The Confluence of Internet with Brick and Mortar, and Notes from Nike’s 10Q

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Nike filed its 10Q for the quarter ended February 28th on April 4th. You can see it here. An actual analysis of their financial statements seems like a waste of time. I’ll mention a few comments I pulled out, but then I want to get on to what they are saying about e-commerce as it seems to be consistent with what other companies are saying. 

The first thing about Nike’s 10Q and conference call is what’s conspicuous by its absence. I can’t claim to have read every word, but nowhere did I see “skate,” “skateboard,” or “skate shoe.” I assume those sales are just part of footwear. Hardly a surprise. As I’ve discussed, skate shoe sales were never going to move Nike’s earnings per share. Their goal was to become credible with a piece of the market that didn’t see Nike as quite legitimate. Mission accomplished I’d say. And it doesn’t hurt Nike that the skate shoe market has evolved towards casual footwear, because they are pretty good at that.
 
Next, here’s the little bit we find out about Hurley. Nike’s “other businesses” are Converse, Hurley and Nike golf. Revenues for the quarter of those businesses totaled $615 million, around 10% of total quarterly revenues of $6.187 billion.
 
“Excluding the impact of currency changes, total revenues for these businesses increased by 9% and 8% in the third quarter and year to date periods, respectively, reflecting growth in Converse and NIKE Golf.”
 
I read that to say little if any revenue growth in Hurley.
 
“On a reported basis, EBIT for our Other Businesses increased 23% for the third quarter and 18% year to date, driven by improved profits at Converse and Hurley.”
 
So even if Hurley’s revenues didn’t increase, it’s being managed a little more rigorously to improve operating profitability. You know I like that approach.
 
Meanwhile, here’s what President and CEO Mike Parker says about their online business:
 
“In Q3 our online business grew 33% – outpacing the growth in our total DTC business and for total NIKE, Inc. We’ve delivered strong double-digit results in our e-commerce business every quarter for the last 5 years.”
 
He continues:
 
“That said, I’m not satisfied. Right now e-commerce is a relatively small portion of our total revenue. There’s a pretty big gap between where ecommerce is today and where we can take it. So we’re driving more innovation into the shopping experience, elevating the level of service and expanding customization online. At the same time we’re simplifying the user experience making it easier to find and buy our products. I can assure you given the size of the opportunity; everyone on the leadership team shares my sense of urgency around e-commerce.”
 
We’ve all watched a lot of companies get big percentage increases from their e-commerce business though sometimes those big increases were coming from small bases. We’ve wondered (or at least I’ve wondered) just what the mix of online and brick and mortar was going to be and how the two would influence each other. I think I’m getting an inkling.
 
The two channels are supporting mutual growth, but I suspect that online is going to mean fewer brick and mortar stores. That doesn’t mean there won’t be total brick and mortar revenue growth, but the number and purpose of actual stores will change. 
 
Zumiez alluded to this in their last conference call where they talked about the need for new metrics to measure comparable store sales and discussed how growth in the number of stores no longer translates in the same way into revenue.
 
It’s not that stores still won’t be opened (and closed). But the decisions may be more strategic. That is, there will be more to that decision than what sales that store can generate. The question is becoming, “How can opening a store here contribute to our reaching our customers through all available channels?
 
I don’t know how to measure that, but lots of companies are no doubt working on it. As they figure it out, I expect it to have implications for store size, location and inventory. There isn’t any doubt that e-commerce sales cannibalize brick and mortar sales to some extent, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be growth in the combined channels as well as some potential cost savings in the brick and mortar channel. I assume everybody who’s doing both (which is basically everybody) believes that.
 
We’ve also noted that brands are becoming retailers and retailers are becoming brands. We noted it, however, without really explaining why. Now we’ve got a clue. The internet and the need to be at all consumer touch points (Omni channel to use Zumiez’s phrase) requires it.
 
Uh, am I saying here that branding is becoming more important at a time when product is everywhere, it’s hard to create meaningful differences among a lot of products in a category, and the consumer knows everything and is picky? That implies high marketing costs but not always great margins and would seem to favor larger players.
 
Yeah, I guess I am saying that. I’ll be back to you after I’ve thought about it some more.

 

 

Another Possible Retail Future

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We’ve all been watching for a while now as online and brick and mortar retail have collided and converged. We know it’s here to stay and that there’s a lot of evolving left to do. None of us know what the end product will look like (though maybe it’s better to acknowledge that there is no end product- just way points along the path). 

I think I might have stumbled on one of those way points. There’s a new concept store in the Seattle area called Hointer. No idea where the name came from or what it means, but it’s a fascinating combination of internet and brick and mortar.
 
 When you walk in the store (which at this point is men’s pants only), you download an app on your smart phone. There’s one pair of each style of pant hanging in the store. You scan the tag on that pair, put in your size in the app, and the pants shows up in the changing room for you to try on in what they say is 30 seconds. If you want to purchase after trying it on, you swipe your credit card in the scanner in the fitting room. Your receipt will be emailed to you. If not, you just put the pants in a chute in the changing room and as it falls to wherever it goes and is automatically removed from the pants you’ve selected and returned to inventory.
 
