Ted Hurlbut

Count me as not sold. Much of this has been tried before with little success. Transitioning from a promotional pricing model to ELDP is particularly problematic. Customers have been trained to equate value with discount percentages. Customers respond to promotional offerings. There's very little about ELDP which creates any...

Showrooming looks like THE major challenge that bricks 'n' mortar retailers are going to face over the next few years. They are caught, because technology is now on the side of consumers, and online retailing has a fundamental economic advantage that's not going away. They can sell for less...

How do you step back off a slippery slope once you've stepped out onto it? Once you start down the price promotion path, it's very hard if not impossible to turn back. Once you start price promoting, you train customers to continually think in terms of discount percentages. Before...

I'd like to take a slightly different tack on this. Mr. Ratner attributes much of his recent success to his "aggressive utilization of online channels." I have no doubt that's true.

By definition, independent retailers have finite resources. The most obvious of those resources is financial, but it's not...

Data is a wonderful thing; it can speak to us with great nuance, but you have to be able to extract from that data relevant information and actionable knowledge, and then you have to be able to execute on that knowledge. I don't think many retailers can really do...

Retail pay is what it is because retailers have convinced themselves that there is no return on investment at higher skill levels and wage rates. Many of us might disagree, but it's important to remember that most of the major chains are selling highly competitive, highly price-sensitive commodities or...

The differences between the restaurant business and corporate retailing are pretty stark, even between chain restaurants and chain retailing. The restaurant business is all about experience and differentiation. Customer-facing staff is an essential component of that differentiation.

Corporate retailing is all about delivering commodities or near-commodities at the lowest...

Will retail in 2012 be flat, up 2%, or up 4%? I don't think any of us know. The one thing we all seem to agree on is that any increases will be modest.

As a result, business fundamentals will continue to be important. The plan won't be as important...

Ok, so I admit I might be a bit over my head on this, but if Lampert were to take this thing private, wouldn't he have to come up with a fair amount of capital to finance the transaction? And who exactly would want to invest in this thing...

I think we need to differentiate between the types of retailers we're discussing, and the types of products they sell.

If we're talking about the major national retailers and the commodities they sell, then coupons are just another way of promoting and discounting. For those retailers, and that merchandise,...