Saturday, April 27, 2013

A thank you to those who inspire thought and shed light on logic

Today, I am pausing my focus on business and economics. This is one of those important moments when I do inventory of a time in the past. While I may perpetually look to anticipate what is just past the horizon, I have found these rare rear-looking moments to be important when attempting to remain grounded.
I sent a request to the school in Mexico where I begun my learning. No, I really did not start to learn when in kindergarten. Elementary and middle schools were also not where I begun either. I am referring to the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, unidad Querétaro, or TEC as my high school was known. All other schools before the TEC were of the garden variety. You attended classes where a teacher attempted to pass information and where children who were not disruptive received the best grades. I was a patient, quiet and respectful child. So, I scored high in every class. Unfortunately, that is pretty much what I received. There wasn't much in the form of lasting understanding or insight. I was just working through the motions and feeling as if I was really learning something.
Image of the "Tecnologico de Monterrey" ITESM Logo over black background
Launch Tec's Website
But when I attended the TEC, I had an opportunity to learn to manage my time, as in learn to focus, learn how to read, which is not the same as having your eyes follow the letters on a page, and where I was able to learn to think, which is not as natural as one would assume. Thanks to such weird topics, among the many advanced calculus, physics and chemistry courses, I received the basic foundation behind all future creative innovations and learning insights. And because I could trace it all back to a single professor, I decided to write the school to ask them to assist me to make sure that my thank-you-letter would make it to him. But the odds are not good. About thirty years have passed by and we have gone from a typed and triple-carbon-copied time to a fully digitized era. Besides, who says that the teacher did not move in between countless cities as I did since.
In any case, here is the letter; in its original Spanish and in appreciation to what he meant to my life.


Estimada Licenciada Carolina Cortés Mendoza,

Espero que al recibir esta misiva se encuentre disfrutando de un día fantástico!
Quisiera pedirle algo posiblemente inusual. Déjeme explicar. 

Fui estudiante de la prepa Tec en Querétaro entre el año '82 y año del '84, cuando me gradué con un bachillerato en ciencias físico matemáticas. Desde ese entonces he estudiado carreras en arquitectura y administración de empresas. También estudie dos posgrados en administración; uno de ellos en el prestigioso Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He laborado en once ciudades distintas en dos continentes y he podido viajar el mundo con mi familia. Entre muchos otros reconocimientos, recibí cuatro patentes en los EUA por productos en el área de ingeniería eléctrica y he publicado artículos en negocios y en economía; el más reciente en el Wall Street Journal esta semana pasada. Se puede decir que he tenido una vida llena de color y placer intelectual.

Pero mi petición no tiene nada que ver conmigo, sino con mi maestro de Filosofía Dos y, en otra ocasión, de Política. Gracias a él, aprendí a razonar. El me enseño a pensar y a estructurar mis raciocinios. Antes de él, fui normal. Después de él, mi mundo exploto con oportunidades.

De él, solo recuerdo a una persona altamente fluida, carismática y transparente; de alta confianza en sí mismo, parecía tener paz emocional. Mi profesor tenía un infeccioso optimismo por el hoy y el mañana. Pero desafortunadamente no recuerdo ni su nombre ni de donde era; creo era juez en un pueblo cercano a Querétaro. Eso es todo.

Así pues, tengo un gran deseo de reconocerle a él, mi maestro de maestros, la persona quien dejo en mi la semilla que resulto dar frutos de incomparable riqueza. A pesar de que he tenido el lujo de aprender de muchísimas luminarias, todo empezó con aquel quien me enseno lo básico, lo esencial, lo importante. Sin él, el resto no hubiera sido posible. Por esto, le estoy eternamente agradecido. De hecho, la deuda es ahora tan grande que nunca podre compensarle. 

Por todo esto, quisiera ver si usted puede ayudarme a hacerle llegar este sentimiento. 

Entiendo que los archivos de mi era no son fáciles de buscar. También entiendo que mi maestro ya pudo haber dejado la cátedra hace muchos calendarios y que los que ahora educan a los alumnos de hoy nunca lo habrán conocido. Pero aun con todas estas dificultades, creo que es muy importante el hacerle saber. Creo que lo que vale de manera verdadera solo alcanzara ese máximo valor después de mucho tiempo, eliminando la posibilidad de haberle agradecido antes, cuando era más fácil hacerlo. También creo que hoy, cuando los ciudadanos de la nación global carecen de identidad, sería muy valioso que otros también se enteraran de lo grande que puede llegar a ser el esfuerzo de una persona como él, una vez que este rinde resultados en otros. Yo creo que mi maestro no solo me beneficio a mi sino a todos. Todo esto le quiero hacer saber. 

