The Unlawyer

Before I commence with this latest version of Retail Roundup, I’d like to congratulate Batjay on the occasion of the launching last Monday of his second book, Mga Kwento ng Batang Kaning Lamig, published by Fox Books. I also got to meet him for the very first time too!

Mga Kwento ng Batang Kaning Lamig is available for PHP 120 a copy at Fully Booked and at other fine book stores in the Philippines.

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As everybody knows by the now, the euro is at an all-time high against the US dollar. As a consequence, European exports have become more expensive. One prominent victim of the appreciating euro: European beauty exports:

“The severity of the problem was underscored here last week during the Cosmoprof trade fair, when it was revealed that Italian beauty exports stalled to a meager increase of only 1 percent in 2007.”

Share prices in Italian luxury goods companies have been dropping as well as a result of the weak US dollar.

I was listening to Yolanda Ong, chairman of Campaigns & Grey, speak before a merchant’s forum organized by Ayala Land last Tuesday. A part of her presentation reminded us all of how powerful radio ads can be in delivering your message to your audience, especially in a country where most people still depend on radio – analog radio, that is – for obtaining information. To demonstrate that point, she presented the award-winning “Traffic Jam” radio commercial for the Manila-based Lotus Spa.

Mrs. Ong also mentioned Brian Gorrell’s blog, a remark which made plenty in the the audience go atwitter.

The top draw of that event was the talk given by Envirosell president and author Paco Underhill, who spoke Monday morning. One of his insights:

“Making the environment female-friendly. “We live in a world owned, designed and managed by men, yet we expect women to participate,” said Underhill. Developers and store designers should consider how to deal with women and their accessories, the husband and the children.”

That’s a recurring theme in Mr. Underhill’s works. In his book Call of the Mall, he wondered why mall owners apparently allocate the same amount of space for women’s toilets as they do for men’s washrooms, when it is common knowledge that females take more time, more often to use the facilities. The result: long lines and impatient customers, especially during peak mall hours.

One of the suggestions in his book was for mall operators to allow FMCG manufacturers like Procter & Gamble and Unilever to operate and maintain these toilets, and stock them with their respective products.

Filipino retailers such as myself would very much like to turn the Philippines into a major Asian shopping destination, focusing on the growing number of tourists – 3 million in 2007 – who visit it. One way that the country can achieve this goal is for the government to permit visitors to apply for VAT refunds on their shopping, much like what other southeast Asian countries are implementing right now.

For small- to medium-scale retailers interested on how to effectively compete against the big-box boys, Aridni links to a entry in the Small Mart blog that says: localize! Here’s an excerpt:

“2) Develop a Local Identity – Let your customers know you are from a place, and take pride in it. Everyone knows, for example, that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream comes from Vermont cows. The New Belgium Brewery is not shy about talking about its myriad connections to its hometown, Ft. Collins, Colorado.”

No surprises here: a Euromonitor article says that Consumers are waking up to the energy costs of electronics. Why?

• Firstly, the sheer prevalence of electronics around the home, as digital technology has ushered a diverse range of new devices into the mass market;
• The number of devices is also rising due to duplication around the home (TVs in the lounge, kitchen and bedrooms, laptops for individual household members etc. as opposed to one household TV or desktop PC);
• There are also more homes, due to the rise of single person households, adding to the demand for devices;
• Newer products with added functions use far more power than their simpler predecessors. A major example is the worldwide boom in large flat screen TVs, which use much more power than traditional TVs – many of which survive in another room in the house anyway. Or digital radios, which are far more power-hungry than former analogue radios and are also often left plugged in on standby;
• The more advanced usage of consumer electronics is further adding to the power drain. For example, coupling up various units such as a laptop, widescreen TV and audio unit for maximum effect, or listening to digital radio via a digital TV set – replacing the old, relatively low power portable analogue radio.

Imagethief recently used the newly-opened Noman Foster-designed Terminal 3 of Beijing’s international airport and is certainly not impressed with how the airport’s administration managed the merchandise mix of its shops:

“Beijng’s T3 is not like that. Once you clear formalities you’re screwed unless you want luxury goods, Olympic souvenirs or duty free liquor. There are food choices, as long as you’re happy with either an unrecognizably-branded café that reeks of 西式餐厅 or Pizza Hut. No coffee. No electronics. Not even a candy shop. All the good stuff, such as it is, is on the “outside”, before immigration and security. In the cavernous space there is a touch of desolation about it all. The effect is rather as if someone had put a mediocre strip mall inside the Houston Astrodome.

“The whole concession arrangement smacked of having been designed by someone who doesn’t actually travel by air, or who had no vision for Beijing’s potential role as a hub airport. Think about it: Most people will want to deal with the formalities before they relax and shop because on any given day they won’t know how long it will take to get through them. And international transfer passengers, if Beijing ever develops that market, won’t even know that there was something better just beyond their reach.

“Even creaky T2 manages a Starbucks inside the security clearance. It also has lots of convenient vending machines where you can buy a bottle of water for RMB5 rather than stumping up RMB25 for a test-tube full of Evian at one of the cafes. That’s something that got left out of T3 as well.

“But here is the strangest thing: T3 is the world’s biggest airport terminal and yet it had not one news stand or book store that I could spot. Not one. And I walked a lap. Forget the food, duty free, coffee, and all that. That’s frills. But how can you have an international terminal with no reading material whatsoever? Not even Chinese reading material?”