Retail Prophet
By Doug Stephens
Internet retail behemoth Amazon has turned a dangerous eye toward the market. Long regarded as more of a clearinghouse for commodity items, Bezos and company have announced their intent to conquer (or at least take a sizeable chunk out of) high-end fashion. Despite throwing heaps of money into the initiative, some analysts question the fit for Amazon in the luxury category.
However, Amazon is a little like a Great White shark. It doesn’t really matter whether they’re …
By Doug Stephens
In 1965 American sociologist Arthur L. Stinchcombe introduced theory around what came to be called organizational imprinting – that organizations tend to be products of the age in which they were founded. Their structure, values and even core business models can be so deeply imprinted, revolting against their genetic pre-dispositions can be difficult and in some cases impossible.
Consequently, as the world changes exponentially around them, these organizations continue to …
By Doug Stephens
It was only a matter of time before marketers developed a work-around to avoid the heavy lifting of great social media. 
Companies like Amex and now retailers such as Express are now incentivizing consumers to tweet about their brands or specific offers by providing points or rewards each time they do.
This isn’t “social media” – it’s advertising
What these companies are missing (or perhaps simply ignoring) is that the magic of genuine word-of-mouth is that it’s …
Why Consumer Confidence deserves much less attentionBy Doug Stephens
To say things have changed since 1967 is an understatement. Much of the technology we take for granted today was merely science fiction then. National economies, once bounded and distinct from one another are now inextricably connected and mutually reliant causing economic reverberations to travel at light speed from one continent to another. Companies performed with the long-term in mind and employment within them could …
By Doug Stephens
Celebrities have long been known to receive special treatment. The best seats in the house, front of the line access to the hippest clubs and healthy discounts on the things they buy.
Now, social networks have given rise to a new breed of celebrity – the Influencer. While they may not be as well known as George Clooney or Katy Perry, they may indeed have far
image courtesy of wheelerblogs.com
more direct influence on the buying behavior of those within their respective …
By Doug Stephens
Bloomberg recently suggested that F-Commerce (as it’s come to be known) has been failure. They pointed to retailers like GAP and JCPenney beating a path out of Facebook, citing their disappointing results.One Forrester researcher was quoted as saying that selling on Facebook is “like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with friends at a bar.” , implying that Facebook was simply too social to be worth a retailer’s time.
So, while only a year …
By Doug Stephens
Reebok pop-up store New York City
The concept of pop-up retail has been around for more than a decade. Vacant, a company out of Los Angeles, California is credited with pioneering the concept of pop-up shops in North America, after seeing similar concepts in Tokyo. They observed that Japanese consumers would sometimes line up for hours to buy limited edition goods. Once stock was sold out, the store would simply close until new stock arrived. This led Vacant to innovate …
Doug Stephens is a retail industry futurist and President of consultancy Retail Prophet.