De antemano le agradezco me ayude a hacerle llegar esta carta a ese profesor de profesores. 

Atentamente suyo,

Alberto Alejandro López Martínez



Friday, April 26, 2013

The signal reads: dark clouds ahead

When corporations lose sense of market conditions.
As a business owner, you want to see that everything goes your way. From committed employees to happy customers, there is nothing better than feeling the wind on your back. But somehow, all of government promises and enough liquidity to drown everything on sight are not able to prevent the dark clouds that are now forming.
Screenshot of Bespoke's Think B.I.G. website with their "Mediocre Earnings and Revenue" article.
Launch Bespoke Article
On Wednesday the 24th of April, the smart guys at Bespoke shared their great research on how unresponsive corporations have been to the market's pools of extra liquidity. They presented two very clear graphs that highlight the under-performing sales and profits trends among public companies. When the best management teams in the nation miss their forecasts, it really serves to show how unpredictable this market has become. Let's remember that when managers of public companies under deliver, their risk of job loss goes up exponentially. Just look at the recent dismissal of super-retail-CEO Ron Johnson from J C Penney. Public company executives have a strong incentive to under promise and over deliver; exactly the opposite of what is happening right now.

Take a look at Bespoke's online article. While it is written for portfolio traders, it sheds light on what is really happening in our economy.
But why would things be so bad? Isn't Obama's team doing all sorts of quantitative easing and driving job growth while growing the economy? Well, obviously things are not peachy. Data is very important to me. It is like traveling through unfamiliar roads with the help of a good map and following the road signs. If neither matches, you are in trouble. Yes, I used the map metaphor because there is no such thing as GPS for politicians. They are just plain lost.
The reality is that business environment has been anything but great. Consumers have lost their homes, lost their jobs or lost their retirement funds. In some cases, they lost them all. Investment on large capital equipment, the kind that Alan Greenspan describes as delivering value over longer than 20 years, plummeted during the recession and never recovered. There is a lack of trust on the day after tomorrow. This means that all investment has been focused on small short term assets, the kind that do not last but takes care of the fires.
Then there is the fact that the cost of capital for all medium and small companies went up, rather than down, at the end of 2009, which is after the recession had officially ended. Perhaps this was in response to scaring the living hell out of bankers everywhere.
Should I say more?
Photo of golf course green and sand trap with a cloudy sky and lightning on the backgroundMost corporate out performance has so far come from gains in efficiency and from employment cuts. It is just incredible what happens when the team shrinks and those who are left behind still get the job done; as a way to make sure that they don't lose their job as well. In any case, profit improvements that are not funded by increases in revenue are never sustainable. So we are now getting to the unsustainable part of the journey.
If we could just stop publicly embarrassing those who took the risks that paid off. Maybe the weather would then improve. For now, stay away from the golf course during the coming lightning storm.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Should spending on a college education be viewed as consumption or as an investment.


Beauty shot image of "The Education of Millionaires", "It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late" book by author Michael Ellsberg
The Education of Millionaires
I just read The Education of Millionaires: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late; by Michael Ellsberg.
The book raises the question of whether spending on a college education should be viewed as consumption or as an investment. It argues that for many, especially many taking the liberal path, it is no more than a very expensive way  to party for five years. Mr. Ellsberg then goes to drive the age-old idea that the street is a better way to learn.  Now that he refers to a street education from the perspective of a dedicated and hungry entrepreneur.
This book left me divided. At the beginning, it was painfully difficult to bear. The author comes across as pompous and preachy. It lectures extensively but fails to structure a logical argument with supporting evidence. I almost stopped reading it.
Thankfully, I was able to work through the first sections. What followed was much better in content and form. Surprisingly, considering the start, the book delivers quite a bit of value. While I do not agree with every little point made, I am happy to try to understand the author's position. Besides, I thing that at a higher level the ideas are very good.
Sadly, the book reverted to its original state towards the very end. But I guess that what matters is the content and not the form.
My gut feeling is that Mr. Ellsberg's ambitions for this book were larger than what is possible for a book its size. Maybe that explains the almost forced form. In any case, the book offers plenty of value to be simply dismissed.
It is not one of the best books for me. Nonetheless, it should be read.

