Would you like pantyhose with that ceiling tile? (and other retail oxymorons)

Perhaps you were taught this instructive “stick-to-your-knitting” story of some years ago. It starred an over-eager Home Depot executive who came up with the idea that millions would drop to the bottom line if only the company could see its way to introducing L’Eggs hosiery displays at checkouts in all its stores. After making his case to the top ranks of the company with a convincing argument about potential financial gain and a not-very-convincing plea for the company to use this as a response to the increasing presence of female customers, he was quickly asked to abandon the idea—of course, right after being told to abandon his seat from the meeting. The teachable moment—seized on by the chairman—was that just because you could sell it doesn’t mean you should sell it.

Apparently not everyone has heard this entrenched business lesson—including some more recent Home Depot executives, who two years ago brought about losses with a similarly ill-fated decision to sell flat-screen televisions during the holidays.

This week, Best Buy announced plans to sell patio ware—furniture, fire pits, grills and heaters. It’s their attempt to make up for lost sales in bread-and-butter categories like movies and music.

This has all the makings to be the pantyhose story of 2009. We’ll be watching this one especially closely, as this is a retailer which has done many things right.

Supermarkets used to fall prey all the time to the allure of selling higher-margin items—that turned out not to sell, like television sets.

A recent sighting of candy bars at the checkout of a garden center store struck me as a stretch, and a rather sad attempt to presumably get something back from a decline in boxwood sales.

Unexpected products in the assortment can delight customers. Urban Outfitters does serendipity masterfully. Probably until it was deemed illegal or immoral, Sears stores used to create endless Easter excitement with displays of live baby chicks…..for sale. But these examples are schtick—not fundamental assortment strategies.

In the trenches

Bill writes: Best Buy’s incoming CEO Brian Dunn started with the company 24 years ago as a salesman, and in some ways never left his roots. He still spends a great deal of his time on the sales floor, “where the rubber meets the road,” he says (see Wall Street Journal article “Best Buy Confronts Newer Nemesis,” March 16). In his quest to now differentiate Best Buy from competitors Wal-Mart and Amazon.com (now that Circuit City is history), Dunn has used a series of store visits to provide inspiration.

In the olden days of shopkeeping, owners minded their stores at all hours and lived upstairs when the lights were out. Nothing got past them since they were always there. In a world of multi-unit retailing, bosses are far removed from the action of the floor, often held hostage in meetings to consider new companywide dental plans and how to defer equity awards. Still, they take it as an article of faith there’s no substitute for being in the trenches, and “make time” to do store visits as often as they can.

While Brian Dunn’s efforts should be applauded, there may well be a limit to how much inspiration can occur when a CEO makes a guest appearance. Certainly there is value in talking with the troops, where good ideas might arise and unaddressed problems can surface. At the same time, these are all too often staged as goodwill/PR events to rally the troops, and the real value back to the CEO is diminished. One legitimate substitute for management’s inability to be in stores all the time is the use of video-enabled behavioral analytics, which provides a volumetric assessment of how shoppers use the stores and what are the effects of the experience the employees provide. It’s an interesting way to fuel inspiration and find out what’s really happening with thousands of customer actions, interactions, and transactions, when you can’t be everywhere—or anywhere—at once.