What indie retailers can learn from the big guys 👔📠

Have you ever enthusiastically told friends about some awesome new local business only to find out it’s a chain? All of a sudden, you get the ick finding out that your authentically great experience was crafted in a conference room. 

Generally speaking, when we call something “corporate,” like “ugh, the hotel looked so corporate,” or “Chad’s haircut is so corporate,” what we really mean is uninteresting or basic and soulless. Definitely not cool. Actual corporate retailers know this – that’s why they’re constantly trying to mimic the heart and personality of indie retailers. Historical photos of your city on the walls of Chicken Salad Chick? Giant photos of local fitness professionals as “ambassadors” on the walls of lululemon? That’s a corporation wearing local garb.

Now I don’t really care about the dictionary definition of “corporate,” and I know you don’t either. But for the sake of clarity in this newsletter I’m talking about multi-unit retailers where there are many layers of management, major decisions are made by a small, centralized team, the founder of the company may or may not still be involved, and ownership is definitely not working the register on a Saturday.

Big corporate retailers know that their business benefits from the HEART and COMMUNITY that are so deeply woven into the fabric of locally-grown, independent businesses. But do small retailers know that they themselves benefit from the CONSISTENCY and RELIABILITY that are hallmarks of corporate businesses?

What makes a retailer able to operate successfully on a multi-unit level? Systems. Processes and methods of communicating with customers, directing their actions, and solving their problems in a consistent, repeatable way that can be taught and re-taught each time someone is hired. These processes are documented, and in practice they become systems. 

If the heart and passion are the art, the systems are the science, and being great at retailing requires both art and science. Come to think of it, so do a number of professions: 

⚖️ To be a great lawyer, you have to know the law (science) and use strategy to interpret it (art).

🩺 To be a great doctor, you have to know the human body works (science) and use experience and a kaleidoscope of observations to treat it (art).

📐 To be a great architect, you have to understand physics (science) and bring vision and creativity to design spaces that work (art).

Retailing is exactly the same. 

Starting a retail business takes a lot of spidey-sense intuition and creativity, and every concept is (or should be) unique and unlike anyone else’s…but staying in business and being profitable requires conformity to the time-tested, proven principles of retail management. Principles like:

Inventory management – buying inventory consumes cash, and turning that inventory back into cash quickly and efficiently requires smart buying and pricing, launch scheduling, and markdown scheduling.


Labor management – ensuring you have enough quality help while keeping labor costs to a minimum requires hiring and onboarding procedures, adaptive scheduling, accurate time-tracking, performance reviews and improvement planning.


Operations management – there’s no such thing as autopilot in retail, and keeping the business running on a day to day basis (without an owner/manager directing every single movement) is a function of establishing and documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs) and constantly training staff on execution.


Metrics tracking – if you aren’t measuring it, you can manage it. COGS, occupancy cost, YOY revenue growth, labor cost, inventory aging…so many more. It doesn’t matter if your concept is completely novel and industry benchmarks don't really exist. Choosing metrics to track consistently over time is the only way of knowing which direction you’re heading.


Not to be dramatic, but ignoring these principles -- the science behind retailing -- is a fast track to failure. All of these systems are designed to protect dollars, because in retail every single dollar matters, Vision and vibes are totally essential to bringing a new business to life, but those things don’t pay the bills, and the entire point of running a business is to make your idea make money so that you can keep sharing it with the world.

“Corporate” retailers will never be as cool as independents (scientific fact), but as lovers and supporters of small businesses we don’t have to hate on them. We can take note of what makes them function at scale, implement those ideas, and take the results to the bank.