Book Title: The Education of Millionaires
Book Subtitle: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late
Author: Michael Ellsberg
Publisher: Hardcover 
ISBN: B00AYPE6NI

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Is a Futures Hedging Specialist a must for your business?

The business environment has changed in just a couple of decades. While business success used to depend only on the skills of the early-eighties owner or manager, today businesses must attract and synergistically coordinate the efforts of many knowledge workers. Knowledge workers are those whose main job is to make sound decisions. Engineers, analysts and specialists, among others, carry the responsibility of making decisions beyond the ability of most, if not all, of the workers at the company. Often, these experts will demonstrate deeper subject knowledge than that of even company leaders.
Photo image of team of knowledge workers analyzing a problem on a whiteboard.
Knowledge Worker Performance - Peter Drucker
Thus, companies should develop guidelines for all decision making processes that are based on a sound risk/reward balance. The goal is to enter into situations where the balance is asymmetric; where the downside risk is low or limited while the upside reward potential is high or unlimited. This will result in the best deployment of all knowledge workers.
With this in mind, let's start by considering a topic of great importance for manufacturers: the cost of raw materials. The seemingly uncontrolled volatility of important materials like copper or oil turn business planning into a little more than a wild guess. Thankfully, there are ways to solve this problem. There are well established, liquid and transparent derivatives markets that can help a business hedge against raw material volatility. I am talking about Futures and Options markets. Both offer alternatives that can help insure against the kind of market gyrations that could put a company out of business. From these, the Futures market is the simplest to understand. Options are much more flexible. Unfortunately, such flexibility comes with a high price in complexity.
Like with other insurance policies, a business manager must understand that there is a cost associated with an insurance policy that protects profitability against large swings in cost of goods. The cost of such insurance is the limited downside. The fact that a business will not have to suffer the same fate as all other businesses in the same industry when raw materials go up is the great upside.
But chances are that the manager or owner has no idea on how to even start hedging through Futures contracts. It is therefore essential to employ a qualified knowledge worker who could help set up a basic insurance program for the company. As I mentioned above, there are many areas where specialists bring value to a company way beyond the leader's capability.
To help a manager get a beginning understanding of what Futures are, I found this great video from the UK's Money Week magazine.
Screenshot image of MoneyWekk's website where an important video explaining futures is hosted
Launch MoneyWeek.com
While this video does not show how to hedge, it does describe how Futures operate. Hedging, should be individually addressed by a specialist in the field. Because all companies have different needs and due to the fact that improper hedging techniques could kill the company, I do not suggest for an old-fashioned manager to go it alone. Saving on the expert could prove to be very costly indeed.



Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Wall Street Journal Op Ed Article by Alberto Lopez

Let the FOMC Morning Glitch Become Policy
The accidental release of information avoided the usual afternoon market volatility.
Due to an apparent leak, the Federal Reserve released its Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes on Wed., April 10, at 9 a.m., rather than the usual 2 p.m. This gave us a rare opportunity to see how much better it would be for these types of market-moving events to take place before the bell ...
image from screen shot of the Wall Street Journal's web page where Alberto A Lopez's article "Let the FOMC Morning Glitch Become Policy" is hosted
Launch the Wall Street Journal's Article
Today, the Wall Street Journal published my Op Ed Article about the effects that Federal Open Market Committee's announcements have on securities markets and how much better things would be if these were to happen before the markets opened. Here is the link if you wish to read the whole article.

2013-Dec-20 Update:
Now that I can post it, here is the actual text from the article

Let the FOMC Morning Glitch Become Policy
The accidental release of information avoided the usual afternoon market volatility.

By ALBERTO LOPEZ
Due to an apparent leak, the Federal Reserve released its Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes on Wed., April 10, at 9 a.m., rather than the usual 2 p.m. This gave us a rare opportunity to see how much better it would be for these types of market-moving events to take place before the bell.

Instead of the directionless and wild trading that typically surrounds FOMC announcements, the market steadily trended in one direction as soon as the bell rang. After rising for four hours, the S&P moved sideways, followed by a strong push higher the following day. There were no sharp pullbacks or jerking movements.

