We speak to Steve Dennis, author of 'Remarkable Retail How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption'.

Steve gives us an overview of the retail industry; the impacts of shopping mall oversupply, lack of diversified shopping experiences and the evolution of e-commerce. Steve also takes us through 'The 8 Essentials of Remarkable Retail', a framework that guides brands in the design of enduring, highly profitable and intensely customer-centric growth strategies.

**ABOUT STEVE DENNIS**

Steve Dennis is a leading global retail influencer, keynote speaker & consultant, Senior Forbes Contributor, and bestselling author, ‘Remarkable Retail'

Steve Dennis is a consultant, keynote speaker and author focused on retail growth and innovation. He has been named a top global retail influencer by multiple organizations and his thoughts on the future of shopping are regularly shared in his role as a Forbes Senior Contributor. His new best-selling book is "Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Digital Disruption" and he is the host of the Remarkable Retail podcast.

During a 30 year career as a senior executive at two Fortune 500 retailers–and more recently as a strategic advisor–Steve has worked with dozens of retail, consumer, luxury and social impact brands to inspire, catalyze and design their journey to remarkable results.

As a sought-out keynote speaker, Steve has delivered talks on six continents, sharing his unique perspective on what it takes to reignite customer growth in a world of constant change and shifting consumer preferences.

He has contributed commentary to Bloomberg/Business Week, the BBC, CNBC, CNN, the Harvard Business Review and the Wall Street Journal, among many others.

Steve is currently the President of SageBerry Consulting. Prior to founding SageBerry, he was the chief strategy officer and SVP, multichannel marketing for the Neiman Marcus Group.

Steve received his MBA from Harvard and a BA from Tufts University.

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- [Steve] Well, hi, I'm Steve Dennis.

I'm a consultant, author and speaker

on retail strategy and innovation.

I've been in the retail industry a really long time.

I don't really like to talk about it.

And I'm also the author of "Remarkable Retail,

How to Win & Keep Customers

in the Age of Digital Disruption."

- [Karim] Thank you, Steve, for joining me today.

- [Steve] Thanks for having me.

- [Karim] So, the book, "Remarkable Retail"

it's coming out at a...

It's very timely,

obviously not only over the past number of years,

have we had a growth in e-commerce,

but this pandemic has really changed people's buying habits.

And I know one of them has been and I know many people

have taken advantage of calling up or going online

and ordering groceries or whatever the case may be.

And then picking them up curbside, right?

There's this curbside pickup phenomenon

that we've been seeing this year.

And you mentioned...

You obviously mentioned that in your book,

but you also mentioned in your book about the customer

is the channel.

And you do reference consumers picking up groceries

or shopping curbside.

And I'm wondering if you could explain more

about this customer as the channel thing.

- [Steve] Yeah, well, one of the biggest mistakes

that a lot of retailers have made over the years

not just during the pandemic is thinking of e-commerce

and brick and mortar as largely distinct operations.

And I think what the pandemic has done is number one,

really reinforced the idea and accelerated the stats

around how consumers start most shopping journeys

in a digital channel even though the vast majority

of those digital shopping journeys

end up involving a store in some way.

But in particular what happened with the pandemic

is yes, we saw more kind of traditional e-commerce growth,

but we saw a lot more of this behavior

where stores are involved in what people call e-commerce.

So that's the curbside pickup that's buy online

or return to store.

It's online orders that are fulfilled by stores.

So if anything, it's actually

kind of ironically turned out that stores are going to be

even more important for a lot of retailers,

even though we've obviously seen

a growing shift to e-commerce.

But you know that shift to e-commerce

has been going on for 15 years.

Like that in itself is not new.

- [Karim] Yeah.

- [Steve] So the idea of the customers as the channel

is not to think about e-commerce versus brick and mortar,

it's to say, well, it's the focus on the customer

and our job is to figure it out how to reduce the friction

between shopping across those channels

but more particularly really elevate that experience

and in away that is truly remarkable,

which is really the thrust

and underlying principle in my book.

- [Karim] And previous to this pandemic,

the discussion around e-commerce has always been

e-commerce will grow at the detriment of bricks and mortar

but I think we've seen that one sort of needs the other.

E-commerce for grocery stores,

at least here in in Canada and in Toronto

needs the grocery stores in the neighborhoods

to fulfill that.

- [Steve] Yeah I...

