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The growing grey market in the UK

Retired man on bench
Photo Walter Groesel - Stock.XCHNG

Last night I attended a packed Insider Trends’ talk at the Business & IP Centre. Last time the topic was How to become a cutting-edge retailer, but this time Cate Trotter the founder and Head of Trends was talking about the rise and neglecting of the over 50’s market.

As a newly minted 50+ myself (well last September anyway), I was doubly interested in what Kate had to say, and was pleasantly surprised to hear that by 2020 the over 50’s will form the majority of Britain’s population. So that makes me part of the only growth market in the UK.

Once again Kate provided an excellent talk, and left the audience pumped full of relevant statistics and marketing angles.

Here are my notes from the evening:

Untapped markets: The grey pound – Monday 24 January

Profile Marketing Opportunities

–    The population in the UK is getting older, already more +60s than -16s
–    People are living longer
–    Family sizes are shrinking
–    Number of 90 year olds expected to double in 25 years
–    78% of income retained post retirement, but loss in commuting and mortgage costs increase available money
–    +65’s spending £100 billion a year Recession
–    Older customers are better prepared for economic decline than younger
–    Many are working part-time to bring in an income Segmentation
–    Important part of understanding your customers
–    Need to add more age categories. 50-65 and 65+ are not enough
–    Need to be aware of not pigeon-hole by age – much more diverse than the younger categories, due to widely varying life experiences

–    So use lifestyle segmentation instead

  • Live Wires – active and working, many interests, technology aware, spend on holidays
  • Happy and fulfilled – active, but more traditional, financially well off, lots of holidays, spend on quality traditional brands
  • Super troopers – often have lost a spouse, don’t like advertising and new technology
  • Living day to day – spends rather than saves, more interested in material wealth than time, tend to choose premium brands
  • Unfulfilled dreamers – hard working, dreams of un-achieved ambitions,
  • Rat race junkies – could retire, but not yet, into technology, more than one marriage

–    Need to be aware of sets of baby-boomers coming through

  • Flower-children are now approaching their mid 60s
  • So interested in green such as Prius cars and green funerals
  • Believe that old age starts at 72, not 65
  • More old travellers going further afield and more adventurous
  • The SKIers – Spending Kids Inheritance

Adapting your business
–    Attitudes, physical (eyesight) and cognitive (memory) impairments
–    Over 50’s buy 80% of top of the range cars (BBC news report)
–    But many have enough mainstream products (washing machine, microwave, TV). However, they might upgrade at point of retirement with help of lump sum
–    From products to services – or service related products (e.g. sport) less equipment for the home
–    Travel

  • Generally continues until late 70’s and early 80’s
  • GrandTravellers – grandparents and their grandchildren on holiday together – something relatively new and growing
  • Travel gripes – single supplements, insurance costs, active sports insurance

–    Clothes

  • Comfortable and cool clothes lacking in the market place
  • A younger style, but to fit an older shape
  • Children’s toys and clothes as presents

–    The Home

  • Home improvement rather than new products
  • B&Q
  • Employing independent traders + reputable traders marketed towards an older customer
  • Ergonomic tools (SandBug from B&Q)
  • Packaging older people can open – %80 are not – Primelife President
  • Smaller packs and designs – one person teapots (Debenhams small wok a bestseller)

–    Home health care

  • Philips Defibrillator – talks you through
  • Retrofit-friendly homes you can grow old in – e.g. doors wide enough for a wheelchair, room for safety handles – Joseph Rowntree Foundation – www.lifetimehomes.co.uk

–    Fitness

  • Pensioners are fastest growing group of gym members
  • Scope for specialist centres
  • Zumba – very popular with older dancers

Design

–    Product and service design, also websites and fixtures and fittings
–    A lack of interest in older consumers from mainstream companies
–    Specialist

  • Simplicity computers – replaces Microsoft Windows with 6 buttons – option to pay by cheque in the post
  • Tesco online shopping has an access setting
  • Photostroller – purpose built controller to access Flickr content
  • PostEgram – a Facebook app for printing out content
  • Presto – an Internet printer with a remote control system for the sender – customer doesn’t need a computer
  • Kaiser’s in Austria – e.g. easy to reach stock, reduced glare lighting, slip-proof flooring, pleasant places to sit, reading glasses to borrow, all employers over 50 – sales 50% above forecast
  • Odeon Senior Screen – with different snacks – coffee and cake instead of fiz and popcorn
  • Danger of alienating older customers who still feel young – if they can reject it, they often do – don’t want to be associated with ‘that group of people’ – they expect products and service to cost more

