Retail’s best concepts
As CEO of Saferock, Shah Karim advises retailers worldwide. Read about his favorite strategies here.
MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group
MediaMarktSaturn with its outlets Saturn and MediaMarkt is a consumer electronics giant with €20+ billion in annual sales and #1 market position in 9 European countries, more than 2.5 million daily store visitors and about 2 million daily unique online visitors.
What retailers can learn:
40% of online orders are picked up in store, which is a terrific driver of store traffic. Service and support are profit centers for the company. Home delivery can be combined with training and installation. This allows for additional sales of insurance, subscriptions, training and other services that are both convenient for the customer and add incremental profits to the company. They have a popular in-store ‘Care and Repair’ center, helpful in-store support, mobile device education and financing that makes it easier to buy big-ticket items. These improve customer care and encourage loyalty.
Golden Eagle Retail Group
Golden Eagle owns and operates 30+ luxury malls in China, along with office complexes and hotels. In a unique twist, it runs high-end beauty, health and book stores as well as supermarkets in these malls.
What retailers can learn:
When visiting the mall, high-value customers can use their app to be personally welcomed upon arrival and use a private check-in and service area. Customers can use a separate mobile POS app to directly pick and pay for any items on the store floor and bypass the check-out lane. The mainland China mobile payments market is closing in on $2 trillion annually. E-wallets have a 58% share of mobile payments. They are driven by QR codes and NFC, leading to quick, frictionless transactions.
Westfield Century City
The Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles presents an interesting set of companies that were once pure online retailers and now have a physical presence. These include Untuckit, Amazon Books, Detox Market and Peleton. Bonobos and Rodd & Gunn from New Zealand let you see the clothes in store but then ship directly to your home – same as Warby Parker with glasses.
What retailers can learn:
The mall has personal shoppers (for a fee) and exclusive designer rooms for private shopping with a private parking area. There are rotating pop-up stores for companies to launch new ideas and bring them to customers – recently there were pop-ups by Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner for beauty and cosmetics. The mall has an Uber lounge for taxi pickup and spaces for performances and events.
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