I am paddling across the Bass Strait for the next three weeks, so thought it appropriate to talk about what I'll be looking at for some weeks to come - blue ocean!

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For the past five years the humble retail marketer has spent many weeks in real time watching retailers reduce the number of manufacturer brands per category per store, and consequently advising survivor brands on how to increase share of voice in store, as well as advising lost brands on new market entry points to sell to new consumers - looking for "blue ocean".

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In Australia we have a few great companies that have been successful over several recessionary periods - say 30 years - due to the leadership teams creating and then maintaining a strong culture of success.

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Last week, we had almost blanket "shock at drop in retail sales" stories appearing in the media, with the assumption that shoppers were cautious in December due to rising interest rates and the end of government stimulus payments.

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Last week I talked about prices at retail dropping over the coming year, and urged you to hold onto your till receipts so we could look at them in January 2011. I predicted that these things would come about because of well-planned productivity improvements, not knee-jerk discounting to damage retailers' or manufactures' margins.

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Most recent reports in the business press point to strong retail sales results worldwide. Well, with the exception of Marks & Spencer in the UK who saw a modest 0.8% increase in like for like sales over the big Christmas quarter.

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This article first appeared October 19, 2009.

Target in the US is, as in Australia and New Zealand, a mass merchant, or discount department store by description. Personally, I believe that Lorna Inman's Target in Oz is now a more focussed, innovative and tightly run "value" department store than its very successful US equivalent, which is saying a lot.

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Happy New Year. As you read this blog (which was written on December 23, 2009) Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year's Day will be behind us. So here are a few product and retailer performance predictions made before the retail madness hit.

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There is an annual festive season joke that runs along the ranks of senior manufacturer and retailer sales and marketing teams around the western world. It goes: "You spend six months and millions of dollars building your Christmas and New Year sales plan, and then the plan is delivered at store level by millions of holiday pay teenagers who've never worked in retail before!"

 

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Last week's blog talked about the Costco/Coca Cola price negotiations breaking down and Coke's product not being available to shoppers in Costco's stores until the dispute is resolved.

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