, I started to think about why is shopping so often seen as a therapeutic exercise. And when does shopping become a chore? What are the factors that determine whether it[…]
Continuing on the theme of customer service from last week, I’ve been thinking about three key elements of retail: the product, the service and the location. For pure plays read site accessibility and visibility for location. There is no doubting the importance of your product. If the quality of what you are selling is at[…]
A friend of Retail247, we’ll call him Jim, recently told me the story of how, returning from the US, he was fortunate to be upgraded to First Class. Being his first time (no, it wasn’t Virgin Airlines) the flight attendant was particularly helpful and welcoming. Early on she ascertained that our friend did not wish to[…]
Continuing with the theme of applying Real World Thinking examples to the world of technology – it’s time to look at traffic queue theory – or at least a very simple version thereof. Random motorway queues at busy times are often formed by a single vehicle slowing down. Vehicles then arrive at the back of[…]
Historically, shopping can loosely be described as impulsive. Decide you want something, go out and buy it, immediate gratification. In the dark days before on-line shopping, we were used to getting things the same day and at our convenience. Today, consumer expectation has taken a subtle shift. Although purchasing fundamentally remains a mix of the considered[…]
I was impressed by the launch of the Apple watch recently. Of course they have done it with all the style and panache we have come to expect from their excellent brand and you can hardly fail to notice the high fashion influence of ex Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts. With Siri an integral part of the[…]
Short and sweet this week. I always worked on the assumption that any project would have an additional life cycle phase after, during or occasionally before, go-live. After Dev, Test, Imp etc comes, in my opinion, the most important phase of any project methodology, the phase whose length dictates whether a project is ultimately a[…]
Continuing with my thoughts challenging existing IT practice I thought I’d have a stab at the Service Level Agreement (SLA). As usual, all points are made in an attempt to provoke debate. The SLA is a contractual issue that I have spent many hours debating – and I have often questioned the point. When the[…]
Many retailers (both bricks and pure plays and everything in between) have dabbled with a gift registry service. Like most things, there are a variety of success stories and some not so great implementations. The benefits are clear – even from a short term perspective, the service can drive additional revenue. If done properly it[…]
As my career continues, I ponder the constant pre-occupation that some corners of the IT community have with ‘business’ integration. The mere fact that the phrase “IT & the business” is used builds the perception of a barrier between two sides at war. Are there groups of accountants sitting around asking themselves how to get[…]
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed non magna eu lectus euismod dictum id sed metus. Nulla non sodales lacus. Nam orci orci, dignissim ut convallis at, imperdiet at nunc. Nunc ac urna elit. Aliquam sed sagittis dui. Donec at fringilla neque, eu dictum ligula. Nam vitae dui maximus urna dictum rutrum id vel enim. Etiam consequat pharetra viverra.
