Wow, 92,000 words later and I hope we’re still friends. This has been the biggest change to the book yet, massive shifts in the fundamentals of retailing made this one nearly a two-year writing job. New research and new ideas meant I’d scrap whole sections and start again in new directions. It’s only been the last year when reliable patterns have begun to emerge that I’ve been able to keep things stable.

So it was hard work writing the book, but I sincerely hope that it’s been useful reading it. People constantly email me their feedback and thoughts on previous versions and it is both humbling that you would take the time to do so and incredibly useful to read and absorb. Smart Retail gets better each time because it is ours: the content isn’t my system or process, it’s my distillation of your best practice.