PERSPECTIVES

You likely are aware of buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) programs, from Afterpay, Affirm, and Klarna, among others. It gained a foothold in online retail – "the hottest trend in e-commerce"– and has been especially popular in the UK and Australia. Now its availability to many more retailers may be accelerated with the proposed acquisition by Square of Afterpay. It is a trend we all need to watch carefully.

Here's the deal. Once again, the retailer is the pickle in the middle. The benefits of increasing sales (and average transaction value) which are very attractive, must be weighed against the potential increases in hassle factors, particularly for your most valuable asset: your front line staff. 

This is, after all, The Retail OWNERS Institute. We long have specialized in alerting, coaxing, and applauding retail owners worldwide. 

Today's message is a major heads-up. 

Keeping pace with the relentless changes in retailing has never been easy. Retailers know that constant adjustments are demanded. 

Then, the three pandemics of 2020 happened: COVID; the economic meltdown; the social unrest.  And life changed modestly or enormously for almost everyone, including owners of retail businesses. 

Another real challenge of 2021 is rearing its head: Whatever you used to do in terms of managing your staff likely will not work this year. 

• Not only are the owners exhausted from dealing with 2020, but so too are your employees.
• What took the greatest toll? All the uncertainty for everybody.
• Plus, many folks are revisiting their priorities: what is it really worth to them to work in retail? Especially given other choices they have become aware of.

In the aftermath of the pandemics, lockdowns, stimulus payments, low unemployment, and minimum wage increases, finding and keeping good employees is even more daunting for independent retailers.

A few years ago we were on a PBS news show about retailing's ups and downs. Several months later, one of us ran into a teacher of one of our kids. That person excitedly mentioned having seen us on TV, saying "I didn't know you knew so much about retailing." (Yep, known just as someone's parent, right?)

But then this very well-educated person said the key thing: "I never knew there was so much to be known about retailing!"

Well, that incident happened a few years ago when retailing was perhaps more understandable, even more predictable. Alas, those days are history! Today, nothing in retailing is quite as understandable or as predictable as before. Or as manageable!
 

Many times during 2020 we spoke of "disruption with a capital D!"

And now, more than a third of the way through 2021, that Disruption with a capital D shows no signs of abating. Instead, it just keeps morphing (not unlike the Covid strains that keep emerging....) 

But the disruption that we see emerging is in the attitude,  deportment, and psyche of Millennials, and the many people who are now acting like Millennials. This is showing up in the attitude of shoppers as well as employees. 
 

As we noted last week, retailing is being affected by different patterns of seasonality. The old timing patterns for ordering, seasons, and events no longer apply. New "Rhythms of Retail" must be established by all retailers.

So it was with great interest that we read a blog post about Pop-Up Retail: Not Just for Start-Ups.*  It featured results from a recent study out of the UK suggesting that "the pop-up retail sector is growing at 12.3% per year. And the U.S. pop-up industry has grown to approximately $10 billion in sales."

Usually at this time of year, we would be encouraging you to remember that "the lull" is about to arrive. 

That is, that time span from Black Friday/Cyber Monday through early December is typically much slower for retailers. 

And then, come December 10th or so, the Christmas sprint begins! 

Ahh yes. That was then. And this is, well, 2020. 

Amidst the fog of uncertainty of 2020, retailers have experienced a breath-taking acceleration of time, as an array of new-to-retailers technologies have now become almost commonplace. 

2020 has put an end to the days of retailers being technology laggards. We applaud the resilience and adaptability of retailers who did embrace change and especially technology during 2020. Retailers definitely rose to the occasion!

And yet, again, the virus is surging. Even as promising announcements are made about vaccines, the threat that COVID-19 continues to pose to the survival of local businesses is ominous, and substantial.

We agree! This is so not fair!

But, who is up to that challenge? Independent retailers who are merchants supreme.