5 retail lessons from the hat, scarf, badge and beer sellers outside Milan's San Siro stadium

I was in Milan as Liverpool defeated Italian champions Internazionale on?Wednesday night, but the retail stalls outside the famous San Siro ground also provided something to celebrate.

Retail isn’t complicated, but the continued addition of new sales channels does add layers of complexity that creates a feeling it is.

The industry’s great downsizing in the 21st century so far, and current digitised renaissance has prompted question upon question of what modern retail actually is.

The football shirt, scarf and memorabilia sellers outside the famous old San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, provide some colourful memories of retail’s market stall heritage, though, and with it some lessons in the fundamentals of commerce that are worth remembering.

Be where the customer is

Location, location, location has been the mantra in retail for many a decade.

Be it the bustling high streets of the early 20th century, the be-everywhere Tesco-style race for space policy of the 1990s, the shift to out-of-town shopping centres in the 2000s, or the need to consider the e-commerce halo effect of opening physical spaces in the 2020s, where a retailer situates itself is an important retail basic – and what represents best practice here continues to change.

Do I have a visually stimulating product? If yes, Instagram and Pinterest is somewhere a retailer should be too. Are my main customers in their teens? Get on TikTok, if so.

The food and memorabilia stands outside the San Siro have a captured audience. When the stadium is at full capacity, which is not allowed right now due to Covid restrictions, there are 80,000 passing customers whenever there is a match on.

On Wednesday there were about half that number in and around the beautiful concrete sporting temple locals call the Giuseppe Meazza San Siro in honour one of the city’s local footballing heroes. But that still made for huge revenue generating opportunities, and the stalls didn’t disappoint.

The stands circled the gates to the stadium – probably about 20 stalls all in all. For hungry, thirsty and – as was the case for many – tourist supporters arriving in their thousands, there was nowhere else to go.

These stall holders have identified an opportunity and they go for it. The home team probably has a stake in them of some kind, or at least charges a ground rent, but the opportunistic retailing example and careful location planning serves as an inspiration for retail everywhere.

Know your audience

Match-going football supporters don’t really want much. I can’t talk for everyone because football fans represent a broad church, but key to their happiness is to be treated with respect rather than trepidation when they travel to a game and – from a hospitality perspective – a decent range of alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, well-cooked fast food and snacks usually suffices.

Somewhere to pick up a memento of the trip is also important, particularly for fans who don’t attend games regularly or those travelling to European away matches.

Bingo. The stalls outside this stadium in one of Italy’s most important cities have a full house in this regard, with a hyper-localised array of merchandise to boot.

A great reminder to today’s retailers that investing time and effort in getting to grips with who your customer is, what they want and stocking the shelves accordingly – be they physical or digital – is absolutely paramount.

Make sure your systems are connected

I’ve written about technology in retail for the best part of the last ten years, and the times I’ve heard “omnichannel this…”, “omnichannel that…”, and the need for tech investment to ensure retailers have a single view of stock and customers.

Well, the retail stands outside the San Siro didn’t know if I’d shopped with them before or offer to send me a digital receipt (maybe they will one day soon, who knows?) but they had very clear and – for my needs at the time – sophisticated systems in place that meant as soon I made my payment to the person at the point of sale, someone else had already started pouring my drink.

A token was presented and I picked up the drink at the other end of the stall poured by dedicated dispenser, in an example of seamless service.

I appreciate how simplistic this looks when written down (man buys beer and it is served to him shock), but everyone has a different role on the stall and it makes for a speedy and accurate service. It’s not cloud-based software or communication systems fuelling this but the outcome is the right one – a cold lager ends up in my hands, quickly and with minimum fuss.

The message for retailers here is systems are important. Whether it’s simple operational strategy or more complex IT processing to futureproof the business, investment in the right systems for your organisation have never been more important in retail – and they need to be tailored to support what your customer wants and needs.

Invest in staff

Office for National Statistics figures from the third quarter of 2021, show retail employment dropped to just over three million people. It’s possible considering the current climate where staff are at breaking point after working on the front-line of a pandemic for two years and now find themselves with a choice of alternative options in an increasingly jobseeker market, that this figure will drop below three million soon.

In all the years I’ve been writing about retail “the retail industry employees three million people and is the largest private sector employer” has been a badge of honour for the industry. Dipping below that would be a watershed moment and force retailers, if they aren’t already, to consider how they recruit and then treat and develop staff.

I don’t know for sure, but I can’t imagine there are huge staff training or career development opportunities for the San Siro stand sellers, but those running these sites certainly get the recruitment right.

No-one was waiting around in long queues. People made their order. They got served. As simple as that.

Such service matters, especially on a bitterly cold and misty night like the one I experienced on Wednesday. Efficiency and margin management are key retail boardroom strategies right now and it often means staff are cut, only two tills are open on the supermarket floor, or one person is accompanied by self-serve machines as part of the rise in retail automation.

However a retailer sets itself up, consumers want serving straight away. It matters. And getting the right number of staff in to avoid delays at the checkout and combat queues is vital.

I had three beers and a pizza, in case you’re interested. And a I bought a pin badge for my mate who got me the ticket.

Make a statement

What does your brand stand for? Have you refreshed the brand lately? What’s the new company purpose?

All of these questions regularly circulate the head office of retailers up and down the land. In addition, how are you merchandising the brand in new ways to ensure customers part with their money? This debate is ever evolving.

On that note, I could not help be mesmerised by the stalls outside the San Siro.

On a bitter cold night when it took a goal from Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino in the 75th minute and the consequent jumping around celebrations to start feeling my fingers and toes for the first time since kick off, I had earlier been warmed by the vibrancy of the stands outside the ground.

Vivid colours on the scarves, hats, and shirts, and the bright lights from the menu board signage made me want to buy. They made me want to eat even though I was pretty stuffed with gnocchi from a late lunch in Milan’s trendy San Marco area.

The look and feel of the stalls stood out from the grey concrete of the stadium and surrounding floor, and brutal nature of the fencing around the supporter entrances to the ground. They lit up the grim night sky.

That sort of excitement and incentive to buy – and the creation of a distinctive look – is something retailers are well advised to encapsulate in their merchandising

In a digitised retail world with the advent of the metaverse, live-streaming, video connections to stores and international just-in-time (although not necessarily on time at the moment) supply chains, it’s easy to forget some of the fundamentals that comprise successful commerce.

The hat, scarf, badge and shirt sellers, and the burger, pizza and beer purveyors – all situated in the shadows of one of Europe’s iconic football stadiums – offer a little reminder of them.