Four ways to succeed in retail — choose one

Dr. Barbara Kahn from Wharton has released a new and expanded version of her book, The Shopping Revolution, which I look forward to reading. Here she enumerates the four keys to retail success.

• Great Brand (e.g. Warby Parker or Zara)

• Great customer experience (e.g. Sephora)

• Low price (e.g. Walmart or Costco)

• Remove friction (e.g. Amazon)

She argues that a successful strategy involves being the absolute best in one of these four quadrants, and then trying to be good enough in the other three – although that is easier said than done because the bar for “good enough” is always moving higher.

Dr. Kahn elaborates on her model and other topics in an MSI lecture from 2018. 

And in this interview transcript, she describes how Chinese retailers are generally ahead of American retailers on these four dimensions.