How to Revolutionize Retail in the Age of Amazon
Retailers are struggling with how to compete in this Age of Amazon. To do that, they typically use the 4Ps model of marketing they originally learned. But the Age of Amazon has disrupted the traditional 4Ps approach to marketing based on Product-Price-Placement-Promotion.
The way to revolutionize retail and win in the Age of Amazon is revealed in my new book, Shops that POP! 7 Steps to Extraordinary Retail Success, published by Paramount Market Publishing. 
The 4Ps of marketing no longer work. The customers have moved beyond it and crave something different. In retail today, a critical P is missing from the 4Ps model and that is PEOPLE. We must personalize the retail experience around what people really want. That is a true shopping experience, not just a place to buy more things.
Today success in retail is less about WHAT you sell, and more about HOW you sell it.
The 4Ps of marketing fails
The failure of the 4Ps model are evident everywhere. Business Insider calls it a “retail apocalypse” as it predicts 3,500 store closing this year. As retailers keep pushing the old 4Ps buttons, they are living proof of Einstein’s definition of insanity, ‘Doing the same things over and over, and expecting different results.’
Retailers continue to insist that PRODUCT sets them apart, yet Amazon is truly the ‘Everything Store,’ as author Brad Stone described. If people want a product, they can get it internet-easy, internet-fast online. Today shoppers don’t have a product problem.
As for PRICE, retailers hit this button hardest, trying to entice shoppers with deeper discounts and cheaper prices. But this becomes a ‘race to the bottom,’ as retail authority Robin Lewis describes. Retailers that win the ‘race to the bottom’ end up at the same place – the bottom, which is why they face the current retail apocalypse.
PLACE fails today too, as shoppers avoid malls and other commercialized retail settings. Just being located in a heavily trafficked area isn’t the answer either, Shoppers prove they will travel far to seek out special shopping experiences. Numerous destination retailers profiled in Shops that POP! prove it, like Beekman 1802 Mercantile located in a sleepy town of 544 residents in upstate New York.
Or Nell Hill’s which reached national acclaim as a home decorating destination by building its business attracting shoppers from hours away in Kansas City, Chicago, Des Moines, Omaha, and further afield.
Or Kitchen Kettle Village, in Lancaster County, PA which evolved from a roadside stand into a destination with 40 stores that draw 1 million visitors each year looking to experience its quaint, down-home ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ charm.
Retailers’ PROMOTION strategies are focused on attracting new customers, yet in a recent Unity Marketing study conducted among over 700 specialty retailers, few of retailers’ most used advertising choices are very effective in meeting their goals. For example, about half of retailers invest in newspaper advertising or publish blogs or newsletters, yet only about 10% rate these as highly effective.
The most popular retailer promotional strategies involve significant investments in time and money, yet few yield expected returns. The most effective strategy, word-of-mouth, doesn’t require any money, but it does demand significant management attention to use effectively.
Just being a good store, giving good service and selling good products isn’t enough. Retailers need to create an extraordinary, exciting and engaging shopping experience, one that is special enough that people will talk about it. It has to be a shop that POPs!
The way for retailers to compete in this Age of Amazon is to make their store a true destination where people want to come, spend time, and discover new things to enhance their lifestyle. And it must be so different that people will want to talk about it to their friends.
Author Stephen Richards said, ‘To get something different, you must do something different.’ Retailers need to retire the old 4Ps approach to marketing and instead adopt a new idea that puts the PEOPLE, missing from the 4Ps model, as the focus of their strategy. Retailers will find creative new approaches to do just that in Shops that POP!
Key for retailers to win in Age of Amazon: Put the PEOPLE first
To win the war of retail in the Age of Amazon, retailers need to understand that their success is less about WHAT they sell and more about HOW they sell it. Shops that POP! studied 17 of the nation’s most successful specialty retailers and discovered their secrets to retail excellence. It unpacks those secrets in 7 simple steps, called the POP! Equation, that will transform any store from ordinary to extraordinary.
With a retail apocalypse on us, the time is now for Main Streets and retailers across the country to appeal to shoppers looking for a new shopping experience. Customers are bored with the malls, ‘big box’ stores, national chains and department stores that offer more or less the same merchandise and have little excitement to share with their customers. And Amazon scores only the low-hanging fruit in retail with its product-centric approach. Amazon can’t make a personal, face-to-face connection that will touch them emotionally.
Small is the next BIG story at retail – small as in small independently owned businesses. Shops that POP! will show retailers how to use their PEOPLE power as their secret weapon.
