The Art of Standing Out When Everyone's Shouting - Peak Season Retail Strategy 2025

Crowds assemble for the lively "Peak Season 2025: Ready to Play"

While your competitors are screaming louder with bigger discounts, the smartest retailers are whispering something far more powerful: genuine human connection.

Peak season isn't just December.....it starts in October and runs through Boxing Day into the New Year. But here's what's keeping me awake at night! While many ANZ retailers are still fixed in survival mode (not reading the tea leaves), international brands are launching emotional experiences that capture hearts in our own backyard. Meanwhile, one in six Kiwis now call Temu their go-to. This should be our wake-up call.

The smartest retailers are already laying the groundwork to win. With stock ordered, the focus now shifts to the essentials: experiences that cut through the noise and teams that can deliver under pressure. Too many retailers aren't thinking hard enough about what it takes to engage customers' hearts, minds, and wallets when attention spans are contracting and every physical store is fighting for the same overwhelmed consumer.

Standing still is going backwards. Especially when international retailers are redefining what winning looks like right under our noses.

THE IMAGINATION DEFICIT

When process becomes paralysis

Let me start with a story that illustrates the opportunity ahead of us. Walmart recently launched "Weekend Academy," a new private label tween fashion brand creating emotional brand experiences around confidence and fitting in. But here's what's more relevant to our market: Kmart ANZ has been doing this successfully for years, proving that affordable and desirable fashion isn't an oxymoron at a scale that works in ANZ.

Walmart introduces Weekend Academy as a vital play in their value proposition

If international retailers are investing in brand storytelling and emotional connection, and if Kmart continues to lead locally by anticipating what customers want before they know they want it, there's a clear path for the rest of us to follow.

Kmart has been a strong leader for years now in their value proposition

Here's what I've learned from the shifts and cycles of 30+ years in this business....most recently we've been operating in what I call the "Age of Information" drowning in data, efficiency metrics, and analysis paralysis. Retail thrived when we could predict behaviour based on clean models and rational triggers. But the opportunity now is to move beyond this into the new Retail Imagination Stage, where creativity becomes currency and being different, not the same, is what captures attention.

The Warehouse offers us a valuable lesson here. They found themselves caught in process and complexity while Kmart, Costco, and even Temu captured what "value" actually means......which can also be fashionable, desirable, and on-trend.

Kmart ANZ has mastered this at scale that's actually relevant to our market. They've proven that affordable and desirable isn't an oxymoron from their category extensions, seasonal collections, and trend-led essentials (well we call them essentials) consistently sell out because they understand that value includes style, not just price. While others were following, Kmart was anticipating and leading what ANZ customers actually wanted.

When IKEA opens in October, they won't just raise the tide, they'll expose how shallow most of our retail waters have been. They'll prove that style can be affordable. One walk through their showrooms will potentially expose the gaps in other store's merchandising. Or challenges the customer on "what really is value for money?" If they deliver nationwide from day one, they'll demonstrate what happens when brand, VM, storytelling, and value create something desirable, fashionable, and shareable.

YOU CANNOT SELL FRESH AIR

....just ask Meghan Markle who has a serious supply chain issues with her recent array of products.....

Here's where it gets exciting. While many of us are debating budgets and playing it safe, Chemist Warehouse; one of the most successful retailers across ANZ and notably adept at running a lean operation, is showing us what intelligent investment looks like.

Yes, Chemist Warehouse have adopted AI-powered wearables called "SmartBadges" from Augmodo. Team members simply wear lanyards around their necks and no longer need to spend hours auditing—everything is automatically scanned as they walk the floor, creating real-time inventory insights and freeing up staff to help customers.

But here's what's even more telling, they're simultaneously leaning into improved execution across their Ultra format. They've opened up their stores so you can see the depth and breadth of brands they now stock, incorporated test-and-try experiences in cosmetics.

I know I have better pictures but they are doing a fabulous job of experience vs what they have been historically known for

And they're leaning into events like the upcoming Besties Night In alongside MCo Beauty PLUS who hasn't seen their introduction of TY (so glad my kids have grown up now).

This isn't a business just about efficiency.....it is a business about creating experiences that make customers want to linger, explore, and return. A blend of what "value plays" means.

