Retail Day
Retail Week, today
Green fingers
There was so much going on at the end of last week that I didn’t have a chance to mention all of it. Last Wednesday we had Retail Week’s e-commerce directors’ club, when Boots multichannel director Tim Stacey gave the address. It was all off-record, so I can’t write about the speech or the questions he answered, but it was fascinating hearing around the table over dinner about the challenges facing ecommerce directors, particularly internally within their businesses, where many companies still seem to regard online as a cost rather than as the company’s biggest (or potentially biggest) store.
As one said to me, if a retailer’s biggest store was growing sales exponentially, the manager would get more staff hours to play with, but there almost seems to be an assumption that the online channel can continue to expand sales without the same investment. That sounds like a risky strategy to me, as continuing to invest and innovate is vital to staying ahead of the pack when it comes to online.
Then on Thursday it was off to London’s trendy Haymarket Hotel where B&Q was launching its new garden range, helped by none other than Alan Titchmarsh. The hotel’s pool area had been decked out spectacularly with garden furniture and plants - including some massive summer houses which must have been a nightmare to get down the stairs and assemble - and B&Q is making a real push for authority in the category, helped by the instantly recognisable Titchmarsh.
He seemed a nice guy, although understandably enough gets tired of people asking him gardening questions and avoids travelling by train as a result, because the person next to him will always try to engage him in conversation. They gave us a nice goodie bag of garden products to take home, but I subtly disposed of the bag of seed potatoes as they were proving a nuisance to carry around Oxford Street’s shops later on. I hope no one saw them and mistook them for a bomb.
Building up its presence in garden is a smart move for B&Q. Garden retail is one of the most fragmented sectors of retailing, and often the standards of retailing are relatively unsophisticated compared to other parts of the industry. When Tesco bought Dobbies a few years ago we thought that would unleash a wave of consolidation but that hasn’t hapenned.
I didn’t know this but B&Q is the UK’s biggest garden centre operator, but there is still market share there for the taking from indies and small multiples, and the scale of last week’s launch shows that it’s a big target for the giant Euan Sutherland and his team.
on Jan 26th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Hello Tim,
Fertiliser lookalike bombs aside, I sort of imagined you might fancy growing some spuds at R.W head office and blogging about this staple of the weekly basket?