–    Inclusive

  • Kindle – allows you change size of text and have text to speech
  • Nintedo Wii is becoming more popular in care homes – active game playing
  • ClearRX by Target in the US – simplifies medication for entire families
  • Ferrari Enzo – with wider doors and lower floor o    Harley-Davidson – trikes for the older market – still cool design
  • Mobilistrictor – a suit to age the wearer by 40 years – useful to test our store design etc
    – used by Ford when developing the Focus – e.g. boot has no lip, dash doesn’t reflect light – became Ford’s best selling car
    – used by Derby City General Hospital building design
    – General Motors used older engineers – key card and push button start
mobilistrictor_Richard_Hammond
Richard Hammond trying out the Mobilistrictor
  • Legibility of writing
    – Larger fonts
    – Bolder colours
    – Clearer typfaces eg Tireseais typeface
    – Use of icons and symbols
  • Interface design – e.g. Apple iPhone and iPad, Facebook (103 year old woman who uses an iPad to interact)
    – Additional advantage of extended appeal to disabled, parents of young children, those heavily laden – e.g. small trolley in supermarket
    – Involve audience in your designs

Marketing

–    Only 1 in 5 sticks to brands they now – happy to try new products and service, but as late adopters
–    Only 1 in 3 own a mobile phone
–    Less influenced by mass media as advertising does not reflect their interests, have become cynical, but not being wired, are more open to national and local marketing
–    More time to shop around – and more time to think if they really need it, so more critical, and more time to write reviews. Can become experts in new products
–    More time to tell their friends about products and services – word of mouth becomes even more important
–    Need to use younger (not too young) faces in images – or take out faces – e.g iPad just shows hands, so appeals to all ages
–    Retail and experiential – e.g. Harley Davidson stores – older are less likely to buy online
–    Only 1 in 4 over 65’s have used the internet, but this is growing very fast
–    Over 50’s represent 25% of online population, but those that are spend longer online
–    Silversurfersday – increase confidence
–    Raceonline2012 led by Martha Lane Fox from LastMinute.com – can buy a £99 computer, with a cheap wireless dongle from 3
–    Better designed websites – e.g. Jitterbug from Samsung aimed at older customers, who can call to order as well as online
–    Email marketing more effective with older customers – e.g. eldergym newsletter
–    Free magazines – e.g. Staysure magazine for the over 50’s – based on airline magazine model
–    Segmented approaches – e.g. Ninento DS using Girls Aloud and Julie Walters in different ads for the same product
–    Car adverts tailored to age group. E.g. the young are interested in loans, the older are not
–    Appealing to the adult child
–    Look for older people in marketing agencies, if you can find them.
–    Be aware of emotional issues associated to buying older products such as walking sticks or elasticized trousers

Conclusion
–    They represent the only growing market in the UK
–    They have time and money to spend
–    There is currently very little competition
–    Be aware that they are difficult to profile – very varied with more variety in the future

Approach requires
–    empathy
–    must not be patronising

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Cool infographics that tell a story

Although I have never really believed in the old cliché a picture is worth a thousand words, I have been a big fan of effective illustrations for many years.

I started with the seminal works The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisioning Information by statistician and sculptor, Edward Tufte. Although, I have to say I was always somewhat underwhelmed by his examples.

Thanks to a recent BBC series on The Beauty of Diagrams, I discovered that Florence Nightingale (who is best known as the nurse who cared for thousands of soldiers during the Crimean War), was the first to use statistical graphics as to illustrate the causes of mortality.

More recently I have discovered the Cool Infographics blog, and have seen some excellent examples of effective presentations of statistical information.

The Conversation Prism 3.0 for 2010 shows  the major players in each of 28 different online conversation categories.

Although not strictly speaking statistics related,  How Would You Like Your Graphic Design? gets an important point across very effectively.

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Changes to our company databases in the Business & IP Centre

From the beginning of 2011 we are making some improvements to our company database provision in the Business & IP Centre.

For UK companies we are replacing our Experian B2B service with an updated FAME database produced by Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing.

For global company coverage we are replacing Global Reference Solution from Dun & Bradstreet with Orbis (also produced by Bureau van Dijk)

FAME contains information for 7 million companies, while Orbis contains 75 million global companies.

We hope our customers will benefit from our improved service, but I would welcome and comments or suggestions.

Our full list of databases and publications are available on our website.

.______________

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A role model small business website

Some time ago I was helping Lubna Ahmad who had come into the Business & IP Centre to generate customer contact lists.

She provides hand and foot Reflexology and Indian head massage to corporate and personal clients. As a big fan of Reflexology for nearly ten years now, I was keen to help her promote her business using the web and social media.

As we talked, I could see that not only did she have a well designed and well informed website, she was also making use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs.

