TOP 5 RETAIL READS FOR 2020
Here at Kendu we’re of the opinion that every cloud has a silver lining. In addition to offering you a series of free industry webinars via Kendu Home School, we’ve also selected our top five books about retail for those of you who prefer the page. Our best book list includes authors that are renowned experts to make you’re up to date and well informed about the fast-moving and dynamic industry that is retail. It’s time to transform the incertitude into the informative!
1. Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World – Doug Stephens
The changes that have occurred in the retails sector in the last decade, including the increase of online shopping and e-commerce, are just the beginning. In fact, the retail industry that we know today, whether it be online or offline, has to evolve and reinvent itself to stay relevant to the consumer. Author Doug Stephens provides a roadmap to the coming revolution in the global retail and consumer goods market. But how will COVID-19 affect this coming revolution? Only time will tell.
2. Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It – Jeffrey Eisenberg, Bryan Eisenberg & Roy H Williams
The Eisenberg brothers and Roy H Williams take the reader on a road trip where business stories are told, and wisdom is revealed. In just over 100 pages, the book analyses real companies that made real decisions with real outcomes including General Motors, Walmart, Costco and Kodak. The four pillars of success are clearly defined and outlined meaning you can apply them to any business, even a lemonade stand. “Be Like Amazon” is a 2018 Axiom Business Book award winner in the business fable category.
3. The New Rules of Retail: Competing in the World’s Toughest Marketplace – Robin Lewis & Michael Dart
Re-issued and updated, this edition of “The New Rules of Retail” explains how unprecedented consumer power, enabled by technology and globalisation, continues to revolutionise retail. Retail now calls for a business model based on pre-emptive, perpetual distribution, a neurological customer connection, and total control of the value chain. Lewis and Dart provide a unique and essential view of the future of the retail industry by identifying the five current trends driving consumer demand.
4. Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping – Paco Underhill
The revised edition of this classic guide to retailing and marketing, is an eye-opening report of the ever-evolving consumer culture. Divided into three different sections, the book firstly looks at how people react to store spaces, then secondly explores the unique aspects of each demographic before, thirdly, providing reasons and results for power of good products and visual merchandising. Our favourite part? Underhill’s take on what kinds of signage and packaging turn browsers into buyers!
5. Silent Selling: Best Practices and Effective Strategies in Visual Merchandising – Judy Bell & Kate Ternus
The 4th edition of this best-selling textbook is a beginner’s guide to all things visual merchandising. Bell and Ternus go beyond the basics to include recent discoveries and valuable new techniques to create quality VM installations in retail. Using Bell’s Look-Compare-Innovate model, readers are encouraged to think out the box to deliver a lasting impression via store layout and display. It’s a multi-disciplinary blend of practical activities and creative problem solving.
