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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
Getting the Ratings You Pay For
Deceptive reviews on e-tail sites are not a new problem. A New York Times article that says a seller of cases for tablet devices, VIP Deals, offered to rebate Amazon…
Delhaize Offers Bottom Dollar Deals in Pittsburgh
Limited assortment grocery stores have been on a growth tear in recent years as consumers go in search of extreme savings in tough times. Delhaize has an answer to this…
Penney CEO Brings ‘Reality Distortion Field’ From Apple
Current J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson must have spent a lot of time with Steve Jobs when he was at Apple because it appears as though he too has the…
CSD: Are Customers Always Right?
As anyone even remotely associated with the service industry will tell you, the customer is king. But a new book is challenging that theory and takes a critical look at…
Stores to Workers: Wear What You Sell
This is one of those stories that just won’t go away. Stores are still being called out for pressuring staff to wear clothing they sell without fully reimbursing them. When…
Starbucks Looks to Put Life Into Nighttime Business
According to reports, Starbucks is expanding a six-location West Coast test of beer and wine sales to as many as 25 locations around the country by the end of the…
BrainTrust Query: Reinventing Innovation Processes is About Behavior
With 80 percent of new products failing and with most of the breakthroughs actually being line extensions, the CPG approach to innovation is broken and must be reinvented. BrainTrust panelist…
Sevenly Takes ‘Do Good’ Approach to Building Business
Cause marketing to the power of seven. That’s the hook of Sevenly, a California start-up that sells t-shirts and hoodies for periods of seven days and donates $7 (30 percent)…
Target Looks to Battle Pricing Apps
Target Corp. is exploring pricing changes to counter the practice of “showrooming,” or using mobile pricing apps to check out and scan the price of products in stores only to…
CPGmatters: What Marketers Need to Know About Today’s Category Management Process
Category management has historically been a defined eight-step process that has been somewhat tactical and was very much influenced by the Efficient Consumer Response initiative of the 1990s. But the…
Sam’s Club’s Executive Shuffle
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. last Friday said that Brian Cornell, who is credited with helping Sam’s Club regain its sales momentum, is leaving the company. Rosalind Brewer, who ran Walmart’s eastern…
Penney to Switch to EDLP?
According to reports, J.C. Penney will shift from a high-low pricing model to something closer to everyday low pricing (EDLP) as a central thrust of its reinvention under new CEO…
NRF: Independents’ Renaissance Begins Online
Last Monday at NRF was “Independents Day.” One of this year’s speakers was Dave Ratner, owner of Dave’s Soda and Pet City, whose aggressive utilization of online channels has made…
Paula Deen: Diabetes Drug Spokesperson?
A foodie uproar erupted after Paula Deen, the Food Network star known for her fat-laden recipes, disclosed that she had diabetes while also announcing that she had signed on as…
The Fallacy of the Connected Consumer’s Love of Mobile Apps
Many marketers appear to be making assumptions about consumer shopping preferences based on the skyrocketing adoption rates of new technology. However, a new study on the habits of “connected consumers”…
NRF: More Effective Store Management Via Technology
Effectively managing store associates is an age-old retail issue, but Aeropostale believes 21st century technology can be an answer to this challenge. A presentation at this week’s National Retail Federation…
Walmart Follows TV in Search for Star Attractions
The various talent search shows on television have nothing on Walmart. The world’s largest retailer has launched its very own search for talent, the kind that creates innovative new products,…
NRF: Hospitality Dwarfs Service
Danny Meyer, CEO and founder of Union Square Hospitality Group, believes providing good service is only a starting point to delivering on customers’ expectations. Instead, hospitality is where retailers should…
NRF: Retail Means Jobs (Good Jobs?)
A major theme of this week’s National Retail Federation 101st Annual Convention was that “Retail Means Jobs.” And NRF supported that contention by citing lots of statistics related to retail…
NRF: Why Are Retailers Still Complaining About Big Data?
We hear the complaints about all the data that is now being captured in retail leading to “a plethora of data but a dearth of wisdom.” BrainTrust panelist Bill Bittner…
NRF: Retailers and Suppliers Upbeat About 2012
Everything is good in retail land. At least that was the consensus of attendees RetailWire spoke with at the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Big Show over the past couple of…