Understanding that many potential customers won’t have heard of Reflexology or Indian head massage, Lubna introduces and explains their benefits:

What is Reflexology?
Reflexology is the technique of applying gentle to firm pressure to the reflexes on the hands or feet in order to bring about a state of deep relaxation, stimulate the body’s own healing processes and help a person return to a state of balance and well-being.  Reflex points in the hands and feet correspond to different parts of the body and by stimulating these points reflexology opens up energy pathways and encourages the body to function efficiently and release any harmful toxins which have accumulated.

What is Indian head massage?
Indian head massage can help to relax, soothe or invigorate the recipient. It is a treatment that involves the therapist using their hands to knead, rub and squeeze the head, neck, shoulders and arms. We use Western Indian Head Massage, which is a dry treatment and does not include the use of oils.

Benefits
For foot reflexology:
– Total relaxation
– A sense of wellbeing
– Improved blood circulation
– Clears the body of toxins
– Balances the body systems
– Preventive healthcare
– Hormonal imbalance
– Back pains
– Moodswings & anxiety
– Digestive disorders
– Fluid retention
and the list goes on!

For Indian head massage:
– Promotes total relaxation
– Gives a sense of well-being & calmness
– Increases blood circulation to the head, neck & shoulders
– Helps stimulate hair growth
– Eases fatigue & improves concentration
– Relieves stiffness in the neck & shoulders
– Helps relieve eye-strain
– Eases headaches
– Aids in detoxification of the body
– Helps with irritability
– Breaks down fibrositic nodules (knots)
– Triggers off endorphins, which creates contentment

Even more impressive was the fact that she had created the impressive website herself (no easy task for the un-initiated). She built her Reflex Space site using the popular free (six million and counting) WIX service, which uses Flash to simplify the process.

In order to remove the WIX adverts you have to pay a monthly fee.  WIX do not host your site, they provide you design tools to help you make it.

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Business tips from Father Christmas: The festive entrepreneur pops into Smarta HQ for a little chat

Trust Smarta to go to the ‘main man’ for advice at this time of year. Yes, they have tracked down Father Christmas and videoed his top four business tips.

Interesting to hear that he has adopted Sat-Nav to help Rudolf find those tricky addresses.

In summary his key points to remember are:

1. Cash flow – lack of it is still the number one business killer.

2. Make your business and brand special so it stands out from the competition.

3. Use social media to spread the message and interact with customers.

4. Try to keep your staff motivated and happy.

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Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010

We are now coming towards the end of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010, and for the Business & IP Centre it has been a great success.

Each day we have been running informal half-day networking sessions. The Centre has been full of business experts and successful entrepreneurs advising aspiring entrepreneurs.

Our two special evening events, which I attended were also excellent.

On Tuesday our Creative Networking Evening provided an opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs and advisors.

Last night’s Question Time for Entrepreneurs offered inspiring speakers, including Deborah Meaden (Dragon’s Den), Brent Hoberman (lastminute.com and mydeco.com) and Cath Kidston.

There has been lots of twitter activity about us over the last few days, and Dan Martin’s live blog led to lots of other tweeters getting involved.

We’ve also had some nice comments about our events:

“Just got back from massively inspiring business mentoring workshop at the British Library as part of entrepreneur week. Fully pumped!”

“Enjoyed speed mentoring at Enterprise Week at British Library. Met several amazing creatives at the first steps of their business.”

“It was a great event! Interesting & challenging debate” (from Women Unlimited about Inspiring Entrepreneurs)

“Thanks for a great panel session. An interesting mix of views and media”

“Great line up for Question Time: Deborah Meaden +co-founder of Lastminute.com Brent Hoberman +Enterprise UKs CEO Tom Bewick.”

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What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

Perhaps I spent too many years working in the City of London working for unappreciative customers, so I am frequently surprised by how grateful many of our customers are for the help we give them in starting up their business. However, when I heard that Pervin Shaikh wanted to express her appreciation by giving us a copy of What Would Google Do, I was amazed.

Pervin explained that she thought the book would be helpful to aspiring (and existing) entrepreneurs.

Having speed read it this morning, before sending it off to be added to our collection, I agree with her.

The author Jeff Jarvis writes the new media column for the Guardian newspaper, as well as founder of Buzzmachine.com, one of the web’s most popular and respected blogs about the internet and media.

He starts the book by listing some of the new rules that Google used – to become successful, in what he calls the upside-down, inside-out, counter-intuitive and confusing world of the internet age:

1.    Customers are now in charge. They can be heard around the globe and have an impact on huge institutions in an instant.
2.    People can find each other anywhere and coalesce around you-or against you.
3.    The mass market is dead, replaced by the mass of niches.
4.    ‘Markets are conversations,” decreed The Cluetrain Manifesto, the seminal work of the internet age, in 2000. That means the key skill in any organization today is no longer marketing but conversing.
5.    We have shifted from an economy based on scarcity to one based on abundance. The control of products or distribution will no longer guarantee a premium and a profit.
6.    Enabling customers to collaborate with you-in creating, distributing, marketing, and supporting products-is what creates a premium in today’s market.
7.    The most successful enterprises today are networks-which extract as little value as possible so they can grow as big as possible-and the platforms on which those networks are built.
8.    Owning pipelines, people, products, or even intellectual property is no longer the key to success. Openness is.

