Overview
Specialty retailers span many categories and come in many shapes and sizes. Building the right strategies to succeed requires an acute understanding of the consumer, a finely tuned brand proposition and a go-to-market approach that delivers on the “specialty” attributes that distinguish the brand and retail experience.
The changing consumer purchase behavior and associated channel landscape evolution (e.g., challenging mall traffic, ecommerce share shift and strength of Amazon), the changing role and influence of brands and retailers, and emerging brands and business models are making it particularly challenging for specialty retailers to find the winning recipe.
Our leaders and experts help clients design and activate strategies to address these challenges and deliver top- and bottom-line growth. We assist clients in areas such as strategic consumer segmentation and brand positioning, store portfolio configuration and productivity enhancement, concept evolution, merchandising strategy, pricing and promotions strategy, geographic expansion (domestic and international), pinpointing of overlooked and underserved growth opportunities, marketing mix evolution, M&A support, and much more.
Key questions and challenges
Our experienced professionals have a deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing specialty retailers. We believe management teams need to be asking themselves a number of key questions as they seek to ensure they are well-positioned to thrive in the future.
- Do we have an accurate view of the different consumer groups within our addressable market, accounting for demographic and psychographic differences and consumers’ evolving values and spending priorities? Do we have targeted strategies to ensure we are winning with the most important consumer segments?
- How do we react and adapt to Amazon’s strength, proliferation of brand direct-to-consumer strategies and other new business models (e.g., subscription services)?
- How do we build a compelling multichannel and, ultimately, omnichannel business? Are we focused on what is most important to consumers? What does this mean for investments we need to make, and how do we evolve our organization to function effectively in this new environment?
- What role, if any, should a loyalty program play in our business, and how can we get the most value from it?
- How do we ensure that our store experience and engagement with our consumer remains “specialty” and differentiated in the marketplace?
- How can we optimize our marketing mix to acquire new customers more effectively and cost-efficiently?
- How do we better manage our store portfolio to maximize productivity?
- Should we/how do we grow outside our core markets (U.S. geographies and/or international)?
