Will "Retail Democracy" Impact All Retailers?

A newly announced "global study" by Oracle, the international hardware and software data management firm, of "what customers expect today", leads to what Oracle dubs "Retail Democracy." 

“The newly-emerging ‘access anywhere, commerce anywhere’ consumers are demanding access to availability, product information and price in a variety of ways."

Oracle's notion of Retail Democracy is an interesting concept, and, in our view, a likely harbinger of an important trend in retailing. (In fact, we see it as a continuation of the power shift we called "Retail Populism" some years ago, as online commerce was bursting onto the scene.) 

This is all well and good for analysts, consultants, bloggers, futurists, academics, etc. And for retailers who enjoy thinking about lofty issues.

But, once Oracle suggests that this study “requires that retailers re-orchestrate their operations”, we really slow up. Yikes! Such sweeping prescriptive "shoulds" for retailers must be viewed very carefully.

• You see, asking survey participants about their preferences and aspirations just produces their wish list.
• Similarly, asking how they would act in a hypothetical future situation elicits their good intentions. 

Predictions for Business Decisions

In our experience, wish lists and good intentions seldom – if ever! – translate into actual buying behavior. (Steve Jobs, among others, understood this very well.) 

While we relish reading about studies such as Oracle conducted, we always encourage retailers faced with business decisions to examine and learn from the actual behaviors of their present (and coveted prospective) customers. We find that past actions and behaviors are far more telling predictors of future actions.

Best of all, doing so does not require an international market research project. Instead, you can glean a great deal from the data you already have about your customers.

This “data mining” of your POS and ZIP code data, for instance, can provide new, invaluable insights – for free! Yes, it will take some time, especially at the start. Tally and analyze the numbers, compare-and-contrast the findings, and give thought to what it tells you and how to get the most benefit from it.

Have fun discovering more about your customers. But base your business decisions on their behaviors, NOT their wish lists or good intentions!

Remember, when it comes to your decisions about business spending, what your customers actually do is far more telling than what they say they will do. 


For more on the Oracle study, go here