I saw an excellent interview last week in the Melbourne street press with one of the founders of the T Bar retail chain (unfortunately I lost the magazine – I think it was City Weekly – and it isn’t available on-line). Anyway, to paraphrase it went like this:
What do you sell? T-shirts
Are you going to expand your range to other items of clothing? No
This is a fantastic example of a focused business strategy. This firm is not trying to be everything to everyone. Instead it is sticking to what it is good at and what it knows attracts the customers.
The picture (left) shows the layout of their typical stores – its t-shirts, t-shirts and nothing but t-shirts. The firm can focus its attention on its core capability – sourcing exciting new designs, and finding new locations for their stores, which (as my clever cousin pointed out over coffee) would be very popular with shopping centre owners as they are typically plonked in previously non-retail space (dark corners/walkways etc).
See another pic and some brief words from the founder at this other blog discussion (she also explains that they have no web presence…yet).
Tags: Australia, business strategy, mall, retail, shopping centres, Strategic management, t bar, t-shirts
International BS Blog 
November 19, 2008 at 1:20 pm |
“as they are typically plonked in previously non-retail space (dark corners/walkways etc)”
I think that helps with the marketing too, because it does feel as if one’s discovered the shop for themselves (or, as in my case – I accidentally stumbled upon T Bar in Melbourne Central) as opposed to being shoved into their face. 🙂
November 26, 2008 at 3:01 am |
http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/?p=1039