A retailer seeking a clearer identity may reasonably want customers to recognise what it stands for wherever they encounter it. The difficulty begins when that aspiration becomes a requirement that every format offer the same proposition. The same household can visit for a quick refill on one day and a planned stock-up on another. Its identity has not changed, but its task has. A coherent retailer needs to understand which differences help with those tasks before treating uniformity as the only route to clarity.
In a fictional 2016 review at Lanverue Retail, we examined 260 compact refill locations and 120 destination stock-up stores. One proposal would have moved them towards a uniform assortment under a more consistent parent identity. I supported differentiated propositions within that identity, with CNY 24 million in research and format design. The decision retained complexity the uniform approach would have reduced. It did not establish a universal preference for more formats or claim that the review itself produced a sales improvement.
## The customer can be the same while the task changes
Customer categories are useful for some questions, but they do not describe every reason for a visit. A household buying an item it needs immediately may value a different selection and experience from the same household planning a larger shop. If the strategic account treats those visits as interchangeable because the customer profile matches, it can overlook the purpose that makes each format useful. I wanted the proposition to begin with the task rather than assume that organisational consistency answers it.
This does not require a separate store format for every possible occasion. That would create its own difficulties and could leave the retailer with a confusing collection of offers. The question is which differences are substantial enough to shape the proposition and which can be served coherently within an existing form. The compact and destination distinction in this fictional case was examined through research and commercial judgement. It should not be borrowed as a ready-made architecture for another retailer whose customer work or operating context differs.
The supporters of uniformity had a legitimate concern. Customers should not have to rediscover the retailer's identity at every location, and internal complexity can make consistent execution harder. I agreed with those points. My disagreement concerned the inference that recognition required an identical assortment. A common identity could explain why the formats belonged together while still making the task of each understandable. We needed to be coherent about the reason for the difference, not erase the difference before examining whether it helped the customer.
## Coherence needs a reason for the difference
Retaining two propositions was not simply permission for each part of the organisation to preserve its preferences. A format distinction should be defensible through the customer's task. Otherwise the retailer can mistake its own history for a useful choice and ask customers to navigate complexity that serves no clear purpose. I wanted the compact and destination accounts to identify where they differed and why. That made the common parent identity more than a visual device placed over arrangements the institution had not reconciled.
The CNY 24 million in research and format design was part of that work. It was not a claim that spending the amount created an equivalent financial return. Merchandising, pricing, operating and brand leaders retained their respective decisions. My strategic role was to connect their choices with an agreed account of the occasion, rather than dictate the detailed offer through a general statement about customer convenience. The proposition needed the professional and commercial evidence of the people responsible for making it real.
We accepted that the differentiated approach would be harder to explain internally than a single uniform offer. It required ongoing clarity about which elements should remain consistent and which should respond to the visit. The rejected proposal had an appeal precisely because it reduced that burden. Keeping the burden in the story makes the decision more credible. It would be misleading to portray the selected direction as giving the customer every advantage while requiring no additional effort or judgement from the organisation.
The formats' counts also needed their historical context. The 260 compact and 120 destination locations described the 2016 review, not the retailer's later total estate. In a leadership account, it is easy to attach a current company scale to an earlier decision and make the remit appear larger than it was. I would keep the period and scope of the review alongside the figure. The same care applies to any subsequent performance claim, which would require its own evidence rather than follow automatically from the strategic choice.
## A format account should survive the move into everyday decisions
A proposition can be clear in a strategy discussion and lose its meaning as teams turn it into assortment, space and operating decisions. I would want the customer task to remain a useful reference through that process. It should help responsible owners explain why a choice fits the format, rather than become a slogan too broad to distinguish between alternatives. This is not a request for strategy to take over their authority. It is a way to keep the relationship between the initial direction and the practical decisions understandable.
The account should also remain open to revision. A customer occasion may develop differently from the original interpretation, and the retailer may learn that a distinction is less useful than expected. Defending two propositions forever would be as weak as insisting on uniformity before testing their purpose. My earlier pilot mistake makes that point personal: an encouraging observation can be asked to support too much. The institution should preserve the conditions behind its evidence and be willing to change the format account when the actual learning requires it.
All organisations and results here are invented. The case illustrates how a retail strategist might explain a choice without claiming every detailed commercial decision or promising a customer response. A real account would need verified research and permission to publish the relevant findings. I would still keep the same distinction at its centre: one retail identity can be coherent across different visits when the differences have a clear customer reason. Uniformity may sometimes serve that purpose, but it should be an examined choice rather than an automatic definition of clarity.