As an individual trader operating from home, I've long known that it is wisest to sell all the stocks and options I'm trading to stay safely away from the inevitable and volatile price swings that take place before and after an announcement by the FOMC. Besides the violent equity-price movements that seem to be caused by computer robots making rapid bets around the announcement, all options lose value after the event has passed.

In all, it is too much to bear—especially for unsophisticated individual investors who lost much of their money after the crash and have just now begun to try the waters.

If the last decade was a sufficiently stern lesson to the retail investor that buy-and-hold is not a viable strategy, he will probably place stop-loss orders to protect his investments from flash crashes or other sudden market drops. Unfortunately, when equity prices move quickly between extremes, these stop losses can trigger sales at the most undesirable price. If the market immediately swings upward after a stop-loss sale is triggered, it only confirms an investor's fear that the game is rigged.

The unnecessary volatility brought about by FOMC announcements during normal trading hours may benefit those who own fast-trading computers, albeit at the expense of ordinary investors. And the timing of FOMC announcements for mid-afternoon serves no fundamental market purpose.

The Fed should know better. If it released FOMC announcements in the early morning before U.S. markets officially open, investors would have an opportunity to digest the information along with all the other developments that day before trading begins.

Any losses due to volatility would be suffered by professionals since most retail investors do not trade during the pre-market trading session between 7 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. But the market will more likely follow its usual trending patterns during the regular trading session. Trends are much easier to stomach for the average individual trader. Volatility scares people into thinking that everything is out of control.

I think that this small change has been delayed long enough. So, Mr. Bernanke, please institute a new guideline that all market-moving Fed announcements take place at a time when they least exert their gravitational pull on the markets—at a time when Fed statements would hurt the weakest participants least.

Mr. Lopez, an active options trader, is an executive advisor to Blackmore Partners LLC, which finds private-equity funding for growing corporations.

A version of this article appeared April 17, 2013, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Let the FOMC Morning Glitch Become Policy.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Demographic trends push Wall Street and Main Street

Would you lose 50% of your sales if half your customers suddenly left your market? Would your sales increase instead when new crowds start needing what you sell? This is exactly the impact that changes in the national demographic profile can have on your business and investments.
Today, Chris Puplava and Doug Short from Advisor Perspectives published a great article for Big Trends. The article focuses on the effects that changes in demographics have on financial markets. Before you read it, I would like you to consider that financial markets serve as a measure of corporate profitability levels. In other words, stock pricing shows where real corporate profit levels are, which in turn show where main street business profits should be. At the end of the day, profits are what your business is all about.
Enjoy!

Two charts showing the relationship between changes in population and the stock markets
Launch Article
PS. I know that markets may gyrate on a daily basis due to changes in investor emotion and not fundamentals. Nonetheless, fundamental profit performance drives the long term, which is what this article focuses on.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Retailer Under Attack; Best Buy's defense against a giant

Back in August 10, 2010 I wrote an article for a electronics retailer buying group. I think that it is an interesting read, even after so much time has passed. I hope that you enjoy it.

