‘A recent survey from retail analysts Kantar found that 70% of us like to touch a product before we buy.’
Mood Media has to make some tough choices for survival
Canadian music for business provider Mood Media is like many businesses globally currently are struggling with rising cost and falling sales. Their figures don’t really highlight that sales have increased due to acquisitions until you see how much their costs (including cost of acquisition) have rocketed.
My comment at CanadianBusiness.com here is meant to highlight that some costs, are like some landlords with retailers who refuse to reduce rents that are crippling retailers as less people come to the high street.
I quote, “The issue is similar to the challenge retailers face with less buying customers around, the fixed costs stay mainly the same but need to be apportioned across less sales. So with Mood Music they will have to make drastic choices about where to cut costs and really question organisations who are inflexible about the fees they bill to Mood mixes such as SOCAN that also have to be past into customers. “
Master of Coffee Font
The Challenge Of Online Business Alternatives To Retailers
The peril of ‘showrooming’
What can retailers do about the rising trend of people browsing in shops, checking their smartphone and buying cheaper online?
Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22098575
An interesting article but what can retailers do?
Retail is understood to be an experience but still people can enjoy the experience, meet friends, look at products, try out clothes, and still choose to purchase the same online.
But then isn’t that the real issue? If the products are the same then there will always be the cheaper alternative from online retail destinations that have lower operating costs.
So if you can’t compete retailers need to change the playing field. They have the customers in their stores yet only offer the same products that can be delivered to the customer’s home at a cheaper price. But what if retailers didn’t offer these mass produced products that can easily be sold from any website / wearhouse online retailer?
What if the bricks and mortar retailer took advantage of the fact that the customer is in their store and offer them something far more personal than anything that could
be offered online?
Maybe the answer then to offer products that are different to the standard vanilla ones you can see being sold from warehouses online. Does this mean for example clothes retailers should consider offering a personal touch to their purchases, for example, clothes that are finished to fit, trouser legs sewn to your exact leg size, dresses that are taken in while you wait (or hang out in the coffee bar). Personaly I see the rise in coffee bars as a sign that there could be more customisation and personalisation that could be brought back into the high street. Even to the extent of seeing crafts returning. For example, skilled craft services offering products designed around your exact needs. This doesn’t necessarily mean a complex multi hour production product (although there is good reason for these services to rerun to more wealthier high streets) since we will be seeing a massive rise in 3d printing technologies over the next ten years retailers will be able to offer much more customisation at an affordable price.
Can streaming save music sales?
Streaming services have reversed the fortunes of the music industry in Sweden and now generate more income than downloads or CDs. But can the model be replicated worldwide?
Streaming subscription services are becoming a more popular method of listening to music in a wide range of demographic groups yet those of us in the business of networked music regularly debate the ‘streaming vs owning’ model.
There seems to be no doubt that the online subscription model works well, the key issue of being forced to have an online connection to listen to the music has been removed now with streamers such as Spotify offering some degree of local caching.
The technology has more challenges within the business environment where quality of service needs to be higher yet perhaps over time and dependent on the stretch of quality broadband business background music streaming may become more viable.
But in terms of consumer sales there seems little doubt that streaming is the best solution to the changing dynamics of music sales. For artists it offers a more direct route to fans yet the playing field will always have its heavily invested artists gaining more traction than those with no marketing budgets. For artists they need to get used to earning very little per listen for the model to work for everyone and use the service partly to generate some income but also as a way to develop relationships with fans that they can commercially develop further with other products such as merchandise and live shows.
Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22064353
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