Description

Download ‘Declaration of Independents Executive Summary’
including table of contents and methodology

The Declaration of Independents: A State of the Independent Specialty Retail Industry report provides powerful insights and information to help brands that sell through specialty independent retailers, or want to, to understand the environment in which they operate. It gives authoritative research-based insights that your company can use to sell more products through these stores. It will help you connect with your retailing partners, become a more vital partner to them and help them face the struggles unique to the specialty retailers’ business.

And for specialty retailers looking for strategies and ideas to grow their businesses, this report is essential.

In this report, you will see the results of a detailed survey among 700+ independent specialty retailers conducted in September/October 2015 and compare the results with a similar survey conducted in 2013.  This provides valuable look at the trends in specialty retail over the past two years.

Declaration of Independents reveals the competitive environment faced by today’s independent specialty retailers

You will gain new, actionable insights about:

• Retailer demographics, and why specialty retailers that brand their stores multi-dimensionally around a range of products and services offered, not just one (i.e. a gift store) are prospering in today’s omni-channel retail environment.
• Retailers’ sales and growth, and challenges to growth, most especially how retailers feel betrayed by their product partners who sell direct-to-consumers through their websites. Ways that vendors can partner more effectively to overcome their fears are offered.
• Retailer‘s competitive environment, and specific ways retailers can beat their better capitalized competitors with more control over prices and more effective internet strategies with their most powerful competitive weapon – the personal touch!
• Retailers’ marketing and advertising strategies, what works well, what works not so well. The report delves deeply into how to make marketing and advertising strategies more effective, like social media and the concept of the ‘virtuous circle’ where retailers get customers and guests to post pictures of the store and store events on their own social media platforms. This ‘virtuous circle’ social media is far more powerful than any post or hundreds of posts originated on the retailers’ own site.  And ‘virtuous circle’ social media works for product brands too.
• Retailer’s relationships with their vendor partners, and all the many ways vendors can support their retailers to build sales and generate growth in the specialty retail channel. While retailers feel betrayed by vendors that sell direct-to-consumer, there are many ways included in this study that vendors can put to work to mitigate their antagonism. They must offer the same level of personalized, top-notch service to them as customers as the retailers do to their customers.

The results of this study identify specialty retailers strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The survey’s analysis and author, Pam Danziger, points to key take action steps derived from the research-based findings that will help retailers and their partners be more successful, invest wisely in marketing and advertising, and be more creative in putting the many internet tools to work to promote the retailer’s business.

Published February 2016

Subscription Price: $995 (Pre-publication price of $750 through March 31, 2016)