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Retail At Risk From Technology

We need to address the real concerns facing retail instead of looking to technology for a quick fix. This Manifesto can spur you to change the way your retail business ... does business.

February 1, 2011 by Bob Phibbs — CEO, The Retail Doctor

You're either in or you're out.

Nope, that wasn't Heidi Klum's message from Project Runway. It was the feeling I got a couple weeks ago at the National Retail Federation's BIG show in New York City.

What were you supposed to be "in" you might ask?

Any and everything mobile.

You'd think we were seeing the second coming with the breathless enthusiasm of the major brands enamored with technology.

Walking the show floor it had - as always- the feel of the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Maybe they should just call it CES-Retail Edition.

Look, I don't blame the major technology firms - what they are doing can be fabulous.

But for an organization that uses the marketing slogan, "The Voice of Retail Worldwide" there wasn't an NRF super-session or breakout about the ones who actually work retail - employees.

Sure we heard retail was responsible for 1 out of 5 jobs and what an economic powerhouse it was, but how to uplift, reward, train, create magic on the sales floor with anyone holding those jobs? Zip.

It was a symptom of a much larger problem in retail right now and that is the way employees have been marginalized. And how long-term value of the customer has been scrapped for crushing crowds seeking desperately discounted discounts.

Great retail customer service isn't that Zappos - an office with warehouses, not a bricks and mortar retailer - occasionally sends a delivery overnight.

That's why I wrote a comprehensive manifesto: Bricks and Mortar Retailing At Risk In The Digital Age looking at the technology issues as well as the humanity issues. If you're a C-level executive, owner or anyone looking to truly differentiate, click the hyperlinked title or here to read the introduction. If you are interested in the full manifesto, you will be able to have it emailed to you.

If we don't fix the people-side as an industry, we'll pay the price sooner than later. Some brands who missed sales targets in the fourth quarter, I believe, already are.