Know Your Shoppers (Collection)

Chapter Five. What’s the Big Idea?

The most important bit in the whole book is this part. Big Idea: Knowing what the hell you actually are; this is the absolute foundation stone of a great retail business. Once you work out what you are, you can get really good at being that thing and get really good at telling people what that thing is and why they might like it: You can build a store that people want to come to and spend money in because they explicitly understand what you’re giving them.

Every great retail business is built around a Big Idea—a reason for existing, the thing that business is for; it informs absolutely everything that the retailer does and says, and informs every decision made within it. It is the starting point for everything ...