W. Frank Dell II, CMC

Retail pricing is no longer a simple process. The success of Priceline and other dynamic pricing models have shown there is room to play, just like bargaining with the local merchant in some countries. Many retailers have tiered pricing from their frequent shopper program. This should be carried over...

Inventory is not a good measurement tool short term due to significant variations, especially for non-food retailers. Loading Christmas inventory starts in August so the third quarter would look depressed. Allocating alternative sales back to stores will never be accurate. How do you allocate sales from states where you...

This commercial will do nothing. Once you lose a customer to another retailer, saying you're sorry will not cut it. Consumers have shopping patterns.

Once they change that pattern to another retailer, that new retailer must lose the business or the old retailer must start the process all over with...

The first bad practice I see is talking down to employees. I see managers who think, because they got promoted, they know everything and think the employees are idiots.

The second bad practice is favoring one employee over the rest due to non work-related factors. The other employees simply cannot...

Fact: the traditional supermarket segment has not grown for years. Food sales are directly related to population. All the population growth in the last 30 years has gone to eating away from home and alternative channels. Wholesale and independent retailer volume has been taken by chains.

Today, the supermarket segment...

The out-of-stocks issue is again a growing problem and there is simply no reason for it. You start by allocating the right amount of retail space. After that, the greatest contributing factor is the reorder process. Retailers are stuck in fixed schedules, but the world has gone dynamic with...

The primary goal is simply providing customer service in a great shopping environment. Customers who have a hassle-free experience are more likely to return.

The most common issue I see with store labor is trying to accurately forecast requirements, which never happens. In fact, forecasting error winds up adding to...

Our market segmentation schemes from the 50's and 60's work fine for high level strategy, but fail at the tactical level. One of the key reasons is that the consumer has instant access to information and no longer must work through the Yellow Pages. A consumer researches cars on...

This is not the first time a European retailer thought they were smarter than the locals. There is a market for smaller stores, just ask Aldi and Sav-A-Lot. Also Walmart and others are testing a smaller format.

What has to change is the European Spartan decor and product mix. Prepared...

Many consumers had personal computers because they were the only thing available to access the internet. Most consumers never used many of the features and programs installed on their system. For the technology challenged group, the tablet will do all they need. Surfing the web, e-mail and entrainment are...