Google have been generous in sharing their philosophy on their website, so we can look there to see why they are the fastest growing company in the history of the world, according to the Times newspaper.

Our philosophy – Ten things we know to be true:
1. Focus on the user and all else will follow
2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well
3. Fast is better than slow
4. Democracy on the web works
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer
6. You can make money without doing evil
7. There’s always more information out there
8. The need for information crosses all borders
9. You can be serious without a suit
10. Great just isn’t good enough

You can get more details from the Google website.

Jarvis also looks at Facebook, and recounts listening to the 22 year old founder Mark Zuckerberg answer a gathering of media moguls at Davos on how to build their own communities – ‘you can’t’.

What he meant, was that communities already exist, so your role is to bring them ‘elegant organization’, to help them achieve their goals more effectively. Jarvis illustrates Zuckerberg’s approach by retelling the story of how he managed to graduate from Harvard, despite not having attended a single class or finding time to study.

‘The final exam was a week away and he was in a panic. It’s one thing to drop out of Harvard to start a gigantic, world-changing company; it’s another to flunk.

Zuckerberg did what comes naturally to a native of the web. He went to the internet and downloaded images of art he knew would be covered in the exam. He put them on a web page and added blank boxes under each. Then he emailed the address of this page to his class-mates, telling them he’d just put up a study guide. Think Tom Sawyer’s fence. The class dutifully came along and filled in the blanks with the essential knowledge about each piece of art, editing each other as they went, collaborating to get it just right. This being Harvard, they did a good job of it.

You can predict the punch line: Zuckerberg aced the exam. But here’s the real kicker: The professor said the class as a whole got better grades than usual. They captured the wisdom of their crowd and helped each other. Zuckerberg had created the means for the class to collaborate. He brought them elegant organization.’

Some of the other highlights of the book for me were:
•    If you’re not searchable, you won’t be found – make sure you maximise your discovery, especially by Google search.
•    Your customers are your ad agency – in the early days of Google, Facebook and Twitter, all their marketing work was done for free by their fans.
•    The mass market is dead – long live the mass of niches – and the long tail.
•    Middlemen are doomed – unless they can show how they add value.
•    Life is beta – let your customers test and develop your products and services.

In the second part of the book, Jarvis applies the Google rules to a raft of traditional activities, from utilities to hospitals to banks. The results are fascinating and relevant for everyone in business. For example, why don’t supermarkets have forums where customers could ask for and vote on new product lines.

In conclusion, I would say this is a fascinating wide ranging and challenging review of how the Google approach to business can (and most likely will) impact how many business and service operations operate in future. And a ‘must read’ for anyone about to start out on their own business adventure.

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Our Management and Business Studies Portal goes live

THE BRITISH LIBRARY HomeThe fruit of many months of labour by my colleague Sally Halper has finally emerged blinking into the bright light of day.

The Management and Business Studies Portal is a joint venture from The British Library and the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

We have joined forces to develop a new online service for managers, bringing together the latest management research and business information, alongside the British Library’s vast collections of print and digital material.

Jude England, head of social science collections and research at the British Library, says: “Our joint aim is to develop joined-up information services and content. The partnership with CMI expresses our continued commitment to supporting the government’s vision of building Digital Britain and improving UK productivity.

We have created a video explaining the site on our YouTube channel.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/user/britishlibrary#p/a/f/0/pvkCLCxHjVw]

Whether you’re a University researcher or a busy manager, this Portal will help you find and use high quality management research publications quickly and easily.

  • Download research reports, summaries, briefings, working papers, conference papers and articles from key publishers.
  • You must register (see button above) to see most of the content.
  • Discover the British Library’s vast print and digital collections – in one powerful search
  • Receive alerts about new content that matches your subject interest(s)
  • Watch author interviews and other videos
  • Disseminate and preserve your work
  • Contact us

The introduction of the portal is the second joint venture with CMI this year. The first was the CMI Management Book of the Year awards, which I blogged about last March (Who will win Management Book of Year?).

Fifteen of the UK’s best management authors are now one step closer to winning the coveted title of Management Book of the Year, having made it on to the competition shortlist.