Unless you want to, you never need to interact with a sales person. I’m not quite sure if that’s good or bad. Depends on the shopper I suppose. And of course, the store keeps up to date track of its inventory and that inventory is shared with its suppliers.
 
I’ve had a tendency in recent years to harp on the importance of inventory management and operational efficiency. This store seems to make that a virtuous part of the selling process which I really love.
 
I haven’t been in the store yet. I’d want to know a lot more about the cost of the required technology, the impact on operating expense, and the comparative price points of the product. I’m also curious about the complexity that will occur as the product line is expanded.
 
Here’s a link to a news story where the reporter goes through the purchase process. I hope you’ll watch it.   Sorry about the short commercial at the start of the video.

 

 

Some Lessons From Zara; How Fast Fashion Fits Today’s Economy

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Zara has 5,900 stores in 85 countries. Only 45 are in the United States. I’ll get back to why that is. I’ve been aware of Zara for a while of course, but when my ever vigilant research department sent me this article, I decided there were some lessons we could all learn.

Because I don’t want to rehash the whole article, this will be pretty short. Zara, headquartered in Spain, has factories and a distribution center right across from its corporate offices. Their template is “…trendy and decently made but inexpensive products sold in beautiful, high-end-looking stores. “ Sales people are trained to gather information from customers. That information goes to headquarters daily, where trends are identified, clothing designed, and manufacturing orders placed.
 
The production time is two to three weeks. There’s never an over production issue. The company does not advertise. I may have said a time or two that selling through at full margin and telling your customer, “Sorry, it’s all gone!” is the best advertising.
 
Typically, stock turns over in like 11 days. The result is that “…every purchase is an impulse buy” because you know it won’t be there when you come back.
 
Think about the quality and efficiency of operations, including inventory management, required to operate like this. I’ve been writing for a while now that operating well was no longer a competitive- just a requirement of being in the market. Maybe in fast fashion it is an advantage.
 
Here’s another quote you should pay attention to. “A business model that is closely attuned to the customer does not share the cycle of a financial crisis.” You know, we all knew that. But it’s so obvious I, at least, have never thought about it quite in that way. I guess the closest I’ve gotten is to say focus on the gross margin dollars you generate rather than sales growth.
 
Zara’s business model encouraged its customers to visit their stores often, to spend less on each item, but to buy more items because they know they won’t have each of those items long. It’s not a perfect comparison, but the moment I read about spending less on items you know you won’t have long, I thought about how the popsicle skateboard market has evolved.
 
I wonder if, at some point, an unexpected reaction to fast fashion might be for consumers to get tired of constant shopping and turnover. Maybe the next retail chain will be “Timeless Concepts” offering apparel that tends to not go out of style, at least not so quickly. Or maybe I have no clue how men and, especially, women think about fashion.
 
And why does Zara have only 45 stores in the U.S.? Partly because they are aware that foreign brands have a long history of failing here. But it’s also because the Americans “…don’t fit in the clothes. So why do it?  Having to make larger sizes makes production so much more complex.”
 
Well, that’s embarrassing. Maybe having an extra-large burrito and a milk shake for lunch will make me feel better.           

 

 

Nike’s Annual Report and Some Suggested Reading

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Two days ago, Nike filed its 10K annual report with the SEC and I’ve been through it. I’m not going to spend a bunch of time doing a detailed analysis of their already reported results if only because there wouldn’t be a lot of insight to be gained. But there were a few comments in the fine print of the report and in the conference call that I thought were relevant to thinking about the business environment.

As part of that process, I want to point you to a book called The New Rules of Retail, by Robin Lewis and Michael Dart that Roy Turner at Surf Expo turned me on to. It’s also available for Kindle. Let me make the connection between the book and Nike by starting with a quote from Nike Brand President Charlie Denson talking about how the Nike brand achieved a 21% increase in revenues during the year.

“We did it on the strength of our product innovation, the power of the brand, and the differentiation we create through distribution,” he said. Nike Inc. President and CEO Mike Parker notes, “There’s a strong appetite for authentic brands and genuine innovation. Digital technology is just beginning to show what’s possible in products, services and at retail. And new partnerships continue to advance how products are manufactured and distributed.”
 
You might be tempted to say, “Well, no kidding” but having just finished the book, I heard more in that statement than I otherwise might have.
 
The New Rules of Retail (published in 2010) makes a number of predictions we can already see coming true. It says that just to be in the game, you have to do all the operational stuff well. Not just well- really well. And you have to keep improving. That’s no longer a strategic advantage, but the price of entry. I’ve been saying that for a few years, though not with such strategic eloquence, so you can begin to see why I like this book. Like all of us, I’m partial to people who confirm what I think.
 
They also say that “The ultimate collapse of the traditional retail/wholesale business model is now clearly visible.” I’ve said retailers are becoming brands and brands are becoming retailers.  I’m liking the book more and more.
 
