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Best Buy Wants Amazon to Be Its Showroom
When the subject of Best Buy’s struggles comes up, the term “Amazon’s showroom” comes up as illustrative of the challenges facing the chain. Now Best Buy announced it has hired…
Aldi Grows in New York City – Quietly
Aldi has opened its fifth New York City store, but this time it’s a bit more special because the store is in Manhattan, not the outer boroughs, so it may…
BrainTrust Query: Is There a Future for Traditional Supermarkets?
The trend is clear. The growth in the U.S. grocery sector today is not found in traditional supermarket formats but rather with specialty stores. Do you agree that traditional supermarkets…
StorefrontBacktalk: To Survive, Retailers Need to Kill the IT Budget and Burn the Boats
If a retailer really wants to compete with Amazon and the changing realities of today’s retail environment, it needs to kill the IT budget, disband the IT Steering Committee and…
Woman Says Employment Test Was Biased
A recent Wall Street Journal story described how a hearing and speech impaired woman in West Virginia brought a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Kroger after scoring…
Peapod Rapidly Expands Virtual Grocery Stores to More Cities
Peapod, which began testing a virtual grocery store using QR codes in train stations in the Philadelphia and Chicago areas earlier in the year, announced yesterday that it is launching…
Older Consumers Can Learn New Tricks
According to research from Nielsen Neurofocus, a research company that studies how people’s brains respond to advertising, packaging, products, and shopping experiences, though some neural decline is inevitable, older people…
FTC Puts Greenwashers on Notice
The Federal Trade Commission has issued new marketing guidelines intended to clarify what the agency considers to be truthful claims about a product or company’s eco-friendliness. How widespread do…
Walmart’s Local Facebook Approach Not Cutting It
At least when it comes to Facebook, local businesses are significantly better at engaging with customers than is Walmart, according to a new study by social media metrics firm Recommend.ly…
Retail Customer Experience: Three Examples of Radical Differentiation at Lululemon
Earlier this year, a Wall Street Journal article discussed the “secret sauce” to Lululemon’s strategy, which has propelled it to become a $1 billion retailer in less than 15 years…
Smartphone Users Seek More Than Shopping Tools
According to a study from Google, smartphone users are looking to companies’ mobile sites much more for customer service than to conduct sales. And those failing to deliver not only…
Big Boxes to Fade Away in Retail’s Polarized Future
An interesting thing happens when you read the new Retailing 2020 report from PwC US and Kantar Retail. You get the distinct impression that you’ve actually experienced many of the…
Superheroes Rescue Healthy Food, Too
Stick pictures of kids’ favorite characters, games, or prizes on packs of your product and you will sell more. Now researchers at Cornell University show it can work for marketing…
H&M Says Omni-Channel Can Wait in U.S.
It’s not enough to just open a store today, merchants need to offer a seamless 24/7 experience across a variety of digital channels including online, mobile and social. Yet the…
RSR Research: What’s So Big About Big Data?
Today, the term “big data” is getting tossed around like a football, used to describe everything from video analytics to merchandise planning. What’s your technical as well as more basic…
Gooch Out, RadioShack Begins Search for New CEO
Just when you think things have sunk just about as low as they can go at RadioShack, the latest announcement from the consumer electronics chain is that Jim Gooch, RadioShack’s…
Clinic Treats Corpulent Canines and Fat Felines
We’ve heard about pets and owners that resemble each other. One area of resemblance comes in body type: portly people often own plump pets. Do you see a business opportunity…
Fresh Market CEO Sees Room for Specialty Grocery Growth
With Whole Foods, The Fresh Market, Natural Grocers and others touting aggressive expansion plans, Craig Carlock, Fresh Market’s president and CEO, believes there is still opportunity for specialty formats to…
Buc-ee’s Gives Consumers Two Reasons to Shop: #1 and #2
Buc-ee’s, the c-store and gas station operator with 26 locations in the Central & Gulf Coast region of Texas, gets a lot credit for its offerings and prices, but it’s…
Food Cos. Get Social with Young Adults
Today’s received wisdom seems to be that young people are so wired to technology that it’s the only way to reach them. At least, it’s the best and most effective…
Retailers Get the Short End of the iPhone 5
This story sounds familiar. Apple launches a new iPhone. People go crazy to get it, and demand outweighs supply. Supply shortages are particularly noticeable in stores and websites of companies…
