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Commentary and Discussion From the Retail Community
The Girls Put Off Shopping for School
Kids, like many other consumers, have gotten it in their minds that it makes sense to make purchases when it fits their schedule and not one determined by retailers. The…
BrainTrust Query: Are Wal-Mart’s new ‘fashion merchants’ the answer to improving the retailer’s apparel business?
“Fashion Emergency At Wal-Mart” is the title of BusinessWeek’s July 31st edition article. It may be hyperbolizing to suggest alarm bells ringing at Wal-Mart headquarters, but it appears that management…
Filene’s Remodels Basement
Filene’s Basement is moving from its heritage of offering steep discounts on designer merchandise. It is, as a Boston Globe report points out, looking to broaden its horizons by offering…
Automated Ordering: What are the possibilities?
Al McClain recently met with SAF – AG of Switzerland, a company that promises that great things are in store for retailers who adopt automated ordering. Not being an IT…
Scott: Rollbacks Trump Gas Hikes
Wal-Mart’s CEO Lee Scott is keenly aware that the price of gas has hit an all-time high. But he’s confident in his company’s ability to continue achieving growth in its…
Edward Lampert: The Straight Shooter
Not many believed Sears Holdings’ Edward Lampert when he said he wanted to return Sears and Kmart to their glory days as retail chains. Most, it’s pretty safe to say,…
Spanish for Retailers Pays Off
Tyrone Wicks, a manager of a RadioShack store, didn’t care much for Spanish the year he took it in high school. Now, he’s finding that understanding the language is both…
Wal-MartSpace.com?
In a strategy to attract 13-18 year old kids and their back-to-school dollars, Wal-Mart has launched a teen networking and content sharing site called “The Hub.” Unlike sites, such as…
The Reality (Show) of Macy’s Business
Macy’s is about to become the first retailer profiled on a reality television program. Let’s hope for Macy’s and its employees that it comes across better than some of the…
The Seasonal Workers Customer Service Mystery
Retailers and restaurants may add staff during summer months by hiring seasonal workers, but according to 75 percent of mystery shoppers who earlier this month attended the Mystery Shopping Providers…
Meal Assembly – A New Marketing Platform for Brands
New types of retail store formats pop up all the time, but of the concepts of the past few years claiming to be truly unique, meal assembly centers may actually…
Home Depot Gets Into Ad Sales
Call it an opportunity to educate consumers or a means to improve relations with an important retail customer. Whatever you call it, there is little doubt that Home Depot’s decision…
Gadgets and Clothes Top Back-to-School Shopping Lists
Mom and Dad are going to be plunking down more dollars this year as they send their kids off to the school. That’s the findings of the National Retail Federation’s…
Blogs: Retailing Angel or Demon?
What’s the deal with blogs? Blogs may be a great opportunity for retailers and marketers and/or a big pain in the neck. To Al McClain, blogs feel like chaos…
Study: Connection Between Good Health and Chicago Supermarkets
A new study, Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago, finds a direct correlation between access to grocery stores in local neighborhoods and the health of…
Couche-Tard Looks for More Acquisitions
The Canadian convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard is looking to continue to grow in 2007 and the company’s CEO says it expects much of that growth to come from acquisitions…
BrainTrust Query: How can suppliers choose “Big Winner” retail partners?
Many consumer packaged goods manufacturers use jargon such as “Winning with Winning Customers” to describe how they decide which key accounts deserve the greatest alignment of resources in “win-win” collaborations…
The Target of Cool
You won’t find any of these Target branded clothes at the discount retailer’s stores, but the chain is hoping that the buzz around the newly introduced high-end Target Couture clothing…
Macy’s Looks to Reward Loyal Customers
When Federated Department Stores makes the final switch from the Marshall Field’s banner to Macy’s, it is safe to say many of Field’s most loyal customers will not be automatically…
BrainTrust Query: How do we break the retailer/manufacturer impasse on effective In-Store Marketing?
With consumers able to buy bread in Walgreen’s just as readily as in Wegmans, grabbing the consumer’s attention whenever and wherever they shop is critical. The industry is addressing this…
Publix Opens Laboratory
There’s nothing in the new Publix flagship store in Mandarin, Florida that is so different than other stores operated by the chain. What’s different about it is that the new…
