PROFILE
Chicago born, globally educated, 30+ years as a retailer and retail consultant, hammerhead cyclist
Lee Peterson
EVP Brand, Strategy & Design, WD PartnersAfter over 30 years as a merchant at Limited Brands, a retailer and a retail consultant, Lee brings an innovative approach to strategic assessment and brand development across diverse industries. He is particularly in tune with cultural trends, consumer demographics, and buying behavior. This experience gives Lee a well-rounded and informed approach to brand development and designing customer-focused retail and restaurant experiences. Lee wholeheartedly believes that stores must perform for the retailers, as well as consumers.
At WD Partners, he leads an experienced group of creative retail designers and strategists working on brand and prototype development for such clients as Wal-Mart, The North Face, Starbucks, Gatorade, Red Bull, Best Buy, New Balance, Safeway, Home Depot, Culver’s, Bob Evans, Whole Foods Market, eMart, Co-op Mart, Mimi’s Cafe and LensCrafters. Lee also leads WD’s marketing team which produces their web site, white papers and all marketing communications.
His comments have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, and on American Public Media’s Marketplace, as well as in industry magazines such as VM+SD, Brandweek, Chain Leader, QSR, Restaurants & Institutions, Nation’s Restaurant News, and Chain Store Age. Lee is also a frequent speaker on retail issues and trends. He is currently serving on the editorial board of VM+SD, a retail design trade magazine. He is also an avid cyclist, outdoor enthusiast and lover of Nantucket Island.
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- Posted on: 04/12/2018
No site comes close to Amazon for Gen Z
re: Gen Z -- into the future: Instagram shopping ... into the past, Facebook anything. - Posted on: 04/11/2018
What makes a successful retail CEO?
To me, it's the perfect blend of IQ and EQ. Today's CEO has to make art and science decisions at the same time. Starbucks' Howard Schultz is the best example of this IMO. The other thing is empathy. This usually comes from someone who has actually worked on the sales floor, who has been in the warehouse, who goes to stores all the time, who talks to customers every day and who gets what the brand really is, not just what s/he may want it to be. There are too many numbers-crunchers currently in charge today -- too much IQ, not enough EQ. That balance needs to shift to move to "Retail 2030." - Posted on: 04/10/2018
Retailers must unite to bring dying downtowns back to life
New York City is clearly the best example of merchants, developers and political leadership working together to create a much more vibrant retail scenario. Compare New York City in the '70s to now. Totally different town. But it's also an exception. Most small towns in the U.S. have been decimated first by Walmart and "mall America" and again by Amazon, and sometimes for good reason; merchants, developers and government not working together to stop the incursion. In either case, it's a highway with many paths. Success is not all on any one side; developers, merchants and politicians have to work together. I have a friend who just opened a store with a deal that he will pay the developer a percentage of sales for the first year, then could back out of his lease or go to regular rent. For my friend, without the burden of a fixed fee, and a year to get things going, it was an offer he couldn't refuse. And oh by the way, the city guaranteed to help with updates to infrastructure and safety. Not a guaranteed success, but a tribunal of teamwork that at least gives it a good shot. Some of the towns in the U.S. that lost all their merchants need to start to think in a similar fashion. And for what it's worth some of the old downtown areas, like a Newark, Chillcothe, Somerset or Portsmouth, Ohio, are pretty damn cool spots (attention hipsters!) waiting to happen. - Posted on: 04/09/2018
Is Walmart building a tower of power with its expanding in-store pickup network?
Walmart is the first retailer to get BOPIS right. They also get BOPAS, with the drive through set ups they've created in over 1000 stores. Bravo to that. Only question is, what took so long? And if the answer is, "you know, we're a huge hairball," well, time for a trim! I do like the way Walmart has decided to compete with Amazon though, and I think they can do that very well. I don't care who you are, but if you're a retailer, you should be paying attention to the way Walmart is executing on the innovation front. More to come, I'm sure. - Posted on: 04/03/2018
Why are there so many employees in a cashier-less store?
Do you remember when the airlines first went digital? They literally had dozens of people there to help every single person that walked up. Same with this. When consumers do things by rote, it is wise to make the transition as human as possible. I know, unfortunately, as in design, we too often take for granted that our ideas will be "so obvious." Not true. It's more like Murphy's Law when it comes to radical new ideas. As time goes by, you'll see the numbers of associates reduced drastically, but there will always be people there to help you, just like the airlines. - Posted on: 04/02/2018
What would an acquisition of Humana mean for Walmart and its rivals?