Right. Oh, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

- [Karim] No, so I was wondering whether or not

you had always thought in this way

and whether this will continue even post-pandemic?

- [Steve] So I think couple of things are going on there

that's important.

One is there's an aspect of online,

which e-commerce and sort of,

I hate to say traditional e-commerce

'cause that sounds a little bit funny,

but if you think about e-commerce,

at least in its early days,

it was sort of a better catalog,

mail order catalog business.

It basically use technology to automate ordering

but the basic fulfillment was very similar

to what catalog company has been doing forever

which is to pick, pack and ship a product

in the central distribution location and mail it to you.

I think that was e-commerce

that has been the bulk of Amazon's business for example

other than digital downloading.

So that sort of e-commerce is really great

for certain kinds of products,

largely around where it's just convenient to order it online

and have it show up at your home or office.

So, and that part of e-commerce for the most part,

doesn't really involve a store.

You may go to a store to check out the product

and order online,

but a lot of e-commerce and particularly

what's happened in the last several years

and really accelerated by the pandemic

has involvement from the store

because the customer is either going there

to talk to a sales associate or get ideas

or put an outfit together or whatever and or I guess,

the store has a role in fulfilling that order.

So it's been going on and I think just generally people

have been a little bit too black and white

about talking about e-commerce and the main thing

is really blended altogether.

The kind of pure e-commerce

for the most part doesn't really exist.

Even some of these newer brands that started online

they're all opening stores

because they realized that there's a big aspect

of commerce that is a merger or a hybrid

of physical and digital.

- [Karim] I know e-marketer recently was talking

in one of their episodes about the future of shopping malls.

And so when you think of adjusting

a black and white framework you think,

"Okay, shopping malls are going to end,

no need to go into store and walk around and stuff."

But I'm curious whether there's a reinvention

of shopping malls when to keep this in mind.

- [Steve] Well, I hope so.

I think, again, there's a little bit of the devil

in the details.

I mean- - [Karim] sure.

- [Steve] Shopping malls have been losing...

I mean, well, one in the US in particular,

but I know in Canada in some other markets,

there was a real boom in building shopping markets

and shopping malls and shopping centers

for the past 20 years.

And so one of the things that happened in general

was that the capacity that was developed

in malls and shopping centers was much greater

than the demand overall.

So there was going to be a reckoning at some point.

And the pandemic is really forcing that.

But the other thing is that a lot of this shopping malls,

not all but a lot of the shopping malls really

were highly dependent on apparel and were highly dependent

upon department store anchors.

Most of which have really been struggling

for many, many years.

And in fact, a lot of people say,

"Oh, well, e-commerce really is what has caused

these department stores or malls to get in trouble."

And actually, if you look and particularly

until recent years, most of the market share that was lost

by department stores actually went to off-price retailers

and discount mass-merchants and fast fashion companies

and other specialty retailers.

It wasn't so much that it was captured by e-commerce

plus all of those stores could have e-commerce themselves

like a e-commerce didn't have to be the reason

that some of these stores or some of these malls

got into trouble.

But it is absolutely the case that a lot of these malls

were overly reliant on concepts

that really didn't innovate enough

and consumer preferences just switch

to many more off-the-mall formats

and then more so on an e-commerce.

But I think what you generally see is

that the very best malls,

particularly the ones that are more,

have a stronger tenant mixes

and maybe a good mix of restaurants and entertainment,

I think most of those will do pretty well

without a tremendous amount of change.

But the malls that didn't reinvent themselves

and have just a ton of space devoted to retailers

that are really dinosaurs in this era,

I mean most of those are either going to get bulldozed

or really need to reinvent themselves.

So we'll see.

I mean, it's hard to attract capital,

I think to invest in some of these more mediocre malls,

the malls that have a good customer base, a good tenant mix.

I think, they need some reimagination

but I suspect that the top 20% of malls will do pretty well

once we get beyond the pandemic.

- [Karim] That's really interesting.

And I'm curious about this one.

So small independent companies,

they may or may not have a retail location.

Maybe they are working with your traditional grocery stores

to get their product on the shelves,

but they've started to open up

their own e-commerce capabilities, right.

So yes, they might have some product on Amazon

but they've got their own Shopify store.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- [Karim] I'm wondering if there's an opportunity

in e-commerce outside of Amazon,

outside of being reliant on shelving fees

that these companies have with their own store.