The CMI Management Book of the Year competition, launched by the CMI (Chartered Management Institute) in association with the British Library, aims to uncover the UK’s best books on management and leadership and raise the profile of the great management writing published or distributed in the UK. The shortlisted books are those that, in the opinion of the panel of expert competition judges, will help transform the working practices of managers and help to raise awareness of how management theories and thinking can be better applied in practice.

With £5,000 at stake for the winning author, the shortlisted books, which include John Adair’s Leadership of Muhammad and Richard Donkin’s The Future of Work, will now undergo an intense review process, where expert judges will whittle down the entries to find the UK’s best management text. One winner will be chosen in each of the three categories – ‘Practical Manager’, ‘Innovation and Entrepreneurship’ and ‘Digital Management Book’ – before the overall winner is picked from the three.

The first competition of its kind, Management Book of the Year was created in response to shocking research that revealed that 85 per cent of employees would rather seek help elsewhere than turn to their managers when they need guidance at work. Despite this, just five per cent of these people are turning to management books when they have work issues, suggesting that managers are struggling to find useful, practical texts.

The research also revealed that surprisingly, when it comes to topic choice, more people would like to read about how to achieve a good work/life balance (40 per cent) than how to get a pay rise (30 per cent). In addition, 31 per cent are interested in advice on how to manage people, while just 19 per cent would like tips on securing a promotion.

The winning book will be announced on 25 January 2011.

The books that have made it onto the shortlist are as follows:

  • Practical Manager category:
  • Leadership of Muhammad by John Adair
  • ReWork: change the way you work forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
  • Managing by Henry Mintzberg
  • The Intuitive Mind by Eugene Sadler-Smith
  • The World’s Business Cultures and how to unlock them by Barry Tomalin and Mike Nicks
  • Innovation & Entrepreneurship category:
  • Glimmer: How design can transform your business by Warren Berger
  • Brilliant Business Creativity by Richard Hall
  • Evolution:  How to thrive in crazy times by Bill Lucas
  • Supercorp by Rosabeth Moss Kanter
  • Design-Driven Innovation by Roberto Verganti
  • Digital Management Book category:
  • The Future of Work by Richard Donkin
  • The Leadership Illusion by T. Hall and K. Janman
  • Fast Track to Success:  project management ebook by Patrick Harper-Smith
  • How to lead by Jo Owen
  • Meet the new boss by Philip Whiteley
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    How to become a cutting-edge retailer

    Last week I attending an absolutely fascinating workshop on future trends in retailing.

    Cate Trotter the founder and Head of Trends at Insider Trends was the speaker, and had an impressive knowledge of the key issues affecting on-line and off-line retail business.

    Here are my notes from the information packed two hour session:

    What are the main trends that will affect retailers over next two to five years?

    Why?
    Trends are like ocean tides an cannot be controlled, but if you recognise them you can ride them to success.

    Who?
    There is now a more sophisticated and more connected customer base than ever before.

    Segmentation for individuals – more tailored products and stores

    Examples:
    * Alton Towers’ Sleepover Suite (sponsored by Superdrug) for teenage girls
    * Blends for Friends – an online tailored tea store – unique flavours and labels
    * Elemis Skinlab – technology to assess skin leading to tailored products

    Co-creation such as product modification.

    Examples:
    * Nokia phone covers – an early example
    * Nike iD range of shoes (choose from 60 shoes and select design of each element) – not a new service, but sales up 20% in last year
    * Zazzle – uploaded designs printed on thousands of different products – recent sales surge
    * Chocri.co.uk and Chocomize.com

    Concept development and product development

    Examples:
    * BMW – asking for ideas for new cars with online voting for favourites
    * Denham – store designed around what the customer wants

    Use SurveyMonkey – to find out what your customers want, or how about a coffee morning discussion. Much more than just a focus group asking for opinions.

    Changing family structure leads to convenience trend

    –          more singles than married in the UK by 2020
    –          more single person households in the UK – impacts how people shop – from weekly shop to convenience shopping.  Growth from 19bn 2000 to 41bn 2015
    –          Asda have bough Netto
    –          Easier payment – Visa PayWave system
    –          Debenhams – mini-wok is most popular item
    –          Dinner for one packages
    –          Waitrose – small stores with fresh food, warm bread, deli
    –          Reprise of the milkman – milkandmore.co.uk – findmeamilkman.net

    What?

