Inaugural Issue - August 27, 2007

Retail Paradox Weekly

Retail News Analysis by RSR Research

Welcome to the Paradox!

About this Newsletter: Why Retail Paradox?

By Nikki, Brian, Paula, and Steve

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Retail Paradox, where we’ll explore the difficult choices faced by retailers and their partners in the twenty-first century. This weekly newsletter is brought to you by RSR Research, the only research firm run by retailers for the retail industry. We hope you’ll find our articles relevant, informative, edgy, and provocative. Our goal is simple, but ambitious: we want to identify and articulate processes and technologies retailers need to improve their business and give clear and concise examples of how retail winners do just that. More...

Online Grocery: Finally Ripe?

By Nikki Baird, Managing Partner

Amazon, the bell-weather of online commerce, has recently opened a fresh online grocery store. It joins Peapod, FreshDirect, and YourGrocer in the online grocery/home delivery business, which collectively represent version 2.0 for the segment after the spectacular rise and fall of the likes of WebVan.

There have been hints of grocers rethinking the online grocery business in recent times, and Amazon's entry certainly gives a boost to the segment. But version 2.0 players have learned from the past - and are doing things differently this time around. More....

Trust but Verify - Avoiding the China Backlash

By Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner

The past 90 days have not been kind to US retailers and manufacturers sourcing their goods from China. Tainted pet food , toothpaste, sea food, and now issues with the manufacture of children’s toys: excessive lead in paint and magnets small enough to swallow in toys have led to massive re-calls by Mattel. China sourcing is in the news big time.

China attempted to shore up its reputation, releasing a policy paper on August 17 trumpeting its past food safety record and plans to crack down on plants using poor or shoddy practices in food processing. The owner of the toy factory responsible for the lead paint fiasco committed suicide in disgrace. Unlike the tainted food issues, which caused illness and death for many pets, he was the only casualty from the lead paint affair. More...

Forty Days after the Fact - What's Changed?By Steve Rowen, Partner

The TJX breach changed the way the retail world views data security. Companies that once thought of their “good enough” practices in protecting customer data as stable were shaken to their very core. Mass concern, confusion, and scrambling to sure up shaky security foundations ensued.

In a past life, the partners at RSR Research met together while working under a different roof. While there, we perennially talked about this issue with our readers and customers in an open, frank format. We communicated its importance near weekly, and for reasons beyond our control, that channel of communication was cut short. More...

Wal-Mart: The Giant Who Went to Sensitivity Training

By Brian Kilcourse, Managing Partner

David Glass, one-time CEO of Wal-Mart, was reportedly prone to telling employees that if they didn't “think internationally,” they were working for the wrong company. Glass is credited with Wal-Mart’s successful push into Canada and Mexico. But in other countries, success hasn’t come quite so easily. Most notably (but certainly not the only story), Wal-Mart exited the German market after almost a decade of futility. Wal-Mart’s 1997 entré into that market is a classic tale of a company that believed too much in its own schtick, namely that “every day low prices” with an American-style greeting and a smile would translate well in other cultures. It hasn’t turned out that way (Germans certainly didn’t like it), although international sales now account for about 20% of Wal-Mart’s revenue and the company has a presence in 13 countries outside of the U.S. It’s just that this is a different outcome than Mr. Glass expected in the halcyon days of 1995 when he said that “In three years, I want a third of our growth to come from outside the U.S.” More...

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