Can they compete even with free shipping

and things like that that Amazon provides?

- [Steve] Well, it's certainly it's certainly tough

for the smaller guys to compete with the big guys.

And what I generally say is that you need

to really make the different or understand the difference

between what I call and talk about a little bit in the book

as table stakes and differentiators.

And by that, I mean there are some things

that you just have to do to be in the game.

So it's pretty hard to imagine how a retailer of any size

can have at least basic e-commerce capabilities.

And so thankfully, there is Shopify and there is BigCommerce

and there are ways to get those basic functions.

But you have to be really careful not to chase your tail

and gauge in a race to the bottom essentially,

trying to out Amazon Amazon.

- [Karim] Yeah.

- [Steve] So generally, I think figure out

those basic features that keep you in the game

but then it's going to be more about leaning into those things

that can really make you different.

So how can you focus maybe more deeply

on a particular set of customers

or offer unique and different products or offer service?

What's that thing that can be different enough

that a set of customers care about

that Amazon really for the most part or it could be Walmart

it could be whole host of other big retailers.

What are those things that customers will value

that you can uniquely deliver on?

Because if you start in a race to the bottom

or start in a race with Amazon,

I mean, you're basically going to get to this race

to the bottom

and Amazon's always going to have lower prices

and be able to kind of out supply chain.

So- - [Karim] Yeah.

- [Steve] Pick your battles, pick those basic things

to keep you in the game

but pick those places where you can really win

over the long-term.

- [Karim] And wondering if this delves

into to this next question.

In the second part of your book,

you outline and you go into detail about

what you call the eight essentials.

- [Steve] Right.

- [Karim] And so I'm wondering Steve,

if you could quickly go through these eight essentials

and I'm wondering if there was one

that might be the most underrated one.

One that's most overlooked I would say

by brands or companies.

- [Steve] Sure. So I'll just quickly mention what they are.

So the first six I do talk about as being table stakes.

In other words, if you're not pretty good at them,

you're probably at a disadvantage.

So number one is digitally enabled.

So this is the idea of really using digital technology

to enhance the customer experience.

Number two is human centered,

which is just a little bit different spin

on thinking about customers, I guess, in a broader way.

Three is harmonized,

which is some of what we were talking about earlier

which is really understanding how to blend digital

and physical in interesting ways.

Fourth is I'm probably going to screw them up in the order,

but fourth is mobile.

This really is a recognition of that mobile is,

when we talk about digitally-enabled shopping journeys

more and more of that is because customers

are shopping wherever they happen to be

on sort of some smart device.

Fifth is personal, which is idea of treating

different customers differently

and personalizing the experience.

Six is connected which is really leaning

into just how we're more connected to people,

whether that's through social media or getting reviews

and other things.

And then the two differentiators I talk about are memorable

which is how do you create an experience

that is really so much better

than what the competition can do

that literally customers will talk about

which is the key idea of remarkable.

And then eighth is radical

which is mostly about needing to constantly innovate

and build a culture of experimentation.

As your question about which one is the least appreciated.

I think it's probably personal.

I think particularly for smaller retailers,

well, I guess really retailers of all sides,

the really big guys sometimes tend to lean on

a one-size-fits-all approach.

And that often doesn't meet customers in a more...

As a customer intense and relevant way

as they would like to.

I think for smaller retailers, the opportunity is

if they've got that local knowledge

that has some unique products,

they have the ability to do more personal experience.

They can really leverage that.

But I think there just oftentimes tends to be this tendency

to do the easier or more efficient thing

which is to tend to treat customers a little bit

like they're all the same.

And that's where you can really get into trouble

as a big guy by allowing interesting segments

for competitors to go after.

As a smaller guy, it's sometimes just chasing your tail

trying to out Amazon Amazon, or out Walmart.

- [Karim] Steve, thanks so much for this conversation.

I've really enjoyed and appreciated it.

If people want to get ahold of your book

to read more about your thoughts as it pertains to retail,

where can they go?

- [Steve] Well, all of our social media generally,

@ Stephen P. Dennis.

My website is www.stevenpdennis.com.

And my book is available on Amazon

and just about anywhere else books are sold.

So you should be able to find it anywhere again.

- [Karim] Again, thank you so much, Steve.

- [Steve] You bet. It was great talking to you.

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