Chemist Warehouse proves we don't have to choose between operational excellence and customer experience. Peak season comes every year, and they're showing us a path that delivers both.

MICRO-MOMENTS OF MAGIC

Now let's talk about the human element. I recently read about Chick-fil-A operator Tim Sweetman, who learned something profound from a Michelin-starred restaurant: it wasn't the grand gestures that elevated the experience, it was the small, intentional acts of genuine care that transformed ordinary transactions into memorable moments.

Here's the brilliant simplicity of what Sweetman implemented: remembering the power of sampling from his teenage years at mall food courts, he and his team began cutting up brownies in the back of house and placing toothpicks in them. When they'd see a family nearing the end of their meal, they'd walk over and set the "sweet bite" down as a meal capper.

"It costs so little to do something like that," Sweetman says. "And the surprise at the end of the meal with the family and kids - they're blown away." The result? A roughly 20% increase in brownies sold per month. But more importantly, it created what Chick-fil-A calls "second-mile service" - going beyond the expected transaction to create genuine connection.

This gesture accomplished two critical things: it became a retention play, making dining more personal and helping customers connect with the store and employees on a deeper, less-transactional level. And it reinforced to employees how the brand wants to treat people, embedding the service philosophy into daily practice.

This is retail gold, especially during peak season when customers are tired, pressured, and overwhelmed. While everyone else is screaming louder about discounts, the winners are creating these micro-moments of magic through authentic human connection.

The smartest retailers understand that in the attention economy, these moments of genuine surprise and care beat mega-budgets every time. You can remember how a brand made you feel. Logic isn't enough to drive decisions anymore, we must lead with imagination and back it with systems that enable these meaningful moments.

WAKE UP CALL

Here's what's confounding. Over the past five years, New Zealand's retail landscape has shifted dramatically. Global e-tailers like Temu and Shein have fuelled a surge in low-value imports. On the ground, international giants are everyday parts of life: H&M, Zara, Mecca, JD Sports, Mountain Warehouse. Decathlon is preparing its first large-format store. Costco, after opening in 2022, is already one of its fastest-growing global markets. Yet the dominating conversations are still tones of doom, gloom, right-sizing, and restructures.

Take Daiso's game-changing introduction of Standard Issue at their new Sylvia Park store. Here's a Japanese retailer that understood the NZ aesthetic and what Standard Issue means to Kiwi consumers......often better than some local retailers. It's a reminder that understanding your customer deeply is what creates competitive advantage.

Kmart ANZ continues to lead because they never stopped imagining what their customers wanted before they even knew they wanted it. They redefined what "value" means in a way that includes being fashionable and on-trend.

But there are green shoots, Briscoes, Four Square (what a growth brand), Mecca, and Mitre 10 have shown knowing your customer deeply possible. They've moved forward proving that intelligent growth is achievable in ANZ.

THE PEAK SEASON CHALLENGE

So here's the opportunity for peak season 2025: We can choose to learn from The Warehouse's experience; where process complexity can slow innovation, or we can follow Kmart's lead, anticipating what our customers want before they even know they want it.

We're not in thrive mode yet. We all need to fertilising, pruning, and preparing the conditions for growth. That means rethinking how we capture customers' hearts, minds, and wallets.

We have about three months before IKEA shows every customer in the country what retail excellence can look like. When they open, they'll demonstrate that training and treating staff well creates competitive advantage, that VM and storytelling can make an indelible mark on experience, and that a single store can generate incredible customer excitement. What's stopping you?

THE BOTTOM LINE

Peak season 2025 isn't about surviving the rush. It is about winning hearts when everyone else is looking desperately needy. While others are arguing about margins, the winners are building relationships. While competitors are managing markets with doom headlines, international retailers are capturing hearts.

The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in imagination, technology, and human connection. The question is whether you can afford not to.

Because if others can demonstrate what happens when brand, VM, storytelling, and value create something desirable, fashionable, and shareable, and if Walmart can create emotional brand experiences for tweens while you're stuck in efficiency paralysis - then the game has already moved beyond you.

Peak season comes every year. This year, make sure you're not just participating.......make sure you're winning.

What's your most unconventional peak season strategy?