James Tenser

NRF: Independents' Renaissance Begins Online

January 23, 2012

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Last Monday at NRF was "Independents Day." One of this year's speakers was Dave Ratner, owner of Dave's Soda and Pet City, whose aggressive utilization of online channels has made it possible for his business to not only survive, but flourish, even through the down times of the recession. Do you think independents can make better use of online affiliations and targeted promotions than their big box challengers?      [more...]

There will always be a few independent retailers who excel at leveraging the latest online, digital, localized, personalized and/or charismatic marketing to great effect. For me the key question is, "will it scale?"

Chains will be hard-pressed to match the kinds of successes that a company like Dave's Soda & Pet has achieved because they cannot extract and replicate the kind of personal drive and intuition that Mr. Ratner possesses. Instead they must substitute a master system that introduces uniformity -- or at best, programmed variation -- that permits local stores to reflect the variation in their local shoppers.

Therein lies one of the core paradoxes of chain retail: As any chain grows bigger and more powerful, the distance between its stores and its headquarters grows too. Economies of scale and clout are offset by the dis-economies of complexity.