They think that as much as 80% to 90% of traditional department store revenues will be generated by their own or exclusive brands. They suggest that retail stores “…will become hybrid enclosed ‘mini-malls’ for increased traffic and higher productivity.” They think Amazon will open stores. They expect preemptive strategies like pop-up stores to “…become proactive strategies as opposed to marketing opportunities.” They expect big retailers “…will accelerate the roll out of their smaller free-standing ‘localized’ neighborhood stores.”
 
They say some other intriguing (or maybe scary?) things too, but I’ll let you read them for yourself and look at the examples they provide.
Why is this happening? Because the consumer has near perfect information and an almost endless number of choices. What to do?
 
The authors suggest that successful companies will do three things. First, and as a condition for accomplishing the other two, they will control their value chain; especially at points of contact with the consumer. This does not mean owning your whole value chain.
 
Second, with consumers expecting more and better all the time and to get things the way they want them, companies have to far exceed the consumers’ expectation. They will accomplish this by creating a “neurological connectivity” with their customers. I know that sounds a bit like voodoo, but the book explains it very well. Think Starbucks or Trader Joes. Or Vans, though that’s my point of view.
 
Third, they will have “…to gain access to consumers ahead of the multiplicity of equally compelling products or services, and precisely where, when and how the consumer wants it.” They call this preemptive distribution.
 
Now, with those three actions in mind, go back and read the quotes from the Nike conference call I started with. The book’s authors note that in all the companies they interviewed, none used their exact words, but the successful ones were doing what they suggested. By the way, they spend quite a bit of time talking about VF and how it’s following their prescription. That’s an interesting read.
 
My immediate reaction on finishing the book was that doing what they say is required was damned expensive and required a strong balance sheet; especially in a lousy economy. Though they don’t address the financial cost of their strategy, I suspect they would agree as they believe “50 percent of retailers and brands will disappear.”
 
They don’t talk about a time frame, so it’s hard to know what to think about that prediction. And they don’t say anything about new brands being created. If their prediction is over three years, it’s pretty harsh. If it’s over 40, it’s probably a low estimate given normal brand cycles.
 
So probably you’re not as big as Nike and might not have their balance sheet. The message isn’t, “If you’re not big you’re doomed.” The message is, first, business was way more fun and easier in the 90s and I really miss that. Second, rapid disruptive change is never something any of us really like, but it’s full of opportunities for the people it doesn’t paralyze.   Some of that opportunity comes from the fact that your competitors may be paralyzed.
 
Third, Lewis and Dart wouldn’t disagree that you still need to know your customers and give them what they want. It’s harder than it used to be, but you also have some technology tools you didn’t have before. In that sense at least, nothing has changed.
Okay, wasn’t this supposed to be about Nike or something?
 
Nike’s revenues for the year were up for almost all categories and brands to $24.1 billion (including Cole Haan and Umbro which they are selling). Sales at Hurley fell from $252 million to $248 million. Nike reports total action sports sales at $499 million, up from $470 million the previous year. That’s 2.1% of Nike’s total sales for the year. I guess “action sports sales” means Hurley plus Nike Skate. Maybe it includes some Converse sales.
 
We know that Hurley lost money, though they don’t say how much. Lower gross margins as well as higher selling and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales contributed to Hurley’s loss. But they are still confident in Hurley’s future. Mike Parker noted in the conference call, “…we’re confident our NIKE, Converse, Jordan and Hurley brands have virtually unlimited growth potential.”
 
Nike’s gross profit margin fell from 45.6% in 2011 to 43.4% in the year ended May 31, 2012. The decline was “…primarily driven by higher product input costs, including materials and labor, across most businesses. Also contributing to the decrease in gross margin were higher customs duty charges, discounts on close-out sales and an increase in investments in our digital business and infrastructure.”
 
I found the mention of higher customs duties interesting. They note in the 10K, “The global economic recession resulted in a significant slow-down in international trade and a sharp rise in protectionist actions around the world. These trends are affecting many global manufacturing and service sectors, and the footwear and apparel industries, as a whole, are not immune. Companies in our industry are facing trade protectionist challenges in many different regions…”
 
On pages four and five, they talk about issues with importing into the European Union, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey and about trade relations with China. Among the reasons the Great Depression lasted so long was the imposition of various “beggar thy neighbor” trade policies (including the Smoot-Hawley tariff act in this country) that reduced worldwide economic activity.
 
Looks like all the world’s helpful and friendly politicians are at it again. You know, I knew they would, but I really hoped they wouldn’t. I better move on. Oh- 58% of Nike’s revenues are from outside the U.S.
 
Well, this is interesting. I’m looking at an income statement with no restructuring charges, goodwill impairment, or intangible and other asset impairment. There’s no “adjusted earnings” offered as an explanation for something or other. No EBITDA reconciliation to GAP. No discontinued operations (There will be next quarter because of the plan to sell Cole Haan and Umbro). There’s hardly any interest or “other” expense. Just net income that rose for the year from $2.13 to $2.22 billion, or by 4.2%. That decline in gross margin really hit them hard.
 
