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Will consumers buy a new vision for Abercrombie & Fitch?
Abercrombie & Fitch has been struggling for years. The specialty clothing retailer’s management is counting on a new store concept to help get its business turned around. Will a new…
Will automated scheduling ease retail’s staffing problems?
While training shapes an employee’s ability to work effectively, scheduling directly affects job satisfaction. But the question remains for many retailers: Should we give associates the ability to assign their…
What will lower Valentine’s Day sales mean for retail?
Consumers in the U.S. are expected to spend less on Valentine’s Day this year, according to an annual survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics…
Can augmented reality solve the virtual dressing room problem?
Capitalizing on advances in augmented reality, Gap is piloting an app that lets consumers see how outfits might look on their bodies. Will VR-enabled real-life images or body scanning be…
Which commercial won the Super Bowl broadcast?
With 30-second spots costing $5 million a pop, advertisers had a lot riding on the commercials placed during this year’s Super Bowl broadcast. Many, as in years past, fumbled the…
What would a reinstated travel ban mean for retail?
A few retailers are speaking out privately to their employees about President Trump’s executive order blocking immigrants of seven Muslim majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days. What…
Is Macy’s about to be sold?
An unspecified number of retail industry sources have been approached about a potential sale of Macy’s, according to the New York Post. Do you think Macy’s will be sold in…
Why do so few shoppers think of BOPIS as a ‘smooth’ process?
Only 31.6 percent of consumers describe the process of collecting items ordered online in the store as “smooth” compared to 66 percent that describe online shopping that way, according to…
Will a new staffing model improve Lowe’s customer service?
Lowe’s Home Improvement recently announced layoffs as a part of an effort to “overhaul its staffing model.” The cuts, which will constitute less than one percent of the total staff,…
Is omnichannel cannibalization retail’s biggest challenge?
Retailers are focused on crafting omnichannel shopping experiences which requires investing in developing and integrating different channels. The expectation is that sales performance will improve, yet for most, this doesn’t…
Target shelves robot store and secret e-commerce start-up
Target is cutting back on its innovation project plans to concentrate more on its core business operations after coming off a holiday selling season when same-store sales declined 1.3 percent…
Will retailers beat back the border adjustable tax?
Some of the biggest names in retailing have joined together to launch Americans for Affordable Products, a campaign to defeat the border adjustable tax (BAT). What do you think would…
How will online shopping transform the grocery business?
A new report from the Food Marketing Institute and Nielsen projects that consumer spending for online grocery shopping could reach as much as $100 billion or 20 percent of total…
Has Amazon fundamentally changed the way Americans shop?
Many see little that other retailers can do to come between Amazon.com and the millions of consumers who shop the site. A new research paper looks at what sets Amazon…
How are marketers improving data quality?
While improving data quality is the biggest challenge to marketing data success, it’s also easily the most important objective of a marketing data strategy, according to new research from Ascend2…
Will free two-day shipping give Walmart an edge over Amazon?
Walmart announced earlier today that it will now offer free two-day shipping with no annual fee for orders placed on walmart.com. Will Walmart’s free two-day shipping offer substantially improve the…
Should the Monday after the Super Bowl be a national holiday?
Kraft Heinz, doesn’t expect to get much out of its salaried workers on the Monday following the Super Bowl, so the company has decided to give them the day off,…
Will feel and touch tech transform mobile marketing and commerce?
While much of advertising appeals to sight and sound, haptic feedback is arriving to add feeling and texture to mobile devices. The technology basically adds forms of physical feedback to…
Should Macy’s have never gone national?
Federated’s 2005 acquisition of May Department Stores promised scale. Heralded as “truly an exciting day in American retailing,” the merger, in retrospect, obliterated the department store category’s greatest strengths…
Walmart balances motivation across pay levels
Walmart is looking to motivate new associates with faster pay hikes while placating senior workers bothered by the steady wage upgrades for newcomers. Do you think it is more important…
Starbucks battles mobile pick-up congestion
The Mobile Order & Pay app has been such as success for Starbucks that it’s causing bottlenecks in its highest-volume stores at peak times and leading some impatient customers to…