    Two types of retail – Online vs Offline

    Online
    –          strong advantages
    –          price and value
    –          convenience – to your door

    Offline
    –          needs to compete with online success by expanding on…
    –          experience
    –          relationships

    Don’t get caught in the middle – if you are on the high street, don’t try and compete on price or you will fail

    Online Retail
    –          Moving onto portable devices and digital television
    –          Growing at 20% a year – more people online – more confidence shopping online
    –          Brand loyalty reducing online – one click away from a competitor + price comparison engines
    –          Small business shouldn’t not be drawn into price competition – e.g. with Amazon
    –          Make shopping easier for your customers – one click shopping – PayPal – clickandbuy.com and buxter.com (for Facebook shopping).
    –          Move to ‘right first time’ e.g. Levis curve fit
    –          Problem of home delivery – 10% of deliveries fail first time
    –          Example of collectplus.com can deliver to home or to a local store (later hours than local Post Office). Makes returns easy with label and convenience store, with post paid if wanted.

    The more unique your business the more loyalty you will get from your customers.

    Examples:
    –          Trunkclub.com online personal shopper who makes a commission on clothes bought.
    –          Plan B Salon – Skype interviewing
    –          Tissot.ch/reality – create a paper watch which generates facsimile of their designs.

    Tissot.ch/reality

    –          Neuvomonde.com – watches on your wrist
    –          Supermarketsarah.com – Portobello Road market in her house – a new photo each week. Also collaborates with designers

    Growth of mobile retailing
    –          Expected to double in next four years, but is still a tiny fraction of sales
    –          Will use phones to find out about products so website must include phone capability
    –          Phone apps will grow, but might be out of the reach of small business.

    Offline Retail

    Examples:
    –          Abercrombie and Fitch – more of an experience than shopping – all five sense are covered – loud music – A&F scents –
    –          The Brand Showroom – e.g. Disney Stores – putting the experience before the product
    –          J Crew (share of life retailing) – a range of products for a particular segment of the market / customer
    –          Monocle Stores – London, New York, Tokyo, Zurich – sell their magazine plus accessories for readers of the mag
    –          Mellow Johnny’s in Texas – bicycles, café and related
    –          Lomography Gallery, London – retail and support services

    Lomography Gallery London

    Competition now comes from other experiences instead of other retailers

    e.g. kids, shopping, theme parks

    ROBO shopping – Research Offline – Buy Online

    Maximise sales by
    –          selling closer to the time of need – rollasole.co.uk
    –          selling closer to time of consumption
    –          exclusives
    –          charge for stocking goods – ladenshowroom.co.uk in the East End
    –          own label products – e.g. Apple – use stores to promote products – don’t mind if customers buy online
    –          Own label – houseoffrasser.co.uk – Dyson have tried a pop-up store

    Where?

    13% of stores are now empty – lower rate in the South East

    Increasing demand for accessible / high street stores

    People losing trust in big name brands – moving to local stores and farmer’s markets

    Authenticity and localness – you don’t want to be located in a mall

    Choose you neighbours carefully – think about pairing up with a like minded business.

    Example of A Gold (UK produce) and Verde’s (European produce) in Brushfield street in Spitalfields.

    Attention spans on the web are shortening over time.

    Store payback time 5-7 years on average

    Example wesc.com – using trolleys to keep store fresh

    Amorepacific.com use projected displays in store – others use LCD displays

    Liberty change signage fonts and colours

    Could use posters

    Fast moving stock – Zara has 11,000 new products a year

    Temporary retail spaces – pop-up-stores – now hitting the mainstream

    Toys R Us open up 200 pop-up-stores for seasonal sales

    The Secret Restaurant and now The Secret Market (food fair) – marmitelover.blogspot.com

    Retail trucks – Adidas pop-up truck – can use Twitter to announce where you are

    New mobile app and widget to take credit card payments – squareup.com – 3% charge

    How? (including marketing)

    Less brand loyalty than in the past

    Customers more inclined to listen to each other than conventional advertising

    Haulvideos.net – people buy goods and post comments online – leads to discussion

    High satisfaction leads to word of mouth and social media

    So concentrate on quality delivery rather than low price

    Happy customer vs unhappy customer – £600 vs -£400 – Research by a mobile phone company

    Nudging customers to promote your products or services

    Example:

    Shopkick.com - customers get points for registering in store

    Foursquare.com  and gowalla.com – social media element
    –          Be interesting – sketch.uk.com
    –          Tell stories – your customer might want to share – hubbards.co.nz newsletter in every pack
    –          Educate customers – Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle – sealed chambers
    Apple store free workshops
    –          Make business more interactive – made.com – furniture designed by members of the public with votes to decide
    –          4food.com in New York, customers design their own burgers online and save recipe, with 25cents for each one sold
    –          Swipely.com – records purchases and shares online
    –          Uniqlo’s Lucky Line for every 26th customer who joined the line – massive social media coverage

    Conclusion

    Growth rates predicted for next 18 months

    Offline 1% – existing £263bn

    Online 39% – existing £11bn

    The future is customer centric so think P2P Retail – human interactions

    –          Be human!

    –          Celebrate your smallness

    –          Who is your service going to be tailored to?

