The future of retailing

 “…is on the internet”…How original! We seem to hear this sentence in every other lecture we attend, and read it every day as well. But it is only partly true. The net is indeed one of the places where the future of retailing lies, but not the only one. The future of retailing is also to be found in new markets, for example. Does that include DIY retail­ing? Well, so far a whole lot of DIY retailers have ended up with a bloody nose in many an emerging market. Let’s take China as an example. The DIY giant par excellence, Home Depot, closed its last seven stores in this huge country in 2012. Obi, market leader in Germany after all, and the third-biggest DIY retailer in Europe, turned its back on the Middle Kingdom after just five years. Leroy Merlin of Groupe Adeo, currently top of the European industry rankings and level-pegging with Kingfisher, has for years failed to progress beyond one store in this country with its population of 1.3 billion. And Kingfisher is striving for an orderly retreat. So astonishment is the first reaction to the news that the British company is intending to get a handle on the future of retailing in this of all countries. Right now in Shanghai the group is operating a store under the brand name of Vivid Homes by B&Q, an outlet that is explicitly described as a test store. It is the only one of its kind anywhere in the world. The idea is to test sales concepts under live conditions here. And why here of all places? One reason is certainly because the experiment is not attracting as much attention from the industry as would have been the case with a store in the London area, for instance. On the other hand, and equally certain, is that companies from the saturated markets are being forced to seek out new growth potential in new territories – new not only geographically but also, and mainly, in terms of mentality: how can we reach young customers, who take online shopping for granted, see customer loyalty as a negligible variable and do-it-yourself simply as a question mark in their heads? Just as the companies from the so-called emerging markets are getting down to learning and putting into practice the mechanics of brand-building, conversely a great deal can be learnt from them as well. But one question still remains: can their experience be passed on to Europe? Rainer Strnad Managing editor Download: