Boutiques versus boxshifters

It's with slight dismay that I read that the music retailer Fopp has closed its 105 shops across the UK, but not surprise.

While the closure may be due to the chain overstretching itself after the takeover of MusicZone, these must be especially hard times for retailers of media. I wandered into HMV on Oxford Street the other week, and came out a few minutes later, emptyhanded, and feeling rather bewildered. I really couldn't face shuffling my way past endless racks of discount CD's to the back of the store to scour racks alphabetically arranged by artist, looking for something to take my fancy. It suddenly felt not just archaic but atavistic.

But while media stores might be extra vulnerable from downloading and the behemoth that is Amazon, all large stores full of stuff are vulnerable from the Internet, because they don't offer a better shopping experience than online.

Any large shop, filled with boxes of stuff, poorly laid out and staffed by badly informed sales staff that are either overly aggressive or catatonically 'am i bovvered?', is staring into the abyss.

So the fact that legendary music store Rough Trade is closing its venerable Neal's Yard store, and opening a new 5000sq ft. 'superstore' in London's hip Brick Lane is raising a few eyebrows as either the last hurrah of a dying breed - the independent record shop - a work of dark genius, or just a smart move for a shop closer to a willing customer base.

To succeed, Rough Trade will need to avoid the temptation to be a boxshifter and instead stay a boutique, and retain the unique charm that made the tiny Neal's Yard dungeon a great place to browse, listen and shop for music. It will need to rely on knowing and cultivating its customers and providing guidance, not just pile stacks of CD's at high street prices.

In a recent TV series, Mary Queen of Shops, retail guru Mary Portas revived the fortunes of several fashion boutiques by getting them to focus on the strengths of a small, independent boutique in the face of high street chains. The answer lies in careful merchandising, knowing your customer ("who's your tribe?" squawks Portas at regular intervals), and knowing your merchandise. In a good boutique - and the lesson can surely be applied to all businesses, not just to fashion - a small independent retail outlet can move quickly, and be a trusted arbiter of taste for its customers, who look to it for guidance. Rather than having rack upon rack of merchandise, personal recommendations and niche marketing are the answer.

So can a 'boutique' approach work on online retailing, including an online incentive store? We believe it can. We have already taken the step at capping the number of product lines we stock in our iD-points online incentive store, and we carefully select the products available in certain categories. But we're also looking at ways to improve the retail experience of spending your points online, and building a community among the End Users who shop there.

While few online retailers can match the product range of an Amazon or Play, they are a juggernaut that has no real affinity with any of the stuff they sell, or, dare we say, their customers. They sell several thousand digital cameras, but how do you know you're not buying a lemon? Amazon rely on a series of best-seller charts, customer reviews and ratings, and "customers-who-bought-this-also-bought-that" style cross-selling, to try and help consumers make buying decisions.

Then of course, there are the crude personal recommendations, parodied by The Onion as "Amazon.com Recommendations Understand Area Woman Better Than Husband":

"Area resident Pamela Meyers was delighted to receive yet another thoughtful CD recommendation from Amazon.com Friday, confirming that the online retail giant has a more thorough, individualized, and nuanced understanding of Meyers' taste than the man who occasionally claims to love her, husband Dean Meyers."

The power of search and the "unlimited" shelf space a virtual store offers is a temptation to provide an excess of choice, when actually what consumers want is less choice, and more guidance. Great customer service and aftersales support is another area where a small independent retailer can outshine the boxshifters.

Adding staff picks and recommendations, and running passionate, informed reviews of a carefully selected range of products from people who actually use them is a great way to add a unique voice and personal touch.

Combine this with browsing opportunities that allow a chance for some serendipity, and allied to authoritative and knowledgable cross-selling - "you've bought X, it works great with Y" - and you have a powerful way that an online store can operate more like a boutique and less like a boxshifter.