Carol Spieckerman's Right Brain On: One-Dimensional Discourse on Dollar Stores
In her latest contribution as a Retail Wire panelist, Carol comments on what she sees as a one-dimensional discourse around dollar stores and other price-format retailers going online. It will be a game-changer (just not the way most might think).
Here's what she had to say...The conversation about price format retailers going online is far too one-dimensional. The game-changer isn't that these retailers may realize significant online sales on items they currently carry in store and with their loyalist shoppers. If those were the only possibilities, who would call it a game-changer?
The word "scale" keeps comes up in retailer press releases and investor calls for a reason. The new standard for scale isn't thousands of stores or millions of online hits -- it's both. Dollar stores may just be getting started online but they are years ahead in establishing brick and mortar scale. The former is relatively easy to ramp up by comparison. Thousands of highly-efficient, well-located small formats facilitating site-to-store pick-up for what could evolve into endless aisle assortments -- perhaps even from third party sellers? Sounds a lot like what everyone else is trying to do -- except they are a few thousand stores behind.