The Daily - August 11,2021 - 9

Pulse
S N O W S H O W 2 0 1 9
THE
H E A D L I N E S / P O R T R A I T S / B A S E C A M P J O B S
The Prophet
Has Spoken
At the OIA breakfast on Day 1, participants
learned how to survive the new roaring
'20s. It's time to defi ne your purpose and
engineer your future. By Helen Olsson
YESTERDAY MORNING, THE FIRST
in-person Outdoor Retailer Show
in 18 months and 12 days kicked off
with the Outdoor Industry Association's
(OIA) Industry Breakfast,
headlined by Doug Stephens, bestselling
author and founder of Retail
Prophet. His keynote speech kept
the live audience of 200 show-goers
riveted with a combination of
video, eye-raising statistics, and
an approachable presentation that
explored case studies of success in
the wake of COVID-19.
Spoiler alert: Retail isn't dead,
but retail success will not be evenly
distributed. You need to know your
purpose and your archetype.
The event, titled " The Thriving
Future of Retail, " began with
remarks by Outdoor Retailer's
senior VP and show director,
Marisa Nicholson, who talked
about reconnecting and recharging.
" This week we get to step away
from Zoom and dive back into
the important work we do as an
industry, " she said. Nicholson was
followed by a video message from
Photograph by Lauren Danilek
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (who
walked the show fl oor later in the
day) as well as remarks from OIA's
executive director, Lise Aangeenbrug,
who thanked the industry for
its support of OIA's policy work,
climate change advocacy, and
eff orts in conservation of public
lands. Teeing up the retail conversation,
Aangeenbrug mentioned
OIA's recent participation report:
" We found that the outdoor consumer
is evolving as quickly as the
retail landscape. "
Stephens acknowledged that
the pandemic changed everything.
" There have been cataclysmic
changes to our collective psyche, "
he said. Recent studies, for example,
show 40% of workers said
they'd quit if mandated to come
back to the offi ce. And 75% say
they'll never commute as they did
pre-pandemic. Still, Stephens said,
" What the pandemic is not is a
cataclysm. It's a catalyst. "
There have been clear retail
winners, notably Amazon and
Walmart. Stephens predicts that
Amazon will move into banking,
healthcare, insurance, shipping,
and education. Products won't
be the source of its profi tability,
however. " They'll just be the breadcrumbs
used to draw consumers
into a total ecosystem. "
In fact, he suggested, big companies
will deliver your products
before you even order them. It
sounds like sci-fi , but it's happening.
When jd.com, Amazon's peer
in China, saw rising clicks in the
marketplace, it discovered 10%
would turn into transactions in 2.7
days from a click surge. Now the
company ships that merchandise
to the location so that when customers
pull the trigger, it can easily
deliver with same-day service.
In his latest book, Resurrecting
Retail: The Future of Business in a
Post-Pandemic World (2021), Stephens
created 10 retail archetypes:
renegade, storyteller, activist,
tastemaker, artist, clairvoyant,
concierge, oracle, engineer, and
gatekeeper. At the OIA event, he
off ered examples of companies
that have embraced these archetypes-i.e.,
Nike is a storyteller (its
higher purpose is not to sell shoes,
though sell shoes it does), and
Patagonia is an activist.
The stories Stephens told
about smaller retailers stole the
OUTDOOR RETAILER SUMMER 2021 /
9
Doug
Stephens
http://www.jd.com
The Daily - August 11,2021

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