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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Do pop-up efforts make sense for subscription box services?
In brick-and-mortar retail, one of the biggest recent trends has been the emergence of stores that host a rotating lineup of pop-ups. In online retail, subscription boxes have become popular…
Is real-time processing a must-have for retailers?
Credit authorization is the oldest example of indispensable real-time processing in retail. But in the new world of unified commerce, most aspects of running the business now require real-time processing…
Best Buy’s gadget rental relationship didn’t get off the ground
In areas of retail like high-end apparel, the option to rent instead of buy is becoming increasingly popular. But whether renting will work in the gadget space remains up in…
Are micro influencers better for retailers than macro influencers?
When a brand begins its search for the right influencer to partner with, the size of a potential following is usually the first rubric by which value is measured. But…
Will chatbots replace customer service reps?
Chatbots — AI applications that simulate human conversation — are becoming more pervasive in online and mobile customer service, and acceptance of them is growing. Do you expect that chatbots…
Target to make same-day delivery push with Shipt acquisition
Target is serious about same-day delivery. Yesterday, the retailer announced it has agreed to acquire Shipt, the online same-day delivery platform. What will Target’s acquisition of Shipt mean for the…
San Francisco limits robots on its sidewalks
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to enact rules that place strict limits on robot delivery startups, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Will autonomous delivery drones become…
Will late deliveries mess up Christmas?
Retailers know two things for certain. The first is that shoppers are going to place online orders up until the last minute for Christmas. The second is that any orders…
RetailWire Christmas Commercial Challenge: Home Depot vs. Lowe’s
While Christmas may not be as critical to the annual performance of the two chains as the spring cleanup and planting season, that doesn’t mean Home Depot and Lowe’s are…
The next logical step for category management
Recent radical changes in shopper behavior are putting pressure on category management practices to further adapt to the new dynamics of retail. How should retailers adapt their traditional category management…
Why are so many brand categories woefully bad at word-of-mouth?
According to a new study from Engagement Labs, an estimated 19 percent of consumer sales are now driven by offline and online social conversations. But many retail categories are failing…
Will meal kits be a hit on Walmart’s virtual shelves?
Whether as a move to continue boosting its Millennial appeal, to stay neck and neck with Amazon.com, to give its e-commerce customers some new eating options or all of the…
Retailers target ways to boost post-Cyber Week sales
This year’s Cyber Week — from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday — experienced 18 percent sales growth vs. the previous year period, according to insights provided in a…
Will last-minute pickup payoff for Walmart?
Doubling down on the service, Walmart announced plans to offer “more items for same-day pickup than ever before” to serve holiday procrastinators. Do you see in-store pickup becoming a major…
The new NYC Nike store will have a members-only floor
It was a little over a year ago that Nike opened its experiential flagship store in Soho. Now the shoe brand is planning to replace it with an even bigger…
Penney gets fashionable with its Jacques Penné pop-up
Looking to raise its fashion cachet with younger consumers and poke a little fun at itself, J.C. Penney opened a Jacques Penné pop-up in SoHo in Manhattan. Are pop-ups, celebrity…
Get ready – there are still three shopping holidays left before Christmas
Retailers have made it past Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, but on the home stretch to Christmas, there are a still a few more critical albeit lesser-known shopping…
Amazon is (quietly) upending private branding. Will others follow?
Research has proven that consumers don’t always associate private brands with their retail owners, but Amazon stands alone by combining a deliberate stealth attack with unprecedented scale. Is the scale…
Is a tiered dollar menu the ticket for McDonald’s?
McDonald’s plans to bring back and expand its Dollar Menu with the introduction of a “$1 $2 $3 Dollar Menu,” a move expected to spark a price war in the…
Will shoppers pay services to do returns for them?
For a flat fee of $9.99, ReturnRunners returns any single item for a consumer. Additional items cost 99 cents each. “We make your returns. You do more important things,” the…
Would CVS + Aetna = lower healthcare costs?
In justifying its planned $69 billion merger with Aetna (perhaps to anti-trust regulators), CVS detailed how the entire health care system should benefit from broader use of data and analytics,…