    –          What do they like?

    –          How will you adapt to them?

    –          How will they change and how will you move with them.

    –          Be authentic – with innovations which will benefit your customers – connect with your local community

    –          Be conversational – put the relationship before the sale

    –          Finding out  what your customers think and how to trigger them to promote you.

    On a personal note I would strongly recommend signing up to the Springwise newsletter and looking at the Trendwatching website.

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    Ingenious Britons: Personal journeys in invention and design

    Last night’s Inspiring Entrepreneurs featured successful inventors and was organised in conjunction with our wonderful Inventing the 21st Century exhibition.

    Our five speakers gave us their very different stories, but with common themes and lessons learnt.

    Natalie Ellis, inventor of the Road Refresher non-spill dog travel bowl.

    Natalie Tried for many years to get into the pet market. She came to The British Library about eight years ago and immersed herself in our market research reports and pet related industry  information. This gave her the knowledge to understand the market and be able to sell effectively to supermarkets like Sainsbury’s.

    This is a message I repeat to all of my clients in advice sessions. If your background is not from the sector you plan to launch your product or service, you must first gain in-depth industry knowledge by reading relevant publications, and even gaining some work experience where possible.

    The idea for Road Refresher came from nearly being arrested by the police, for trying to let her dog drink water while driving her car. Natalie built a very basic prototype in her kitchen in the evenings while waiting for her daughter’s dinner to cook. As is almost always the case, her initial prototype didn’t work.

    She displayed her final product at a trade show and generated interest there. This encouraged her to enter a women’s invention awards competition, where she won three awards, which led to BBC news coverage. Next came the fateful invite to appear on Dragons Den. Apparently the unusual chairs the Dragons sit in, make them look small and insignificant, which inspired (misplaced) confidence in Natalie. As anyone who has seen the clip will know, the experience turned out to be awful, with personal attacks from the Dragons due to Natalie’s lack of knowledge of the size of her market.

    James Caan’s reaction to her plan to take the bowl to America, was to warn Natalie that America was the graveyard of British business. All successful inventors and entrepreneurs have ‘bounce back ability’, and so a few days later when she had stopped crying, and realised she believed in her product, she decided to ignore the Dragon’s advice.

    She flew to America and took a stand at a trade show, and had initial difficulties selling the product, but by the time the Dragons Den show appeared on television, it had become the fastest selling dog bowl in America on Amazon.com.

    Q&A

    Q. Did anyone offer to licence the product?

    A. She was offered a 3% licence and turned it down. The moulds are made in China, but by a company recommended by a personal contact.

    Q. How to present your product to potential buyers?

    A. Natalie demonstrates her product by waving a full bowl in front of potential buyers faces, and watches their reaction when no water spills onto them.

    Mike Spindle, inventor of the revolutionary Trekinetic Wheelchair

    Mike has a Formula 1 racing car background, but despite a lack of knowledge of the wheelchair sector or disability background he developed all aspects of the Trekinetic. He said the key is noticing the problem, and the poor current solutions in the market to address it. He thinks his lack of industry knowledge and decision not to review existing solutions or patents helped him find a truly  innovative solution.

    The initial trigger was seeing a trendily dressed young man stuck in a terribly old fashioned wheelchair, painted purple in a failed attempt to jazz it up.

    Mike’s advice was first check existing solutions in the market place. Then sketchyou’re your solution, and build at prototype or test concepts using Meccano. Concentrate on function first, looks come second. Ultimately the product must sell itself. A big marketing budget will only take a mediocre product so far.

    Don’t spend a fortune on prototypes, you can do a lot with MDF. Try and keep what you are doing as private and secret as possible.

    Ask yourself if anyone will buy it. Mike gave the example of collapsible paper basket invention. Ingenious, but not ultimately not that useful.

    Can you patent your idea? Use non disclosure agreements (NDA’s) to test out invention. They found a set of wheelchair users and gave them a questionnaire to fill out.

    Beware of patent agents as their time is so expensive, and they want to write your application straight away, before searching the databases to see if you qualify.

    You only have one chance to get it right, so make use of help from Business & IP Centre  and the UK IPO.

    If you believe in your idea, don’t give up – make it happen.

    Mike’s crunch point was when he discovered the chair wouldn’t run in a straight line. It took a year to fix, but is now the best on the market and can be used one handed wheelchair occupants.

    The wheelchair took six years of his life, but was worth it, and now the demand is greater than they can produce.

    The key is to find customers that love your product and competitors who can’t copy it.

    Michael Pritchard, inventor of the Lifesaver bottle

    Michael started off by agreeing with the Natalie and Mike that it does feel very lonely at times when you are inventing.

