Ralph Jacobson

Social media will prevail for years to come. Whether it's Facebook or some other channel that emerges, remains to be seen. Remember, only a few years ago MySpace had more subscribers than the 10th largest country has population.

GM didn't cut their advertising on FB for no reason, though.

eCommerce is the most cost-effective and ubiquitous way to drive new profitable growth for both retailers and manufacturers. The more innovative retailers have been doing this for years. This is nothing new, as opposed to what the article states. And we're WAY behind the curve here in the US....

TV and other media influence these folks. There are millions more messages bombarding them than when we were younger. Just think about the tens of millions of FB fans of the top soft drinks.

Millennials intensify most everything we Boomers have done or have been addicted to.... EXCEPT for music......

Retail has had to adapt to all consumer demographics over time, be they minority or otherwise. There are cross-racial product categories in retailers that never existed 20 years ago. This is just one more reason to stay close to your customers!

The culture of retailing is evolving, if slowly, to better embrace technology as a competitive advantage, rather than viewing it traditionally as a cost to manage. The retailers that have the more progressive, competitive advantage perspective are the ones recruiting, attracting, hiring and compensating the talent for their IT...

This is all about increasing the consumers' choice and control of their shopping experience. I believe the in-store clinics will continue to evolve. Much of their success has to do with store location. Some clinics have no traffic, while others thrive. More effort should be put into site selection.

I know from Larry Miller's Supermarket Shrink surveys of the past that customers are inherently honest. For the vast minority of shoppers who are responsible for theft, staffing one employee at the self-checkouts intimidates 99% of them.

Finally, the topic I've been waiting for, so I can explain why I NEVER comment on RetailWire articles that mention my company's clients. (Even though I'm about to do just that!).

Yes, all companies must have social business guidelines available on an external website.

Additionally, while many...

The reality of consumer behavior is that although the loudest voices demand local products, the actual purchase comes to the products with the best value. Price/quality proposition trumps all.

Although this problem has plagued retailers since the dawn of retailing, we seem to have learned little, overall on how to market products. Failure rates of new product introductions exceed 70% today. And yet, with the flood of Bog Data, what is being captured, and what is truly analyzed? ...