Retailer Under Attack
What would you do if your largest and most power competitor publicly announces they are coming after you; matching your products and service selection and aggressively discount them? This is what happened to Best Buy (BBY) when Wal-Mart announced that it would attack BBY, the Category Killer of the electronics industry. “Wal-Mart aims to dominate consumer electronics” read the Dallas Morning News article on December 15, 2005; just one of the papers covering the story. Every analyst expected BBY to suffer the same fate as ToysR US and other previously thought unstoppable Category Killers who experienced severe drops in market share after Wal-Mart targeted their market.
After an impressive multiyear expansion that started after it went public in 1985, BBY had grown to 668 US stores by 2005 and begun to face the same challenges that trouble other mature companies; it already had penetrated all the best markets and had only secondary or in some cases tertiary markets to go after. In colloquial terms, all the low hanging fruit had already been picked. Moreover, BBY knew that size alone would not be enough to compete with the largest of all retailers. Wal-Mart would surely target sales drivers like TV’s and leave no room for profitability.
Composite Photo image of Wal Mart and Best Buy store fronts
Wal-Mart, on the other hand, had the clear advantage of being the most efficiently run business in retail. Under Toyota’s Keisen model, any part within a supply chain that adds cost but does not add the kind of value consumers would pay for must be eliminated. In other words, a warehouse that does not reduce supply costs should shut down because consumers do not view additional warehousing as a product features worth paying a premium for. If BBY wanted to compete, it had to perform with equal or superior efficiency. In Kaisen terms, BBY needed to eliminate all operational “waste”. Except that BBY had already spent millions of dollars improving most of its processes. Firms of the caliber of Andersen Consulting had previously scrutinized every aspect of BBY s internal business. This left the question of what else could be improved.
An effective mechanism to eliminate waste built within products is through driving suppliers to do so. Suppliers often sell to both contenders and are therefore agnostic about who wins the retail battle. As a result, such suppliers have no real interest in becoming more efficient and refuse to change their bloated models. Why should they? They are facing selling the same number of goods but at reduced prices. A new method must be found.
Enter BBY’s direct sourcing team. In 2003 BBY opened offices in Shanghai as the next step of a promising plan that had the implicit intent of reducing supply chain costs. By buying directly from China, BBY would eliminate all profits and commissions previously kept by “the brand”, its distributors, its independent sales representatives and all costs incurred in additional warehousing, handling and shipping. The project has been quite ambitious.
Any initiative that eliminates branded products creates the risk of removing value from a retailer’s shelves. Making the change to white labels is far from easy. In this case, BBY made the bet that its customers would shop at its stores for its reputation and not because of any product or brand within its walls. After all, branded products only begun to receive their present attention after an explosion in marketing that started during the 50’s. Moreover, many companies in the US and Europe have successfully deployed store brands like Costco’s Kirkland without any sign of value dilution. So, the experiment begun.
Photo image of solid white Coke looking bottle on white background
Prior to their direct program, BBY would sell a home audio/video cable from a well known brand for $39.99; the same price that it now sells its Insignia cables for. As part of the program, Insignia, Rocket Fish, Geek Squad and Dynex are BBY s own directly-sourced brands and serve to create assortment diversity within the stores. Interestingly, consumers never expressed disapproval for the not so obvious change. In fact, the data shows that Insignia cables sell just as well as the old branded cables did, regardless of Insignia’s lack of pedigree and the fact that the other cables’ supplier had in fact created the concept of higher “per-square-foot” profits.
BBY’s gains do not reside within the selling price. Instead, the real magic happens at the cost. Previously, BBY would pay around fourteen dollars for the old cable while it now lands its Insignia cable for about four dollars. It is important to note that the fourteen dollars was already the industry’s lowest price since BBY s buyers are arguably the best in the planet. While at first sight the $10 difference may not seem big enough to warrant excitement, especially for a retailer that sells close to $50 billion in electronic gizmos a year, a little bit of math demonstrates otherwise. With 180,000 mostly Blue Shirts and Geek Squad employees, the company’s $1.3 billion in yearly earnings translate into $28.14 in net earnings, per employee, per day at work. So, to more than double it profits, BBY only needs to drives its employees to constructively offer Insignia cables to the same customers that would otherwise buy the equally priced alternative cables. This is just three customers, per employee, per day!
In essence, a single SKU bought directly has the potential to double company profits in a way that doubling the number of stores may not. BBY s direct sourcing team brings in not one but hundreds, if not thousands of SKU’s into their stores. Furthermore, Wal-Mart s customers do not seem to be willing to pay the same premium price as BBY s customers. In a world of big boxes, BBY is the specialist out of the two. Consequently, Wal-Mart is not able to match BBY s profitable performance even when it too sources directly from the orient. These facts have given BBY tremendous competitive power even during the recent recession. BBY is able to discount all of its key category drivers as deeply as Wal-Mart and still emerge more profitable.
Making the change to a direct model is difficult and expensive. BBY has spent millions of dollars and thousands of headaches, but the net result is that BBY withstood attacks by the largest retailer in history. Likewise, direct sourcing should be a must for any retailer with true growth ambitions. Since most retailers are too small to match BBY s investment powers, syndication among retailers and willing suppliers who can smooth the path to direct sourcing are paramount.
Being a member of the buying group takes care of the syndication issue. What is now left is the search for willing partners. The challenges here are several. First, items such as lead times and payment terms will change because direct buying is all about getting no frills. While BBY demands the right to return any products to its local vendors at any time and for a full cash refund, there are no returns crossing the ocean back to China, for example. A good supplier will make the transition into the new business model easy to navigate. Second, existing suppliers have no real interest to sell the same number of units at much lower prices; so new vendors may be needed. Third, by definition new suppliers will not be found within the retailer’s professional inner-circle; a fact that will make the transition awkward at best.
Photo Image of red FerrariFourth, the retailer must forgo all perks such as Ferrari rides or CES rock-band parties because these are the precise costs that end up driving all prices upward. The question here is simple: should the retailer use “its” money on a meal bought by the supplier or as fighting arsenal to overtake the competition. The answer may not so obvious since most retailers have repeatedly opted for the former.
Emulating BBY s program will not be within every retailer’s reach. There are many businesses that are too small or have diverging purchasing patterns that would get in the way of efficiency. On the other hand, the buying group members with converging purchasing behavior create the kind of environment which is conducive to successful direct sourcing, especially when aided by willing suppliers. Jack Welch, former CEO to General Electric promoted the concept of a boundaryless organization: a company that adopted ideas that came from anywhere, even the competition. Likewise, learning from BBY may not be to everyone’s liking. In any case, the evidence and the results are too robust to ignore. If the road to profitability is already treacherous, why also make it much longer. Start now!

