You have small fashion chain or a gift store – maybe a shoe store or two. The retail concept is old as they come, really, but something made you start that business or buy that business. Big dreams. You are thinking about online and going multi-channel. Or you are thinking about how you can incorporate all that customer experience stuff the consultants sprout, but do it with minimum wage staff in a tough economic climate? You may be thinking they are full of hot air… Someone else also ha
d this dream.
American J. Christopher Burch started a business called C.Wonder in 2011.
It now has 20 locations in the US and it is touted as a benchmark in bricks and mortar customer experience.
The obvious (first) question is usually, how did he do this? The store’s proposition is described as “a place where women can get their daily dose of wonder. It is about chic. It is about colour. It is classic and independent.”
The delivery of customer experience is described as follows: “[At C. Wonder] you can go into the dressing room, put on your own music, turn the lights on or off.
A lot of gals don’t like to look at themselves in the mirror, so they go in, put on their pants, change, get out. We want to meet every need. We have a disc jockey on the weekends, try to stay very ’60s fun, motownish.
We try to offer new and unique things. It’s about entertaining our customer, making fun, making people smile. People want to be happy. If customers return something, we give them a pair of earrings, they are shocked.
We really care, so much so that it hurts you in business some times. It costs a lot of money. (Video link below.)” When I read C.Wonder’s story and watch the video, I don’t think it is really unique or special.
There is nothing in those strategies that can’t be copied, and indeed nothing that hasn’t been mentioned before – even here on Inside Retail.
It is a good looking store with a clear proposition with a specific market, executed well.
And it has gone one step further and added a great customer experience. But really, that is nothing new. The founder is a billionaire – which may explain how he expanded faster than you or I could – but the basic retail concept is not unique.
So the real question is not how he did it, but rather… why did you not do it? You have been around longer than C.Wonder.
You knew what had to happen.
And yet, here is a business that started in 2011 and has claimed the space that you could have had.
The truth is that the exact same thing applies to my business – and to me personally. There are things I know I should do and yet I don’t.
I should be using my mailing list to market my products and services better
I should be making more cold calls
I should go to networking events
I should be commenting on Linked forums
Yet I don’t. I get comfortable doing what I am doing and lapse into doing my favourite things. I need a kick up the backside. (It takes a while to process the idea that getting coaching, support, advice, or mentoring from someone else is not an admission of failure, but a sign of determination to get better.) I know what I am going to do about that, but the more important question is: What are you doing about it?
You can only breathe your own exhaust fumes for so long before it kills you.
Read an interview with the C.Wonder founder here.
Watch the video showing the store here.
Check out its website here.
Have Fun
Dennis
GANADOR: MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN FOR BRANDS AND RETAILERS
