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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Retail TouchPoints: Transforming Inventory Strategies For Omni-Channel Success
The growing focus on online and offline data integration — as well as enabling flexible, multichannel purchasing and delivery options — all are part of a single goal: To understand…
Women Hate Clothes Shopping
Actually, one-third of women hate clothes shopping. Well, it’s really one-third of women in the U.K. In truth, it is one-third of U.K. women who were surveyed by an online…
Liars Go Shopping with Pants on Fire
Sorry Virginia, people sometimes lie. And, at least according to a study from the University of Sydney, retailers should consider letting shoppers who lie during a service encounter get away…
Kroger Dressed for Success in Clothing Test
It doesn’t seem that long ago when professionals within the food industry were debating whether or not Walmart would be successful selling groceries. Now comes news that Kroger, a company…
Retailers Adding Staff as Holiday Prospects Brighten
Retailers are looking to follow a strong Back-to-School period with another positive (post Great Recession) Christmas selling season and that’s good news for job seekers. Have retailers adequately increased or…
Walmart Also Fires the Kindle
Following a similar move by Target in the spring, Walmart revealed Thursday that it will stop selling Amazon’s Kindle tablet line. Why do you think Walmart pulled the Kindle? Was…
FRBuyer: Is Publix Missing Its Rewards Card?
While earning wide praise for its service from customers and for its fairness and refusal to use slotting fees from vendors, a weakness of Publix, observers say, may be in…
Independent Workaholics
According to a report from England’s Association of Convenience Stores (ACS), some 60 percent of Britain’s convenience store shopkeepers work more than 50 hours in an average week, with few…
Walmart Rolls Out Eat-Healthy Insurance Discount
In the first such program between a major retailer and an insurance company, Walmart is partnering with Humana to offer discounts for choosing healthier and more-nutritious foods. Should insurance companies…
CPGmatters: Heinz Measures Shopper Behavior To Spur Traffic Flow and Sales
By deploying sophisticated video analysis, Heinz uncovered some key insights around maximizing category adjacencies and end caps in the frozen food aisle. What lessons does the Heinz “Frozen Aisle Benchmarking”…
Urban Outfitters’ Opening Rates Local Incentives
Local officials last week awarded incentives to support the opening of a store to drive traffic and support local business. But in Knoxville, TN, that retailer is not some huge…
BrainTrust Query: The Fallacies Behind Showrooming Hysteria
Book authors, trade journal reporters, consulting firms, and influential bloggers can fill marketing teams’ heads with some really bad ideas. Pundits’ predictions from years ago about TV’s demise were wrong…
Stores Achieve Success by Design
Findings from the Benchmarks for 2011, Forecasts for 2012 report by the NRF Foundation and KPMG LLP, discovered a renewed commitment by merchants to engage shoppers through a variety of…
Waitrose’s Tweet Draws Some Twits
A Twitter campaign by Waitrose, the U.K. supermarket chain, aimed at fans of the chain wound up attracting herds of detractors and jokesters. How should the risks of criticism be…
Is Nordstrom Perfect?
At Shop.org, a keynote presentation by Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct, got us thinking: Is Nordstrom really “perfect” or might we learn from their failings as well? Does it…
CSD: The Benefits of Vendor Management Conferences
Aligning your vendors to a common business vision is a daunting task. In many cases, vendors for retail outlets number in the hundreds, if not thousands. Are you a big…
Election Time Drivers
Flip Flop Shops, a retail franchise with more than 60 locations, last week became the latest retailer or brand to seek to capitalize on election fervor by releasing a limited…
Study: Big Data Remains Work in Progress
According to a survey, 60 percent of retailers are initiating strategies aimed at harnessing the power of ‘Big Data,’ but little progress has been made and the understanding of its…
BrainTrust Query: The Participative Leader
Some of the best leaders go far beyond managing people. They’re active participants in the success of their staff and their business. What defines ‘true leadership’ in a store owner…
NYC Soda Ban Scares Beverage World
New York last week became the first city in the nation to ban the sale at certain establishments of soda and other calorie-rich drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces…
Apple Genius Training Secrets Revealed!
In leaking a recent copy of Apple’s “Genius Training” manual, Gizmodo writer Sam Biddle described the document both as “an exhaustive manual to understanding customers…” and more darkly as a…
