Boarding Pass checkouts - the unintended consequences?

Reports in The Independent indicate that Airport retailers demand boarding cards from travel-shoppers to avoid paying 20 per cent VAT on everything they sell to passengers travelling outside the EU, as there is no purchase tax due on such goods.

Research by The Independent also suggests most of these stores don’t pass the savings on to customers.

Apart from the inevitable damage caused to retailer brand equity, and possible questions from the authorities re inappropriate VAT collection, the real issue has to be the knock-on effect of most airline passengers refusing to submit what is a valuable source of shopper insight at checkout...

In other words, think about the value of knowing name, destination, flight class and frequent-flyer details of every travel-shopper making a purchase...especially if linked with loyalty-data to optimise shopper marketing strategies in some of the world's most expensive retail real-estate...especially if it can be shared with the airline...

Think also about the fragility of shopper-retailer relationships, in a world where passengers held overlong in the security security-process, already suspicious that the indirect route to the plane is deliberately designed to encourage shopping, are known to 'punish' the airport by refusing to enter, let alone buy from airport shops...

Time for a grand gesture - and some overdue damage limitation - via VAT discounts at the checkout?

The Savvy NAMs guide to Best-by dates and food safety

A new article by Business Insider makes a point that the "sell by" dates indicate not whether foods are safe to eat - they simply tell you when food will reach its limits for "optimal quality".

They link to a fully searchable site that gives guidance re. the safe-life of most foods, along with advice on prolonging life-time by category

Well worth a check over the weekend…

Meanwhile, it might be worth contemplating on the implications of savvy consumers adopting ways of reducing waste - $165bn/annum - thus effectively reducing consumer demand by even half of that amount, in a flat-line environment…

The way forward for food suppliers?
Why not embrace the inevitable and promote ways of prolonging the life of your brand, and grow credibility and market share at the expense of more defensive competitors, even in flat-line…?

TGIF !

..........or a fat-cat worried sick?

Amazon not clicking with Click & Collect?

Some recent research conducted by Instantly, a provider of audiences and insights tools, came out with an unexpected conclusion that Tesco is leading the way in click & collect at 60%. However, a surprise was that Amazon scored so badly at 16%....

Given that their home delivery is well-nigh perfect, it seem unusual that they are missing such an obvious trick on the more economic alternative from an online supplier’s point of view.

Unless Amazon are cooking up a radical alternative to collection-boxes in stores? 

Aldi-man new fashion range launch

Having landed a few heavy punches on the grocery mults, Aldi is now squaring up to the High Street clothing giants M&S and Next, with its first fashion range for men.

The new summer clothing range includes linen trousers (£9.99), smart chino shorts (£7.99) and Oxford shirts (£6.99), and for those NAMs wanting to avoid being recognised by other Aldi-NAMs, marl zipped hoodies are a must-buy @ £8.99….

Worth at least a store visit, but if you cannot afford to be seen in Aldi, some good in-use pics are available here.

Where is this headed?
Sharp-eyed followers of mens’ fashion will remember that Lidl beat Aldi to it via their launch of a men's fashion range in November 2014.

However, apart from resulting in a little headline-grabbing skirmishing, taking both initiatives together gives another indication of the extent of the discounters’ ambitions in the UK.

In other words, someone at Aldi/Lidl has to be assessing potential opportunities category by category, seeking the right blend of complacent-pricing and tunnel-vision that might respond to a Lidl proper discounting...

It costs little to try, and one discounter’s success automatically provides a pointer for the other…

Meanwhile, one can only imagine the additional disruption in the men’s fashion world should Poundland find a way to follow suit…?

Webification - how The Entertainer is taking the shop floor to new heights in Toy Retailing

If your kids have not already pointed it out, a visit to a branch of Gary Grant’s The Entertainer Toy store will convince you of the merits of experimenting with alternative tech-driven experiences, increasingly integrating e-commerce functionality with in-store environments – a ‘webification’ pointer for other retailers?.

With sales of £107m, ROCE 22.7%. and Net Margins BT of 5.7%, and growing at 13% in the current climate, they are one of the most innovative toy retailers we analyse.

The Entertainer is significantly improving both customer enquiry resolution and conversion, and Click & Collect performance by deploying shop floor tablet devices.  The independent toy retailer is now able to offer a 30 minute Click & Collect service, a development that saw sales via this channel grow by more than 80 per cent over Christmas 2014, accounting  for 35 per cent of the company’s online sales.

The shop floor tablets used by The Entertainer are a great starting point (more at ItProPortal). For example, they can be used to enable easy review of a store’s entire inventory, the traditional in-store equivalent of which would be incredibly laborious, even with the help of a shop assistant.

By arming assistants with a tablet, retailers can provide the shopper with an ‘endless aisle’ experience similar to that of e-commerce. 

Moreover, the devices can also allow assistants to process payments anywhere in-store, and even provide personalised recommendations.

Obviously, exposing your kids to a retailer’s entire inventory carries its own risks, so perhaps a solo store-check might be wiser this time…?

Getting mad, even for seagulls?

                                                                                                                                Pics: Brighton Argus

More about the dog-killers here

"Unexpected Item in the Bagging-Area"

Dear Retailer

Why not keep our little mistakes secret by eliminating 'shout-over' and confining our dialogue to the check-out screen?


Have a User-friendly weekend from the NamNews Team!