Is the small neighborhood store ready to be the next big retail trend?
People enjoy working from home so much that going back to the office five days a week is no longer an option. Being home more often, consumers prefer to shop lo...
The sky won’t fall, and other retail predictions for 2023
The year 2023 is going to be better at retail than expected, especially for those companies that appeal to the higher and lower ends of the market. Those cateri...
Will circular commerce drive traffic to stores?
Resale is enormously popular. In fact, secondhand apparel, according to thredUp, is expected to grow 16x faster than the market for new apparel by 2026. Do you...
Macy’s should have stayed local
When the Federated Department Stores’ merger with May Department Stores was announced, the deal’s promise was pitched to Wall Street with one word: Big. T...
How to save today’s mall
New food ideas and health & wellness both rank highest as concepts that would increase consumers’ visits to the mall, according to an ongoing study from Cushm...
A digital first approach is essential to retail success
Given the recent past, “digital first” has become an edict. It’s how the customer thinks and, subsequently, it must also be how we think. How has the defi...
Retailers must turn stores into ‘anything engines’
Stores exist in a three-dimensional space, but they are one-dimensional in function. Now, consider Amazon: It not only sells whatever it wants, it does whatever...
Amazon has won. Now what?
Amazon.com’s growth story — unprecedented, immense, rocket-like (choose your superlative) — does not come with a happy ending for most retailers. In summa...
Can Walmart turn its haters into lovers?
People who love Walmart, really do love Walmart. That loyalty is built around one theme: price. The bad news is that the people who don’t like Walmart, really...
How should specialty retail respond to Amazon’s apparel push?
Sometime this year, Amazon.com is predicted to become the biggest apparel retailer in the U.S. But, when it comes to fashion, it’s just not a very good one. W...
Dyson believes in showroom stores
The Dyson flagship showroom store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is a product playhouse for appliance lovers and hair dryer fanatics. Is the Dyson showroom model ...
Should showrooms replace closed stores?
The costs of store closings now directly impact online sales, acting the same way a billboard does, reminding people of brands and needs. And just as new stores...
Who will be left standing after the next retail shakeout?
It's apparent that only those retailers embracing at least two of the three fundamental consumer driven strategies in the retail industry will be around much lo...
How disruptive is Alexa to CPG brands?
The existential threat of Alexa should shake brand managers to their core. The in-store marketing model that has ruled the consumer products industry for more t...
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 retrospec...
Ode to retail: Death of the traditional mall
An overstored environment, consumers conditioned for discounts, and Amazon.com have been cited as factors contributing to the death of American malls. But our o...
What airline self-check-in can teach retailers
In 2004, more than 80 percent of airline passengers walked up to the ticket counter and talked to an actual human being before boarding a plane. Today, only abo...
Urban Outfitters’ physical supports its virtual
Urban Outfitters went out of its way late last year to tell analysts that its direct-to-consumer channel was strongly outperforming its stores. If true, why is ...
What will it take to win back the storeless generation?
The Millennial is the storeless generation — a generation raised in a chain-store world, one without third spaces, at least in the classic sense. Do you see s...
Let’s talk about BOPIS (buy online, pickup in store)
According to a recent research study, BOPIS (buy online, pickup in store) is one of the most effective ways retailers can differentiate from, and compete with, ...