Okay, I’m worried. If too many companies start just reporting what they earned without resorting to various explanations, reconciliations, and obfuscations, who’s going to need me to figure it all out? Where will I be if we have straight forward, easy to read financial statements? I sure hope this isn’t a trend.
 
Revenue in North America rose from $7.58 to $8.84 billion, or by 16.6%. Earnings before interest and taxes were $2.01 billion, up from $1.74 billion the previous year. Revenue from Western Europe was up 7.1% to $4.14 billion, but earnings fell 18.2% from $730 million to $597 million. China sales rose from $2.01 billion to $2.54 billion and earnings rose 17.3% to $911 million.
 
Nike ended the year with 384 retail stores in the U.S., but 109 of those are Cole Haan which will go away when they sell the brand. Hurley had 29 stores. Non-U.S. retail stores totaled 442 including 69 Cole Haan. Direct to consumer revenues totaled 17% of total Nike brand revenue (not Nike, Inc.) And comparable store sales grew 13%.
 
If Nike starts renting space in a Macy’s and stocks and manages the inventory itself, will they call that a “store?” For all I know, they are already doing that. The distinction between brand and retailer just keeps blurring.
  
Nike’s balance sheet is more than solid, with $3.7 billion in cash, a current ratio of 3.0, almost no long term debt and $10.4 billion in equity against $5.1 billion in total liabilities.
 
Nike’s doing well given economic conditions not even they can shrug off. Most importantly, I think they have a clear vision of where brands and retail are going.

 

 

Retail Evolution and Industry Conferences: What’s the Connection?

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Maybe ten days ago, I wrote this article that talked about JC Penney’s new pricing policy and strategy and referred you to an article on that strategy and why it might not work. I thought that article had some implications for our industry and I discussed them. 

Now, my ultra-sophisticated research department (thank you dear) has identified another article called “Retailers Rethink Stores to Fight Online Competition.”   It talks about all the things retailers are trying and concludes with a quote that from Wendy Liebmann, CEO of WSL Strategic Retail saying, “If retailers aren’t experimenting, then they are doomed to fail.”
 
The way you’ve heard me put it is, “The biggest risk is not taking a risk at all.” I’m thinking Ms. Liebmann and I would agree.
 
Meanwhile, speaking of retail chaos, my ever vigilant research department also forwarded this article on foreign fashion brands aggressively moving to open retail locations in the U.S. Well, I guess somebody has to fill up all that empty retail space.
 
You know, it’s funny- the suggestions in the above referenced articles seem equally applicable to retailers from Costco down to a 750 square foot specialty shop.
 
Being reactive in a changing environment has often been a bad idea, but now it seems like it’s damned near impossible given the pace of change in retail. You’re on to change number two before you can react to number one. Do what’s right for your own business.
 
That probably includes spending some money on technology, having the best numbers you can have about what sells (and what doesn’t) and the gross margin dollars you earn, taking chances on brands, taking a new hard look on who your competitors are (finding out where else your customers shop would be great), making decisions with an eye to your balance sheet, and not stressing too much about distribution (as the cat is largely out of the bag).
 
Don’t worry so much about what the other guy is doing. I think I might have first suggested that approach back in 2002, when I wrote after the Surf Industry Conference that maybe they should focus on running their own businesses rather than worrying about skateboarding. Ten years later, it holds up pretty well. You can read it here.
 
Speaking of industry conferences, the snow, skate, and surf conferences for the year are history.   I only made it to the skate conference. I’ll do better next year. Assuming the people that run the companies are attending, that is.
 
But here’s the dilemma for me. Let’s call it a suggestion for conference organizers.
 
I am not expecting many calls or emails telling me that I’m wrong about the changes in retail and the speed at which it’s changing. I don’t even expect to get told my “what to do” list is out of line (though if somebody told me that listing them is a hell of a lot easier than doing them, I’d have to agree).
 
But if the retail and competitive environment (with its implications for brands as well as retailers) is changing as much and as quickly as I think we all agree it is, why is it our conferences still have a tendency to feel like membership meetings at a private club?
 
Look, I love seeing friends I’ve known a long time and don’t see that often. It’s low key, low stress, and fun. We have a great time validating each other’s point of view in a non-threatening environment. I want more people there, as both speakers and attendees who will rattle our comfortable cages.
 
Where’s the skateboard buyer from Amazon? How exactly does the offer of ten blanks for $100 end up right next to the branded deck for $48.95?
 
Can we get somebody from PPR who’s not Volcom to talk about their perception of and plans for our industry? Just how many branded stores for their luxury brands are they going to open in the U.S. and who’s their target customer?
 
Is the Chinese manufacturer of soft surfboards there?
 
How about a retail panel made up of representatives from Sports Authority, Target, Costco, and Dick’s? Or maybe Zumiez, Journeys, and Tilly’s.
 
Have companies in our industry moved their production out of China due to higher prices? Let’s put them on a panel and find out where they moved and how it went.
 
How about a sociologist talking about how long, leveraged caused recessions impact consumer attitudes and spending over decades and maybe generations? There are marketing implications that could be valuable right now. Get Neil Howe, one of the authors of The Fourth Turning, which you should all read, as a speaker.
 
