On a recent visit to my local Nordstrom, I found a style I liked but they didn’t have my size in stock.  “No problem,” I thought, “Can you have the proper size transferred from another store, so I can try them on and get them marked for alternations if I choose to buy them?”

Imagine my surprise when the Nordstrom salesperson told me “No.”

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I have a huge pet peeve with retailers that still ban photography in their stores.  Shopping needs to be a fun and engaging experience.  If I’m so attached to your brand that I want to take photo’s for my social network or blog, you should encourage me to do so. 

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2009 was a tumultuous year for US Retailers.  We entered the year in the throws of a recession that resulted in the bankruptcy of Circuit City.  The ongoing economic challenges kept the likes of Gordon Brothers Group busy as they helped numerous retails close stores and liquidate assets.

While it wasn’t fun, we’ve clearly been over retailed in the US for some time.  The economic climate created a unique opportunity for many retailers to slow their expansion plans, trim underperforming stores, and generally get more healthy without raising the ire of their public markets.

And there is some reason for optimism as well, many retailers continued to innovate…

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It’s been a tough quarter for regional retailers based here in the Pacific Northwest. They’ve all suffered from the same soft sales that the economy has imposed on national retailers, and we had a sever winter storm that knocked out a lot of the traditional holiday shopping days this season. Now we’re starting to see the fall out.

Many great independent retailers are closing their stores. In my neighborhood, a wonderful local store called Cheeky B had to call it quits and liquidate their inventory. In an all to common scenario, their out of state landlord wasn’t interested in working with them, and instead will try to find new tenants looking to risk opening a store in this economy.

Worse, the regional chains are taking a beating…

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Miller Zell is one of the top firms in the retail marketing and design industry.  In the first half of the 90’s they were a terrific vendor of mine at Blockbuster.  Among the clever things they do is conduct their own research.  It both gives them a competitive advantage versus firms that either don’t base their work on research or are limited to publically available sources of research; more importantly the ressearch some extra credibility for Miller Zell in the space.

Last week they published a new study, Gone in 2.3 seconds.   This study, surveyed 1000 consumers about the influences on their purchase decisions, and concluded amongst other things that in-store marketing is very effective, and that more than 60% of purchase decisions are still made in the store.  The study is certainly interesting, and I frankly agree with many of it’s conclusions.  You can read more about the study at Ad Week or at the Experiate blog.

However, I have to ask….  is this kind of research methodology remotely valid? Basically they are asking customers to fill out a survey about what effected their purchase decisions.  But psychologists have proven time and time again that human beings aren’t aware of many of the factors that effect their decision making.  Study the work of psychologists like Twitchell, Kahneman, and Tversky to see how bad we really are at understanding and predicting our own decision making.  In fact, it turns out that when you tell a person in advance that after making a decision they will have to explain it, you dramatically influence the decision they will make.  We’re even worse at predicting what will influence our future decisions, and how we will feel about those decisions.  I’m confident that if we could survey every apparel shopper who has an unworn, expensive item hanging in their closet for over a year, just before they made that purchase, most would say they expect the purchase decision to make them very happy and could even give you reasons why it would.  Yet the item hangs in closet as a trophy to buyers remorse.  When the survey respondents said that they were more influenced by in-store communications than advertising, does anyone really beleive that the respondant thought back through the 3000 advertisements a day she was exposed to, before concluding that the fact tag in the store is what compelled her to own an item?

I’ve used this type of research countless times in my career, but I don’t put much stock in it anymore.  We ask people for subjective opinions, often when we know that those people can’t possibly give us accurate answers, and then we tally up their answers and call it “Quantitative” data (usually to imply it’s more credible than the more fuzzy “Qualitative” data of other research methodologies).  It’s a great methodology for proving that a tactic or strategy we already want to follow is the right one, but I don’t think it stands up to much scrutiny.  These days, I far prefer research methodologies that observe the shoppers actual objective behavior, it’s usually slower and more expensive, but it it’s worth it.

Here in Portland Oregon  we are lucky enough to be one of the first two markets in the country to get 4G wireless service (WiMax from ClearWire aka Clear).

It’s interesting, that they have opened a number of retail stores with a distinct consumer feel (and certainly with expensive high foot traffic rent), despite the fact that WiMax is probably more of a Business to Business solution at the moment.   WiMax claims download speeds of 6Mbps and upload speeds of up to 1Mbps, although like most wireless technologies your actual speed is highly dependant on coverage.  At my office out in the suburbs of Portland, I get good coverage and 5Mbps downloads, but in my 4th floor condo in the heart of the downtown Pearl district, I barely get coverage at all, and when I do it’s slower than my AT&T 3G broadband card.  Clear promises that they are adding more access points in my neighborhood, and that the dense, tall buildings are a challenge for the relatively directional WiMax signals.  They have a variety of rate plans ranging from pay as you go, to $50/mo for unlimited mobile usage, which is the plan I have.

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In a recent post about Microsoft’s new retail initiative, I suggested that that there are aspects of Apples customer experience that could be improved.  Several readers responded, asked for more specifics thoughts.

Let me start by saying that Apple has the best dollars per square foot metrics in all of retail.  They don’t need to apologize about their stores to anyone.  Further, there are many elements of their experience that I love,  including their signature architecture, genius bar, useful fact tags, category signage with decision tree suggestions, window displays and wireless CRM.

That being said, here are some areas that could be improved…

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The annual gathering of retail designers and in-store marketers starts Monday in Las Vegas.  I’m in town and will be blogging a recap of the show.  Last year, the show was over spring break, during some unseasonably bad weather in Chicago, and attendance was lack-luster.  At the time, I speculated that it was also a bit quiet because the show started a month after the much larger EuroShop which takes place every three years in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Obivously, the economy will have a major effect on attendance this year (as it has with almost every trade show).  I’ve spoken to many clients who will not be making the trip (many will be missing the show for the first time in years).  Once again the show is during Spring Break, and March Madness here in Las Vegas.

Personally, I suspect that many exhibitors and attendees will skip this year, learn the world did not end, and may not come back even if when  the economy does turns back around.  I’m really suspicious about the ROI for companies like mine to exhibit at these shows, so in one sense, I won’t be disappointed to see the show become less relevant.  On the other hand, I really enjoy the opportunity to network and spend time with my peers in the industry, and it will be shame to lose that.  Perhaps it will all get replaced by some flavor of social network?  One idea that makes a lot of sense would be to put on these shows every 2-3 years, as is the practice with the big European shows.  That would allow enough time to really build up some interest and buzz when the show year does come around.  I’m sure that the event companies that put on these shows don’t want to walk-away from the annual revenue, but they really need to consider something dramatic to save their business.

Last week Microsoft announced plans to open its own retail stores to “transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience,” the company said Wednesday as it hired David Porter as corporate vice president of Retail Stores.

Although Microsoft hasn’t publicized the scope or mission of this new retail initiative.  Many reporters and bloggers responded by immediately assuming the stores will directly complete with Apple and that Microsoft’s efforts will fall short of the Apple experience.

• Microsoft Retail Stores a Risky Proposition – PC World
• What Microsoft Can Learn About Retail from Apple and Best Buy  – Fast Company / Robert Scoble
• Microsoft apes Apple – Tech Harold

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