Pass Input Cost - Inflation and Customers

Screenshot image of Youtube's page hosting Alberto A Lopez case study video about price ellasticity
Launch Video
Every business person has had to try to anticipate the effect of passing input cost increases to customers in the form of higher product prices. While price elasticity is a funny thing, this case study highlights that, even when dealing with highly commoditized products, price sensitive customers may not mind product price inflation.
This video was originally made public on
08-26-2009






Sunday, April 7, 2013

Out of Box: Expeditor's Business Plan


image of screenshot of YouTube's page hosting Alberto A Lopez's video series from his presentation to MERA retailers in 2011
Launch Vdeo
Originally uploaded on Sep 21, 2011, these are the seven videos I recorded for the benefit of the hundreds of attendees to an important industry conference where I was asked to speak about the business viability of a new Expediter division for aftermarket electronics retailers.
Make sure to view the presentation in its entirety; it is divided into several parts to allow for YouTube broadcast. Enjoy!









The Economic Forecast from August 8, 2011 that proved to be accurate

Screenshot image of YouTube's page where Alberto A Lopez keeps his Video Presentation on the economic forecast from August 8, 2011
Launch Video
The 2008 recession and the subsequent economic malaise have made small business people quite jittery. As a result, many of them have often asked for help removing the noise from the signal that the market is sending. With the benefit of hindsight, check the economic forecast video that we created for our thousands of customers back in August of 2011. It touches on retail sales, on construction spending throughout the country and on the markets; both equities and commodities.












Misunderstood Stiffening Capacitors - Automotive Electric Grid Benefits

Image of screenshot of YouTube's web page where Alberto A Lopez hosts his video explaining and testing capacitors
Launch Video
Not quite the business topic, I know. But it is just so much fun to remember those days when my only worries were to listen to great music.
Check the controversial Video where I test the effect that High Value Stiffening Capacitors have in a power grid in a car.












Quality Over Quantity

Why Now Is The Right Time To Provide A High-Quality Experience 
The last two decades of strong economic growth and powerful technological evolution have created entitlement among consumers; they feel that the right to own lots of technological devices defines a part of their lives. But today’s financial uncertainties have forced many consumers to prioritize between basic needs and everything else. Nonetheless, providing a high-quality experience and offering accessories will still tilt the trend in favor of specialty retailers in our business...

Quality Over Quantity

By Alberto A. Lopez, 9.04.2009

Why Now Is The Right Time To Provide A High-Quality Experience
The last two decades of strong economic growth and powerful technological evolution have created entitlement among consumers; they feel that the right to own lots of technological devices defines a part of their lives. But today’s financial uncertainties have forced many consumers to prioritize between basic needs and everything else. Nonetheless, providing a high-quality experience and offering accessories will still tilt the trend in favor of specialty retailers in our business.