    He told us the story by the Lifesaver, which came about because he got angry during Boxing Day 2005 watching images of the Tsunami on television. People were dying due to a lack of clean water, so he decided to do something about it. But as is so often the way, work and life took over, and he didn’t pursue the idea. Then came hurricane Katrina, and the same problems again with lack of drinking water. He was appalled that it took five days to get water to the thousands of people stranded in the Superdome in New Orleans.

    Needed a solution that did not require chemicals or power.

    Michael then gave a very polished demonstration of the Lifesaver bottle, using very murky and smelly water from the bottom of his pond.

    He talked passionately about his recent visit to Pakistan and used his own photos to show the extent of the flooding and its impact on the people there.

    He said how great it felt to realise that giving them a Lifesaver jerry can took the place of a dependency on a regular supply of bottled water.

    His motivation was a vision of his gravestone with nothing written on it. Also his wife told him to go for it.

    Q. You on the stage tonight are the lucky ones.

    A. Michael disagreed, the invention must meet and unmet need, but must also be commercial.

    Jim Shaikh, the inventor of  Yoomi, self heating baby bottle

    Jim was the father of a three and half month weight premature baby. Jim’s job was to feed the baby at night, but kept getting the temperature wrong. Ended up with crying baby and crying wife upstairs.

    It took a year to develop the concept, a bit like a combi-boiler and a gel-pack hand warmer, re-packaged into the top of a baby feeding bottle.

    It has taken six years from original idea to get into Boots and soon into Europe.

    Marketing tag line ‘Inspired by Mum, Designed by Dad’.

    Wants to build a brand as it is more valuable than individual products.

    Jim learnt about IP in the Business & IP Centre, and raised £140,000 from Angel investors. He made the very important point that a patent is an asset that helps convince investors of value of product.

    It took a year to get funding for the product.

    Prototyping is expensive. Jim used it to prove to investors that his product was a worthwhile investment. Took 3-4 prototypes to get the product right.

    You need a support network to help you out.

    You will hit low points, but part of being an entrepreneur is being able to deal with problems.

    You need to be aware that competitors will respond, in Jim’s case with price cuts. How will you respond back? Do you have the flexibility?

    Mark Sheahan, the Business & IP Centre’s Inventor in Residence

    Mark used his immense experience of inventing and advising inventors to come up with a list of Do’s and Don’ts of inventing:

    Keep your idea secret

    Has to be better and or cheaper than the rest of the market

    Have a professional patent search done

    Review the prior-art, and carry on searching

    Do your market research – players, size, prices

    Is the market I am going into worth the time money and effort

    Can you make the invention, and for the right price?

    Look at how you can add value with your product

    What is your USP? Why kill one rat when you can kill a hundred?

    Helps to be optimistic

    WIT – Whatever It Takes

    Your enthusiasm will become infectious

    Has to become the most important thing in your life

    You need to become good at business

    Understand the role of IP and patents

    Secrets have a role to play

    Don’t write your own patent – it is a false economy

    Avoid sharks – not just the rogue Patent Promotion Agents

    Listen to your gut feelings when dealing with people

    Take on a business mentor with a couple of percentage of your business.

    Create a SWAT analysis

    Choose the right business model – draw up a partnership agreement

    Don’t expect money from banks or government grants.

    Make yourself investable – develop your marketing line

    Understand contracts and letter writing

    Get good at negotiating

    Be realistic about the time scales – 15 years in the case of Dyson

    Experience is rewarding even if you fail

    Have fun with it

    Questions

    Q. When should one extend a British patent to a wider market?

    A. Jim S – A difficult question as it is expensive to go wider. Need to think about where your market will be. Babies are born across the world. Strategy was to nationalise their patents in their biggest markets (USA and Europe).

    Michael P – Find out where your competitors are manufacturing and patent there.

    Q. How can you use a patent as collateral?

    A. Jim S – I put in my patent into the business in exchange for investors money.

    Q. Why not licence your product?

    A. Mark S – I prefer to licence my technologies.

    A. Michael P – Increase the value, decrease the risk by outsourcing the manufacture, but keeping control of selling and marketing of product as it is so new in the market. Wanted to build the value first.

    Q. How did you foster partnerships and collaboration to get your invention market?

    A. Natalie E – all self done

    A. Jim S – used friends and family as focus groups, but using NDA’ and CDA’s. Balance between protecting what you have but getting valuable feedback from potential customers.

    Q. The difference between being an inventor and an entrepreneur.

    A. Natalie E – work to your strengths – go to trade shows to find the right

    A. Mark S – licensing is a quicker and cheaper route

    A. Michael P – get product into market as early as possible – don’t show a picture, have a prototype

    A. Mike S – if you are going to licence your invention, make sure you get a serious amount of money up front to ensure they are committed.