It’s possible nobody could afford Mr. Howe. Well, unless of course we had one conference instead of three. And looking at the strategic issues I’m suggesting we should be addressing, maybe that’s not so silly. Consider the overlap across customers in the industry.
 
I want to invite people to conferences who, whether we wish it or not or like it or not, are powerful players in our space but don’t usually attend. I want us to address issues we’re uncomfortable with, or hope will just go away- because they won’t. I don’t want what I already think to be validated because I’m talking only to like-minded people I’ve known a long time.
 
I’d like all these industry players that make us uncomfortable to be there not just as speakers or panelists, but just as participants. I don’t know if they’d want to come or if they’d be interested in telling us the kinds of things we want to know, but we’ll never know until we ask. They’d be a like more likely to come if there was one large conference instead of three.
 
I didn’t have the idea of consolidating conferences in mind until, honestly, the last paragraphs. I know that by raising the idea, I’m blithely stumbling into issues of industry politics, relationships and revenue sources. Yet it seems to make some sense if my premise about the issues we should be addressing at conferences is reasonable.
 
Don’t you agree?  Or not?
 


 

Learning from JC Penney: Their Transparent Pricing Debacle (So Far)

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As you are probably aware JC Penney, struggling to find a sustainable market position, hired a high powered Apple executive as CEO. He got rid of all their sales and started offering everyday low prices in an attempt to regain some customer attention and loyalty. Based on their recent earnings release, it’s not working, though I hope everybody would agree that this kind of dramatic positioning change can’t be expected to turn things around in a quarter or two.

Now, here comes a gentleman named Bob Sullivan who looks at some research that might explain why it isn’t working and, worse, probably won’t work. Here’s a link to the article. I strongly suggest you read it.

Basically, the article says that we, as consumers, like complex pricing and believe, to paraphrase the article, that a pair of shoes from Macy’s at on sale at 25% off has to be a better deal than Penney’s everyday low price. It also says there are people who will spend hours to save $20 and people who will gladly fork over an extra $20 to get the hell out of the store, and you have to cater to both. Penney’s strategy does not.
 
If true, things don’t look good for Penney’s new strategy or its CEO’s job. It seems to me the same research, if true, is valid for any retailer no matter how small or how large and how many store fronts.
 
My conclusion after reading the article (which I hope you’ve done) is that if you believe the research it references, then running a retail store or stores is inevitably more complex than it used to be. By a lot. And retailers don’t have any choice but to participate in this competition with consumers over information and pricing because, strangely enough, consumers want it that way.
 
Obviously this has something to do with the internet, wireless devices, and the instant availability of information. But it’s more complex and longer term than that.
 
It wasn’t really that long ago where there were just a few retailers, a lot fewer products, and a lot fewer choices to make. Sales were maybe occasional. Go back just a little earlier and your only choice was to order it from the Sears Roebuck catalog and wait for it to be delivered in a month or two by stagecoach.
 
Product research was prohibitively time consuming if it was even possible and there were few products to compare. We’ve come a long way, I guess.
 
Now, a retailer apparently needs to create complexity in pricing. Customers, Mr. Sullivan says based on the research he references, prefer it.
 
Complexity in pricing creates complexity in retail management. One of the justifications for the changes at JC Penney was to eliminate all the cost this artificial complexity created. Think about the costs of having and tracking sales. Especially when you have to keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it just to keep the customers’ attention.
 
Here are some of the costs I can think of: designing, printing and running ads; changing store signs and layout to correspond to the sales, changing prices in your accounting system; keeping your sales staff informed; the impact on the sale of other products from putting certain ones on sale; coordinating with vendors. In addition, I’m sure there’s a certain friction from constant change that has a cost even if it doesn’t show up as a specific line item on your income statement.
 
I can think of two consequences to this. The first is that it’s even more reason to focus on gross margin dollars generated rather than gross margin percentage. That I think that way is not news to anybody who’s read my posts.
 
The second consequence (I’ll call it a hypothesis- I’m not quite sure of this one) is that perceived product differences may be more important than real ones except in the cases where the real ones are particularly significant. You’re trying to create differentiation in an environment where information moves at the speed of light (Okay, slightly less because we’re not operating in a vacuum, at least most of the time). If you wait to do that until there’s a real, fundamental, difference in the product you’re carrying, it won’t happen that often. Even when that difference appears, it won’t last long in our industry and it won’t be exclusive.
 
We’re kind of forced into what Mr. Sullivan calls “shrouding.” It sounds like the more we do it, the better off you are as a retailer.
Can it be that the only way to manage your store in a time of a rapid change is to try and change even faster? I hope not. 

 

 

Trying to Think About the Junction of Retail, Brands and the Internet.

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The more I think about it, the less I feel I know for sure. I know the internet and brick and mortar are changing each other, that brands are becoming retailers and retailers brands, that easy information and product availability is making most products commodities at some level, that brands are really pushing product extensions, and that consumers are making long term changes in their purchasing behavior. But stirring this soup of change just makes it cloudy. 

