The Marketplace Strategy Blog

“They’ve actually got Holiday decorations in the supermarket, can you believe it, it’s only just October!?” Every year it’s the same. One minute we’re enjoying light evenings and family BBQs, the next we’re unearthing scarves and complaining about Christmas songs in the shops. But for those of us working in the retail industry, planning for the peak season actually begins months in advance.

We’ve gotten used to seeing the headlines about the “death of the high street,” “retail stores facing an apocalypse” and other equally scaremongering predictions. It’s been refreshing this week to hear that retail stores could be facing a renaissance, led by Amazon of all companies! Instead of dissipating, the role of store has evolved, and smart retailers should be examining how they can embrace this growing trend favoring experiences over products.

Touted as the ‘biggest global shopping event in Amazon’s history” - Prime Day 2018, was bound to set new records. So much so, that within hours of launch, the vast web traffic had brought Amazon servers down, losing an estimated $90+ million in sales. The discount day was also marred by the ongoing strikes at Amazon warehouses in Europe. With workers in Spain and German arguing against the poor working conditions. The strikers were urging shoppers not to buy from Amazon for the duration of a strike that is set to last for 72 hours in Spain.

As mentioned previously, many people at Mirakl have taken a pledge not to shop on Amazon for gifts this holiday season. Our goal is to support other retailers to help them stay in business while they fix their customer experience challenges. Yes, those retailers may have been slow to make the right investments, and aren’t moving quickly enough to fix things, but let’s literally buy them some time.

One of the joys of parenthood is that it gives a great opportunity to rewatch movie classics. This weekend I decided to watch the movie BIG with my 7 and 9-year-old daughters. During the famous piano dance scene my daughters asked me, “Dad can we go to this store? It looks amazing!”