CONSUMER ATTITUDES
Photo image of cover of "The Mindset Lists of American History" book
Shop Amazon
Moving at the high evolutionary—if not revolutionary— rate of the last two decades makes it difficult to look back at what has happened. Thankfully, there is always the yearly Beloit College Mindset List. This year it focuses on the college class of 2012—those students who were mostly born in 1990. As far as these young consumers are concerned, GPS navigation always have been available and Nintendo Game Boys always have provided extended hours of entertainment.
But the modern reality is that fewer customers are walking through retailers’ doors. This means that there has to be a change in mind-set to sustain business viability. Experts refer to this as an industry’s Strategic Inflexion Point. In other words, this is the time for a change in strategy.
So what does Strategic Inflexion mean to daily retailing? It simply refers to making strategic changes in how
retailers go after sales.
To start, let’s look at how consumers behave when their wallets are full. The most obvious characteristic of this stage in national economics is that the rate of savings drops dramatically and that consumers “leverage their assets;” or in more common terms, they go out and get a second mortgage on their house or max out their credit cards in the pursuit of retail satisfaction. Yes, during good times, retailers see lots and lots of eager shoppers. In fact, the absence of this almost euphoric behavior is what has today’s stock market so worried. Our consumers already have consumed so much of the shopping Kool-Aid that the previously high levels of intoxication have resulted in a massive hangover.


Graphical illustration of The Inflection Curve
A strategic inflection point is a time
in the life of a business when its
fundamentals are about to change.
CHANGING THE GAME
The game has shifted from Experience Velocity to Experience Quality, which has resulted in a great opportunity for the specialty retailer. Every single consumer encounter must be aimed at making the customer “fall-in-love”— as opposed to “fall-in like”— with your services. Mass-merchants have made it their business to develop speedy floors, speedy retail systems, and speedy salespeople. In fact, mass-merchants often refer to highly desirable goods as “high-velocity products.” Their speedier approach has rewarded them handsomely over the recent economic expansion. But now that consumers will spend more of their time scouting the goods that they intend to purchase, the grab-and-go system so often employed by mass
retailers will progressively lose its appeal. This signifies that the specialty retailer will now be left with a tremendous window of opportunity.
The first step to creating your own Strategic Inflexion is to understand that no one “needs” your services. From now on, everyone in your sales team must work very hard to provide a personalized and memorable experience, even to those consumers who do not purchase.

PROMOTE ACCESSORIES
There is no better way to display your “specialty” status than by highlighting accessories. Accessories greatly enhance a retailer’s ability to personalize every shopping experience, and displaying great service by offering accessories is something that remains an advantage of the specialty store. 
Illustration of various Canon Camera Accessories
Accessories
Again, the trend in mass channels has been toward a reduction of slow-moving SKUs. Any product with sales below their performance metrics gets thrown out. Have you tried to buy a special kind of toothpaste at a Wal-Mart? To them all consumers just want one of three toothpaste choices.
While this may be an over simplistic way to describe the overall system and its attitude toward personalized
service, it does illustrate a trend that has served mass retailers well in the last couple of decades but that has
now become a liability. Lower consumer traffic will result in lower market noise levels, which leaves the specialty retailer in a position where its voice can be heard.
Yet, many of the retailers that I have worked with feel uncomfortable selling accessories. The reason most often given is that the consumer did not walk in asking for them. They, therefore, conclude that selling accessories would be somehow unethical or even unjust. My immediate reply is in the form of a question: how angry would they be with the store salesperson who sells them a battery-operated toy for their child during the last hours before closing for the Christmas break but does not offer the needed batteries? In essence, facing a consumer who is not asking for accessories does not make it inappropriate to make the offer.

MAXIMIZE EACH CUSTOMER
To me, the math is simple. If you have fewer consumers buying opportunities, then you will have to pay a premium to try to increase revenue by bringing more customers through the doors.
Remember the oft-quoted “offer and demand” rule? With lower consumer demand, the price to get each additional consumer increases. On the other hand, if you look at your per-customer profits, then you will only have to spend more time and effort with each customer in your store. And because the cost of the time and effort (electricity, rent, employees, etc) are already paid for, your added costs would be almost zero.
In a fully staffed and operating store, the costs are exactly the same whether the consumer buys $1,000 of low margin, mass-merchant matching goods or $1,000 of personalized, fully accessorized, and highly profitable products. Do keep in mind that revenues do nothing for your business—real profits do. So the goal of increasing sales is somewhat misguided. Your goal should be to increase profits, and for that you may do just as well by offering more of the high-profit goods.
Ask yourself the following questions: Why does Walgreens open so many stores so close together? The answer is simple. Walgreens does not focus on per-store revenue. Instead, their driving metric is per-customer profits. In other words, they plan their stores to be “low traffic” in nature. This is because they know that by placing their stores on every block, they eliminate the possibility for a competitor to locate there. This “predatorial” approach has served them so well that their only competitor, CVS, has adopted the same system. But your store does not need to be placed on every corner to create a low-traffic environment. The market has done that for you.