Yet we all have to be thinking about it, and I’ve had a few experiences in recent months that are at least helping with the thinking and, to my surprise, are turning out to be related. Why don’t I tell you about them and we’ll see if they turn out to be related for you too.
 
At the Mall
 
Bellevue Square is a large regional mall here in the Northwest. It’s anchored by a Nordstrom, Penney, and Macy.   I’m in it occasionally and usually take the time to walk through some of the retailers firmly in our industry to see if I can learn anything. For some reason, at my last visit I determined to make a list of those retailers and see just how long it was. Here’s the list I came up with:
 
7 For All Mankind
Abercrombie & Fitch
Aeropostale
American Eagle
Billabong
Buckle
Element
Forever 21
Helly Hansen
Hollister
Lidz
Lucky Brand
Lululemon
Oakley
PacSun
The North Face
True Religion
Vans
Zumiez
 
I didn’t include Nordstrom or Sketchers. Maybe I shouldn’t include Lululemon. There are a few other fashion retailers I might have added. I know the list is shorter if I include only committed action sports brands. Yet I think that would be deluding ourselves. Every store on this list tries to get at least some of the dollars from customers of the core action sports/youth culture market. And I’m sure they all sell on line.
 
That’s a lot of stores for one mall. Bluntly, I’m not sure there are enough market niches to go around especially given that there’s nobody on this list whose niche isn’t determined largely by advertising and promotion.
 
Buckle
 
Buckle, headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska (don’t ask me), has about 430 stores in 43 states and had revenue of $949 million in the fiscal year ended January 29, 2011. The first time I walked into a Buckle store, it had the action sports/youth culture vibe I was familiar with from various other industry stores. But there was something different, and I literally walked around for a minute or two trying to figure out what it was.
 
You know how most action sports retailers have fixtures, posters, and other promotional aids representing the brands they carry? Buckle, I realized, didn’t have as much of that as most retailers. If you look at the list of brands they carry at their web site, you’ll recognize many of the brands, but those brands don’t overwhelm the merchandising of the store. They kind of get equal billing with Buckle’s owned brands, which are not named Buckle.
 
PacSun carried and promoted the brands we’re all familiar with. Then they added their store brands as a way to generate some more margin dollars and to offer more price conscious customers a choice. The way they handled their private label felt tactical and financial- almost like an afterthought- rather than being part of a strategy. I think that choice, along with over expansion, poor merchandising, and a weak economy, was what got PacSun in trouble.
 
Now, PacSun is being more thoughtful in how they handle their mix of brands.  We learn in their recent filings that their mix is about 50/50 between private label and brands owned by others.
 
Buckle, on the other hand, has what I take to be a deliberate strategy of building its image based on all its brands combined- owned and bought from other brands. In their merchandising, there almost isn’t a distinction made between the two. Buckle is a retailer making itself into a brand (or maybe creating brands?) through this approach.
 
I have often thought of store label brands in terms of what percentage of revenues they could safely represent. Perhaps that was short sighted. Buckle’s premise seems to be that it’s the mix and merchandising of the brands that matters given the target customer; there’s no percentage that’s “too much” or “too little.”
 
I wonder if the day will ever come when we see a retailer that has created brands get enough traction with those owned brands to sell them to other retailers. Maybe internationally.
 
Kohl’s
 
I’d characterize Kohl’s as a discount department store with quite a broad array of merchandise (Here’s a link to their investor relations site, which is full of all kinds of good information). Among the brands they carry are Vans, Hawk, and Zoo York. I was struck by the good selection and attractive pricing. Interestingly, they’ve moved from 75% national brands and 25% “private and exclusive brands” in 2004 to 52% national brands and 48% “private and exclusive brands in 2010.” I guess Buckle isn’t the only store that has the idea of melding owned with national brands.
 
“Private” and “exclusive” brands are not the same thing, and it’s important to understand the difference. A private brand is just what you expect; created, owned and controlled by Kohl’s. An exclusive brand is not owned by Kohl’s, but is available exclusively in Kohl’s stores. The Hawk brand is such a brand for Kohl’s.
 
I noticed a poster in the store advertising the Hawk brand, but featuring a skater who was not Tony Hawk. Makes sense to me. That’s what you do when you’re trying to give a brand credibility and longevity beyond an individual.
 
Target has the same kind of deal with Shaun White. Say, I’m going to have to rush right out a nd get me some of those Shaun White window curtains at Target. There are 237 Shaun White items on Target’s web site. Well, good for him. I would have made the same deal even though at some level I hated to see it happen. But I wouldn’t have minded if they’d not done the curtains.
 
Kohl’s has revenues of almost $19 billion generated from over 1,100 stores plus their web site.
 
