Praise for Winning At Retail "Winning at Retail offers the most effective strategies available for retailers. At McDonald's, the 'Quick-EST' model is crucial, because being close and convenient to where our customers live, work, and shop helps us create maximum value. If you want to harness your company's strengths to become a leader in your category-and stay in tune with what your customers want-this is the book for you." -Jim Rand, Senior Vice President of Business Development, McDonald's Corporation "Winning at Retail provides a thoughtful approach to retail differentiation. Ander and Stern warn of the 'treacherous middle' into which retailers too easily drift. They inspire us to avoid this peril through case studies of retailers who have assumed leadership through courageous choice." -Robert L. Price, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Wawa "In a difficult retail environment, this book provides crucial guidance for staying on top of your competition-by taking the customer seriously and leveraging your strengths to provide experiences that increase customer loyalty. Will Ander and Neil Stern elegantly argue that you can't always be the biggest, fastest, and trendiest place on the block, but it takes only one of these 'Ests' to be a category leader. Businesses big and small can benefit from the carefully distilled lessons in this book." -Bernd Schmitt, Professor of Marketing, Columbia Business School and author of Customer Experience Management

Shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022 The world's retail sector has been devastated in recent years by two unstoppable forces: internet shopping and the Covid-19 lockdown. The result: huge numbers of prestigious brands have gone under, or are now a shadow of their former selves, and large parts of the world economy have fallen into a recession, with reduced employment and incomes across large parts of society. High streets and shopping malls lie half-empty, causing a vacuum at the heart of our communities and societies, and many discretionary products have simply become too expensive for people to buy on a regular basis. There is now an urgent need to regenerate our local shopping areas, so how can retailers and brands respond to this crisis? Fortunately, new shoots of recovery are emerging from the wreckage of the old order – new brands, new ways of providing value, and new and innovative methods of creating interest to draw in consumers, all of which have the potential to kick-start the retail economy. Retail Recovery offers a comprehensive analysis of these new forces that are changing the way in which we browse for and buy products, and how we experience and engage with the brands themselves. It includes in-depth interviews with some of the most innovative players in the UK, Europe and North America, in the hope of drawing out key learning points for the rest of the industry. It also provides essential guidelines for governments, as they strive to rebuild and reinforce the retail spaces within our communities, allowing them to create a more effective economic lifeline for retailers, shoppers, retail workers, manufacturers and distributors.

Physical retail isn’t dead—but boring retail is! Remarkable Retail equips the savvy retailer with eight essential strategies to thrive in an increasingly volatile and uncertain future. Digital technology has profoundly altered the competitive landscape for retailers. In Remarkable Retail, industry thought leader Steve Dennis argues that in a world of nearly infinite choice, where the lines between digital and physical are increasingly blurred, even being very good is no longer good enough. To win and keep customers today, retailers must be nothing short of remarkable. In most retail categories, digital channels are often central to the consumer’s journey, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t also shopping in stores; they’re just using them differently, often browsing in one channel and buying in the other. The notion of a physical store channel and an ecommerce channel is increasingly a distinction without a difference; the customer is the channel. The future belongs to those who embrace the blur of digital and physical that represents modern retail today and work to deliver an experience that is more harmonized and more memorable, regardless of how consumers decide to shop. Packed with illuminating case studies from some of modern retail’s biggest success stories—and leveraging Dennis’s more than thirty years as a senior executive and strategic consultant to dozens of brands—Remarkable Retail lays out the case for going beyond a slightly better version of mediocre and forging a path to being truly remarkable. To help retailers on this transformation journey, Dennis presents eight essential strategies for visionary leaders who are prepared to reimagine their way of doing business. A remarkable retailer is digitally enabled, human-centered, harmonized, mobile, personal, connected, memorable, and radical. In an age where consumers have short attention spans, myriad options, and a digitally integrated relationship with every brand, Remarkable Retail is your indispensable guide to creating a powerful retail experience that keeps your customers coming back for more.

Praise for Winning At Retail "Winning at Retail offers the most effective strategies available for retailers. At McDonald's, the 'Quick-EST' model is crucial, because being close and convenient to where our customers live, work, and shop helps us create maximum value. If you want to harness your company's strengths to become a leader in your category-and stay in tune with what your customers want-this is the book for you." -Jim Rand, Senior Vice President of Business Development, McDonald's Corporation "Winning at Retail provides a thoughtful approach to retail differentiation. Ander and Stern warn of the 'treacherous middle' into which retailers too easily drift. They inspire us to avoid this peril through case studies of retailers who have assumed leadership through courageous choice." -Robert L. Price, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Wawa "In a difficult retail environment, this book provides crucial guidance for staying on top of your competition-by taking the customer seriously and leveraging your strengths to provide experiences that increase customer loyalty. Will Ander and Neil Stern elegantly argue that you can't always be the biggest, fastest, and trendiest place on the block, but it takes only one of these 'Ests' to be a category leader. Businesses big and small can benefit from the carefully distilled lessons in this book." -Bernd Schmitt, Professor of Marketing, Columbia Business School and author of Customer Experience Management

Who are the world's best retail brands? Is there a formula for success you can learn from? How to Succeed at Retail helps you find the key factors that will make you successful. Building on the process introduced in the international bestseller Retailization, it begins by encouraging you to become 'retail obsessed' and to think strategically, creatively and operationally in a retail context. It then illustrates success in action with 25 winning international case studies that show you some inspirational ways forward. Fast-paced and accessible, it concludes with an operational methodology which can be applied to any and every business. By introducing you to new ideas, winning cases and real tools, How to Succeed at Retail will help you to develop and implement an actionable brand vision. An accompanying website provides access to further case studies, strategies, tools and downloads. Featured case studies: Apple; Assa Abloy; Bose; Courvoisier; Dyson; Easyjet; Gillette; Gooh!; Guiness; Hennes & Mauritz; Holland & Holland; Innocent; Karmaloop; Oliviers & Co; P&G; Peroni; Red Bull; REI; Senseo; Starbucks; Superquinn; Tchibo; Whole Foods Market; Yoyamart; Zara.

The modern retail system has worked to dazzling effect. From the 19th century, store owners emerged from small beginnings to set in train an industry that has seen some operators become nationally, even globally, dominant. Along the way, they turned retailing into an art, and then a science. Now retailers in emerging markets appear to be repeating the story all over again, except on a scale and at a speed beyond anything we have seen before. Given all of this, it can be hard for those who work in retailing to accept that the industry as we know it is living on borrowed time, on the brink of transformation. There is now an urgency with which conventional store-based retailers must now act and the extent of the challenges this change represents in strategic, organizational, and above all, technological terms. Reshaping Retail sets out the driving causes, current trends and consequences of a transformation in retail triggered by technology. The changes go far beyond making items available for sale on the internet. Starting by briefly setting the historical and business system contexts for retail and describe the role that technology has played in the creation of modern retail it then explains the underlying technological drivers behind the current revolution – radical changes in the capacity of both hardware and software, mobile telecommunications changes and the advances of the Internet. Ultimately, success will hinge on more than competence; it will come down to a way of thinking. Customer-centricity will need to be valued not just by the store owner, as in the past, but also by all employees in the organization. It will need to become embedded in their daily tasks. The same applies to technology, which must be at the center of the organization and recognized as such by everyone. With a combination of extensive desk and field research, interviews with leading retailers and technologists, together with the real world experience of practitioners in this area, Reshaping Retail will inspire and help store retailers to make the necessary transformation now to win in the new consumer driven world.