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DELIVERING AND ENHANCING DREAMS
Consumers give salespeople lots of clues about who they are and who they would like to become during the
discovery stage of the selling process. Their feedback provides an invaluable window into the kinds of things that retailers should do to convert them into satisfied customers. More often than not, customers wish to be viewed a bigger, more prestigious than they really are. So, they look for a bit of extra flash to add to their persona.
Others wish to be perceived as conservative and frugal. For these, achieving a lot more with “seemingly” less is the ticket for satisfaction. In all cases, accessories provide the right components of a story that these customers will repeat a hundred times to their friends or anyone who would listen. Like so many successful specialty retailers, your store can deliver or enhance dreams, focus on maximizing each customer, and master the art of promoting accessories. During these trying times, there is a window of opportunity that is opening for those who understand that the industry is going through a Strategic Inflexion Point and that embracing it will result in an expanded market presence. Now is the time to reassess what you have to offer and how you present your products.

Alberto Lopez is the CEO and founder of Luxicor, the parent company to American Terminal Supply and the licensee to all IXOS products in North America.


Check the rest of the September 4, 2009 Residential Systems issue.
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Quality Over Quantity

Is the Web out to destroy Retail?

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For many retailers, the internet has become the largest and most challenging obstacle. I know of many retailers who would prefer for none of the products they sell to be available for purchase online. Only then, they feel, their business would improve.  But if you ask consumers, you would hear the other side. Consumers know that the internet has come to reduce margins for the brick and mortar outfits; something  that they very much like as this means better discount for them.
In technical terms, the internet is an information equalizer. Prior to the internet, information flow was much slower, if there was any flow at all. In other words, there was an information asymmetry where the retailer held information or knowledge that the consumer did not. This is exactly the same as doctors knowing something about my health that I don't; which is why doctors charge me a premium for their services. It also explains why any fees I pay the physician typically grants me a cryptic and limited explanation. It is in the doctor's best interest to maintain the information asymmetry and to keep me in the dark about medicine and health if she wants to keep charging me lots of money for the visits. But all that is changing, even for doctors. Consumers are looking up information about their illness online and arming themselves with the tools needed to make their doctors accountable. That this could be taken to an extreme does not negate the fact that the equalization of information is good for consumers, will hurt most bad doctors and will place pricing pressures on the whole medical industry. Moreover, I am convinced that the equalizing property of the internet is here to stay and will even increase as the web's ecosystem improves.
So what should retailers do? There are two viable alternatives. One is to supercharge their knowledge. They must invest in knowledge acquisition beyond the level that would be reasonable for a consumer to gain through the web. The other option is to improve their efficiency and that of their supply chain beyond the level possible by a typical online supplier. Let's keep in mind that the whole appeal of the web as a distribution medium to someone who is looking at virtual versus physical store outlets is the efficient nature of the web. Now that a combination between exceptional knowledge at the store and a superior efficiency in the supply chain are perhaps the best combination. Do note that neither better knowledge nor better efficiency will take place if retailers keep their present momentum.

In a nut shell, I suggest that retailers see the internet not as some obscure underground movement against them but as a mechanism to democratize and thus balance information and knowledge. Only then, I feel, will they be able to find answers that will improve their business as well as create added value for their customers.

Books and books - making my grandfather proud

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My grand father asked my father to read a book. As a normal teenager growing up in the late 50's, my father had many other things in his head than reading books. So, tired of the pressure, my father asked what book to read? "I want to make sure that I read a good one", he said. To what my grand father replied, "how would you know it's a good one if you have not read the bad ones?"
As a book lover, I can't get myself to stop acquiring what books I will read next. I am so optimistic and ambitious that after close to 250 books read in just six years, I have more than 1,000 books ready to start.
When you get a minute, feel free to brouse through my reviews and comments of the now hundreds of books that have inspired me every day. This is my Reading List at Shelfari

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