Reaching Everybody, Everywhere, All the Time with Everything
 
I noted after SIA that everybody who was selling hard goods was making apparel, and apparel makers were making hard goods. I recently commented on Quiksilver’s foray into board shorts for NBA teams and suggested that just because a market extension was possible didn’t mean it was a good idea. Referring to the trends in online shopping, I’ve suggested that consumers no longer feel compelled to have a product they want the same day, so one perceived barrier to internet shopping is falling. About 2008 I started to point out that it was going to be tough to get sales increases, and it was years before that I suggested that perhaps a focus on gross margin dollars was appropriate since that was what you paid your bills with. Even earlier than that, I noted that where to sell or not sell your product was something brand managers focused on every day.
 
It’s just interesting how all this is coming together, at least in my mind. In a weak (though slowly improving) economy with cautious consumers and an environment most companies describe as “highly promotional,” many companies are trying to reach new consumers through product extensions that may or may not widen distribution. And it’s funny, because I see this as the hardest kind of economy to do that in. Almost by definition, you’re moving into a space where other brands are stronger than you are.
 
This trend is driven partly by a need to find sales growth somewhere, especially for public companies. It’s facilitated by technology and the internet, improved logistics and information systems, and a sense, I think, that the distribution cat is already out of the bag so what the hell.
 
Just to be clear, product extensions and distribution expansion aren’t by definition bad. Nike can sell some product at Costco without crippling their brand. Think about what Sanuk did. I expect to see Nixon do some interesting stuff once Billabong’s deal to sell half of Nixon closes and I think they will succeed because of how Nixon is already positioned with their customers.
 
These Days, What is “Positioning?”
 
If you ask me what “we” should do about this, I’d say, “nothing.” It is, as usual, up to individual companies and brands. The first question in the everybody, everything, everywhere all the time chaos is, “Has positioning changed and is it still meaningful.”
 
I’ve thought about that a bunch, which is why this article was actually started before Christmas but is just being finished. I hope it’s being finished. I’ll know in a couple of paragraphs.
 
The tools you use to build your market position have changed in ways we all know. But the concept is still valid and maybe more valid than ever. You build and defend your market position by doing what you do well and communicating that to your customers.
 
When I wrote about companies in snowboarding pushing into apparel from hard goods and hard goods from apparel, I suggested that companies that didn’t do that might find themselves with an advantage. I want to expand on that a little.
 
Maybe effective market positioning is now at least partly a matter of doing less. That is, let other companies pursue dubious product extensions. To exaggerate a bit to make the point, let them try to sell everything to everybody everywhere all the time. I wasn’t even born the first time somebody said, “If you think everybody is your customer, nobody is your customer.”
 
That doesn’t mean never do a product extension. But, more than ever, come at it from a solid foundation of knowing who your customer is and why they buy from you. Never go after a new market because, “We need more sales!” And don’t over simplify the analysis by going, “Well, we’re in business X, and all our competitors in business X make product Y, so we should make product Y too.” That ain’t analysis.
 
If you take the time to really understand how customers perceive you and why they buy your products, you won’t ever be tempted by the wrong growth opportunity, and you’ll immediately recognize the good ones when they come along.
 
I guess that at the junction of retail, brands, and the internet what we find is a slightly different way to think about old, still valid concepts.

 

 

Follow-up on my Last Article; the Nau Example

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My last article, “Do Retailers Really Need to Carry All That Inventory?”  garnered quite a response. One of those responses was a link to an article about a brand called Nau. Their web site is here. The link to the article is here.   The article was written back in 2007 and the brand is still around and, judging from the list of stores where they are available, successful.

Here’s how the article starts:

“Meet Nau, the ultimate over-the-top, high-concept business. It makes striking, enviro-friendly clothing. It gives away 5% to charity. Can it save the world–and give us the perfect twill capri?”
 
They are distributed through what I’d characterize as high end specialty shops but, according to the article, also had four of their own stores (and sell on line). Here’s a description of those stores from the article:
 
“It starts with a retail concept that combines the efficiencies of the Web with the intimacy of the boutique. Called a "Web front," the Nau store integrates technology in a striking gallery-like setting. The central mechanism is a self-serve kiosk that transfers the online shopping experience to a touch screen and encourages customers to have their purchases sent home, with the incentive of a 10% discount and free shipping.”
 
“The advantage: If customers use the store as a fitting room and push purchases to the Web, Nau can build smaller stores (2,200 to 2,400 square feet compared to the traditional outdoor specialty store’s 4,000-plus square feet), reduce in-store inventory dramatically, and slash operating expenses. Plus, it consumes less energy and materials.”
 
Essentially, this is what I was suggesting in my article. Nau had the advantage of starting from scratch, so they didn’t have to change their store size and redo the whole store which, I acknowledge in my article, has some costs and takes some time. Anyway, the point is that here’s a brand that was trying to do more or less what I suggested with their retail stores. How has that worked out?
 
When I couldn’t find the store addresses on the web site, I called the company and found that all the stores had been closed.
 
A lot has changed in five years. Smaller retailers are going to have to find a more efficient way to integrate on line with brick and mortar. But here’s at least one example where it appears not to have worked out.   