The privatization of universal healthcare. It's the right thing to do and makes a ton of business sense as many of Walmart's customers cross the 60- to 65-year-old demographic. Win, win, win -- customer, business and no government (until someone gets greedy). - Posted on: 03/23/2018
In this digital revolution, stores are media
Yes! Two major things: he's right, stores ARE media now and we need to measure them differently (change the KPIs) right away. It's not about same-store sales anymore. Why would it be? Most specialty stores are doing at least 20 percent of their business online! Stores also need to be smaller and much more product-interactive. This is the transition we're about to go through for the next 30 years. From warehouse to showroom. Why do you think Walmart bought Bonobos? Think: showroom electronics, showroom apparel, showroom toys, etc. Sometimes the "tea leaves" are right there in front of us, and the movers are usually the ones holding them out right in front of our faces! Ethan Song's got it together. - Posted on: 03/21/2018
How personal can Target’s customer service get?
I'm with you on this, Ken -- the old Sam Walton phrase comes to mind, "it's easy to compete with us, just do what we don't do" -- so having associates be helpful, smart and knowledgeable (people people) at every turn should've been a priority in 2002. Having said that, at least the light bulb went off: "warehouse stores are over, dude!" Amazon is a massive warehouse that is so convenient, you just cannot do what they do so, do what they don't do! (Thanks, Sam.) - Posted on: 03/15/2018
No more playing around – Toys ‘R’ Us is out of the retail game
I was wrong! Thought they could make the year. Classic case of being too much of a corporate hairball to move to next. Hopefully many lessons learned for other "box"/commodity concepts. - Posted on: 03/14/2018
Walmart goes big, goes nationwide with online grocery deliveries
This is a necessary chess move by the world's largest retailer (for now). If you think about it, take grocery out of the equation there (i.e.: Amazon starts prolific shipping of groceries to everyone's house) and Walmart is nothing more than a less convenient copy of said 900 pound gorilla. Who as you all know, just increased their revenue by $100 billion in the last three years. In other words -- the writing's on the wall: people LOVE shopping at Amazon, so you obviously cannot be less convenient or less anything if you want to slow that freight train down or, for that matter, even keep your own. Having said all that, this is still a GREAT move by Walmart. Beat them to the punch if you can. Cost at this point is not the issue. It's first to market/market share that's at stake in the biggest arena possible. - Posted on: 03/13/2018
Will department stores regret their off-price push?
Being off-price has already put a near death knell on department stores so it is hard to understand why anyone would think that would work (the definition of insanity comes to mind). At the end of the day, department stores can't compete with the "real" off-price brands or even the fast fashion teams for that matter. They need to take the opposite tack; experience, great service and real estate for "other" places like work spaces, gyms and grocery/food service. In any case, the other missing quotient here is much smaller -- you know, about the size they were 50 years ago. Ron Johnson had the right idea (just the wrong execution plan). - Posted on: 03/09/2018
Music stores play the blues as consumers play on(line)
Confession: I used to rotate going to guitar stores on Saturday mornings just to go in and play the best instruments for the fun of it. I rotated them so the employees wouldn't figure out what I was doing. Because the associates of a classic music store don't like you coming in and messing with their museum pieces (in their minds) and touching the store up. That means more work for them! Or a scuff they might have to polish out. Heaven forbid. They also prefer pro musicians to us amateurs, who, of course, would be the bulk of their business. So from a ton of experience I can tell you, the problem with music stores isn't online, it's in the associates and the ease with which you can demo and enjoy the best equipment. Which, if they were actual retailers, they would realize causes you to buy a $1,000 piece of equipment every now and then (but not every time). There is NO substitute for picking up an instrument and playing it. Not one is the same, you have to. So the ball's in their court: become "demo world!" Use that experience to your advantage and let the customer buy whenever and however they like. They're going to anyway! - Posted on: 03/08/2018
Robots become the moving force behind Zara’s click and collect ops
I get it for big box, but for smaller specialty stores? How's that work? You're going to have a robot to put together orders in the back room of a specialty store? Have you ever been in the back room of a specialty store? Amazon put over 75,000 robots to work last year, but those were in 500,000+ square foot warehouses. Somebody please help me understand this Zara idea. Drone robots? - Posted on: 03/07/2018
Target looks to out-people competition
I've been waiting what seems like years to hear this! From anyone! There simply is NO greater retail asset than the people you have, especially those that interact with your customers in any way. Forget about digital kiosks, THIS will pay off. - Posted on: 03/06/2018
Will all retailers soon go cashier-less?
It's going to happen. The US is already at 80% for non-cash payments' share of total value of consumer payments (CNBC Report). So it's just a matter of time. But like anything in retail, especially in the US, speed of execution depends on your customer. Case Study: We opened a high-end grocery store in a wealthy suburb just outside of Chicago called Standard Market. The owner's vision was cashless. There was literally pandemonium the first day due to the fact that many of the older customers had cash only. Nightmare, and adjustments were made. Moral of the story is: go there as fast as you can, just don't destroy your customer base on the way. (It's a fast evolution.)
