Unlocking The American Retail Value Proposition

Murray_TheAmericanRetailValueProp
Kyle Murray, author of The American Retail Value Proposition, discusses working in his father’s drugstore, researching customer behaviour, and other things that went into writing his book. 

How did you become involved in your area of research? What inspired you to write this book?

This book began when Professor Michael Pearce walked into my office at the Richard Ivey School of Business and asked me if I would be interested in taking over his highly acclaimed and very popular undergraduate and MBA courses in retail management. I was both honored and intimidated by the opportunity, but Michael made it easy for me and I was hooked. Teaching that course eventually led to my current role as a professor of marketing and the director of the School of Retailing at the University of Alberta’s School of Business – and, ultimately, to writing this book.

There are a lot of business books out there, but for retailers who want to get an overview of everything that you need to know to own or manage a retail business, there is surprisingly little available. While books exist on individual topics of branding or selling or merchandizing or customer management, no one was explaining how they fit together to create a complete and compelling value proposition.

How did you become interested in the subject?

The roots of this book go back to mopping floors and facing shelves in my father’s drug store – it was there that I fell in love with retailing. For that, and so much more, I have my family to thank.

How long did it take you to write your latest book?

About a year.

What do you find most interesting about your area of research?

The individual stories of retail businesses and, especially, the people who work in and build those businesses. I also like the rise of retail analytics and the application of a more scientific approach to running a retail business.

What do you wish other people knew about your area of research?

That it is a very rigorous scientific area of research. Studying consumers, for example, has gone from small sub-area in psychology and economics to a major field of research with thousands of scholars around the world trying to understand how we make decisions. And consumer research is only a part of retail research.

What’s the most surprising thing you discovered during the course of your research?

The enormous impact of atmospherics on shopper decision making and how little we understand about it and how little it is used strategically by retailers. This is an emerging field that I am increasingly interested in and it has become a focus of my research lab. It may be the topic of my next book …

Do you have to travel much concerning the research/writing of your book?

I don’t have to, but I do and I think it does help inform my writing. For this book in particular I spent more time outside of my home country to focus on retailing in the United States. I was also able to incorporate observations of and conversations with retailers in other English-speaking countries that I have spent time in recently. Most notably Ireland and Australia. There are many similarities between the countries, but as the old saying goes “Retail is in the details!” and there are clearly important differences as well (which companies like Target have learned the hard way).

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Hmmm … that’s a tough question. I really enjoyed writing the book, but I think the most difficult part is balancing the time I spent on it with the many other demands on my time – from teaching to administration to basic research. I am lucky to have a supportive family that understands the lost evenings and weekends during the writing process.

What did you learn from writing your book?

As I was pulling all of my research, and the work of others, together to try and tell a clear story, I realized just how active a field retailing really is. Things change so quickly that it is difficult to capture generalizations, especially in areas like e-commerce and omnichannel shopping. My goal was to produce a framework that will stand the test of time and changes that have yet to be anticipated, based on more than a century of experience in the American marketplace.

What are your current/future projects?

Right now my focus is on basic research in atmospherics and repetitive decision making. My research team is studying how scent, sound, color and lighting affect consumer choice. We are also looking at the role of habitual decisions in retail shopper behavior.

What do you like to read for pleasure?  What are you currently reading?

I like to read and my tastes are pretty eclectic. Right now, for pleasure, I am reading The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I am also reading a Chronicle of Commerce, which is a history of the business school at the University of Alberta. It is surprising how much changes and yet how much really stays the same.

What is your favourite book?

That is a tough question. A few that I have really enjoyed and consider classics are The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Sun Also Rise by Ernest Hemingway and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

If you weren’t working in academia, what would you be doing instead?

I have no idea …

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