 

 

Get Out of the Office! It’s Amazing What You Can Learn

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Yesterday, I had occasion to meet up with Jaimeson Keegan, who’s the President/Floor Sweeper (according to his business card) of SUPERHEROES Management. It offers athlete and entertainment talent representation combined with social media strategies and some other stuff that I thought was a very sensible aggregation. Anyway, we’re both up here in the Northwest and just thought we should get together and meet each other. Not being from Southern California, we get lonely and don’t have that many people to talk to.

And since we both knew where it was and there was a great coffee place down the street, we met at The Snowboard Connection in downtown Seattle. Owners John Logic and Adam Gerken weren’t there. John, it seems was over at the storage unit at their old location finally cleaning the thing out. They are apparently putting a wrecking ball to that old building, so there was just no way to put off cleaning it out any longer. Adam was off on his first vacation in three years. I took that as a sign the business was doing well.

I saw the Skullcandy display in the store. The sales person was raving about some new, customized display Skull was going to give them that would wrap around the post, or something. I asked if they carried any other headphones and the only thing they had was one pair of Nixon headphones in the case with the other Nixon product.
 
It made for an interesting comparison. Nixon started out in watches and has diversified their product line rather dramatically. Skullcandy has quite a line of tees, sweats, and beanies, but the focus is clearly on buds and headphones. We’ll see if that changes. One reason it might not change is because of different distribution strategies. Skull’s two biggest customers are Target and Best Buy. I’ve seen their product in Fred Meyers and, well, kind of all over the place. Their challenge, as I’ve written before, is to be cool even in wide and widening distribution. I’m prepared to believe you might manage that with headphones (ignoring, for the moment, the issue of inevitable competition). Not with apparel or other products.
 
I didn’t look for Nixon in Fred Meyers and don’t expect to see them there. But I’d expect their brand strength would allow them to sell a broader range of products than Skull but in a more limited distribution. Think of it like this. Skull has broader distribution in a narrower product line. Nixon has narrower distribution with a broader product line.
 
As long as I was downtown and had time on the parking meter, I thought I’d walk across to REI and see what was going on there. The first thing I noticed was that there wasn’t all that much merchandise in the store. I don’t mean it was poorly merchandised or looked bad. I just mean the store could have held a lot more product and not have been even close to cluttered. I’d chalk that up to the economy. As a member of the industry, I say, “Great!” Carefully managed inventory means fewer markdowns, less investment, and consumers anxious to buy. As you know, I think you can sometimes earn more selling less.
 
The ski and snowboard hard goods were right next to each other, more or less forming one section of the store. I really liked the snowboard racks. Ever shopped for area rugs? You know how they hang from a rack and move them from side to side like turning the pages of the book so you get a good look at them? That’s how these racks worked. Great idea.
 
I also noticed that the racks weren’t full. Hope that’s due to good inventory management rather than late shipments.
 
The winter apparel was nowhere in sight. I had to go upstairs to find it. It was pretty much all together with no ski/snowboard differentiation. Patagonia with Marmot with Burton with Nike with Betty Rides and some others. I’ve known Betty Rides owner Janet Freeman for more years than I’m prepared to admit. I don’t think this is the brand’s first year in REI, but it was great to see. Janet, you’ll be glad to know that your brand was as well represented as much larger brands, though it was a bit in the corner. It was interesting, in fact, to notice that no brand had all that much more space than any other. I was also told that REI does no private label.
 
So anyway, that’s what I learned just because I got my ass out of my office chair. I should do it more often.

Cyberboutiques. I Don’t Know if this is a Great Idea or a Waste of Bandwidth.

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My wife sent me this article from the New York Time’s Fashion and Style section. For some reason, I don’t read that section regularly. Not enough graphs, charts, and numbers to get me excited I guess.

I played around a bit with the application at the web site. It was a bit jerky and slow, but I could certainly see the potential. Either that or I couldn’t, and I guess that conundrum is what’s leading me to write this.

On the one hand, maybe this is the next step in integrating online with brick and mortar retail. What might happen if each store in a chain had its own virtual store with avatars of the actual sales people who worked in the store? What is the customer could chat with the actual people in the store through their mobile device and the inventory online reflected the inventory in the store? Or you could click on an icon to talk with the actual sales person on a web cam.
 
Or maybe I’m over thinking this and nobody would care. Just because you can do something doesn’t always mean it’s a good idea. Like all of you, I learned that when I was very young.
 
I can imagine some kind of temporary marketing advantage here due to the immediate “that’s cool” factor. But I also felt like it had the potential to slow down my shopping. I don’t necessarily want to wander around a web site the way I wander around a store. And there seemed to be some glitches in the navigation. Make sure you go up the stairs (though it isn’t clear that you can at first and I sort of stumbled on it). 
 
Of course, I’m looking at version 1.0 so we need to consider the general concept and not be too critical of the specifics. You know the software will improve if the concept is well received.   But what’s the purpose? I’m not sure it adds to the shopping experience and nobody expects a web site to be the same as a brick and mortar store. Do they?
 
I guess I think that if it doesn’t improve web site navigation, make shopping more efficient, or give me some new information I want then I don’t care. No doubt there are people working right now to make those very things happen. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.