RPW 2-26-2008

Retail Paradox Weekly

Retail News Analysis by RSR Research

February 26, 2008

Payment Innovations Continue

By Nikki Baird, Managing Partner
2/26/2008

Last year I wrote about a payments revolution, which I defined as a convergence of 3 factors: a proliferation of alternative forms of payment, the rise of the mobile phone in the payments process, and modern technologies and architectures bringing the backend of payments into the modern age.

The revolution has by no means faded away. In fact... More

The Disconnect between 'What Is' and 'What Should Be' in Multi-Channel Retailing

By Brian Kilcourse, Managing Partner
2/26/2008

In both our research findings and in Paradox weekly commentaries, we at RSR have focused on how retailers are using the "customer dimension" of data to move from product-centric to customer-centric retailing. The notion of a data dimension has its roots in entity-relationship modeling, an IT process where information entities and their relationships are identified. The underlying theory is that although the basic information that a company uses to conduct its business doesn’t actually change much over time.

For example.... More

Zara and Sharper Image: A Tale of Two Cities

By Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner
2/26/2008

RSR has a core belief – that retail winners don't just sell more merchandise, they also think differently, which leads to better sales. They don't rest on their laurels. They shift gears when existing business processes and merchandise start to get stale. Our benchmark studies generally reinforce these beliefs – sustainable improvements are achieved through constant change, and business change is supported by technology enablers.

With that as backdrop, two news items over the course of the past week drew our attention... More

Online Continues to Gain Importance for Retail

By Nikki Baird, in cooperation with RetailWire
2/26/2008

Last week I wrote about the impact that online is having on retail financial metrics, with Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) as my case study. One of the questions I posed (which I'm still working on answering) is "At what point does online start having enough weight to have direct impact on a retailer's results?" – having seen something of an inflection point in ANF's results right about the time that online sales surpassed 7% for the retailer. That's all from a financial point of view – but what about from the customer's perspective? More

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