What small businesses can learn from shrinking large retailers like Charming Charlie
- Pretty Docs
- Jul 12, 2019
- 2 min read
Remember when Walmart was the most feared retailer? And everyone blamed Walmart for putting local, small businesses out of business? Remember when Walmart was blocked from entering the banking space? Well those same interests who blocked Walmart as best they could, never saw Amazon coming.
And guess what folks? It's too late. Amazon is ingratiating itself into every aspect of your life, home, business, and relationships. From what you listen to; read on your bookshelves and Amazon tablets; to what you order, watch; how fast you receive your goods; to Alexa turning on your appliances and running your house; to the latest, Prime wardrobe where you can try on clothes like you would in a department store without actually going to the department store. Wait, what? Yes, you read that correctly. Amazon now offers Amazon Wardrobe. A try and buy clothing option in the e-commerce space.
As Amazon continues to expand beyond our imaginations, even venturing into retail space with stores and the Whole Foods acquisition, brick and mortar retailers are closing shops at rates unimaginable. Within the last 24 hours, Charming Charlie, Charlotte Russe, Family Dollar, Payless - all announced plans to close between 250 to 2, 500 stores each in 2019. And the list keeps growing.
When Amazon began selling books and shrinking the retail space of the largest booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million, do you think Charlotte Russe or Payless saw a bookseller as a threat to their operations? How do you prepare for the competition you can't see or envision?
It all starts with You. What are you offering your clients to keep them coming back? To compete with the growing market with ever-increasing fresh and creative ideas and the people bringing them to life in the social media space?
We are in a unique space, "straddling two worlds" if you will, where we know and experience the shopping and promise of brick and mortar shops to the push to now live and buy from a device at our fingertips. So how can you position your business in the in-between so that you're not closing shop or going dark in the next 1, 5, 10 years?
Alexa has her own Twitter account. And yes, she regularly tweets.
What about your main product or brand? Does it have a voice? Is it known by one name? Can it speak to potential clients? Do they know where to find it?
How can you push your business into the future of your industry?
How can you find your innovation in a world moving at warp speed?