Live shopping has been off to a slow start in the U.S. retail market. Is it a viable growth channel moving forward?

Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath spoke to Retail TouchPoints regarding the keys to a successful turnaround. Will his strategy work?

Super Bowl LIX is shaping up to be a massive retail event aside from the game itself. Is the big game becoming an omnichannel shopping holiday?

At the Let’s Grow! 2024 Walmart Marketplace Seller Summit this week, Walmart unveiled several major developments. How might these new initiatives influence the evolution of niche markets and specialty retail segments?

A recent survey finds small retailers falling short of delivering a convenient online experience. Where do you see smaller stores at a disadvantage to larger chains in digital-facing technologies?

The importance of omnichannel operations is well established, and that is driving customer expectations higher than ever. How do you expect the omnichannel experience to evolve in the coming years?

eTail Boston’s main theme this year revolved around the art of cultivating personalized customer relationships in an omnichannel landscape. How are you creating a harmonious omnichannel experience for your customers?

A study from Coresight Research found traffic at U.S. shopping malls has strongly recovered to surpass pre-Covid levels. Is talk of “dying shopping malls” an oversimplification, or does it hold some merit?

Lindsay Mikos, senior director of omnichannel strategy and programs at Walgreens, spoke about the retail pharmacy chain’s moves to build out and maintain its super-fast omnichannel fulfillment options, including 30-minute pickup, In a session at the Internet Retailer Conference & Expo in Chicago last week.

IKEA plans to spend over $2.2 billion over the next three years to support its omnichannel growth strategy in the U.S.

So how does Foot Locker plan to up its game? Foot Locker sees storytelling as key to better digital experiences.

Best Buy Health is focused on enabling medical care at home with three focus areas: wellness, aging and care.

Target plans to invest $100 million by the end of 2026 to open six new sortation centers as it seeks to increase the number of next-day orders it fulfills while simultaneously lowering its costs. How do you expect Target’s sortation centers to affect its in-store and last-mile operations?

Walmart is closing its two pickup- and deliver-only concept stores in the Chicago suburb of Lincolnwood and in Bentonville, AR.  What do Walmart’s store closings and new store openings from startups like Addie’s say about the viability of pickup-only grocery stores?

Ron Margulis thinks that if a technology company could capture the essence of a merchant in every sense of the word, they would have something truly unique to offer food retailers. A genie in a retail bottle. What technology innovations can best help supermarket operators engage their customers?

Sam’s Club plans to open a new warehouse club next year in Florida. It will be the first new club the chain has opened since 2017. Is Sam’s Club on the right track with its plans to open new clubs and fulfillment and distribution centers?

E-commerce has proven to be a huge area of growth for off-price luxury retailer Saks Off Fifth. In a keynote presentation at the NRF 2023 Big Show, Paige Thomas, president and CEO of Saks Off Fifth, explained about the retailer’s moves to capitalize on it.  What do you make of Saks Off Fifth’s belief that its online business will one day generate more revenue than its stores?

DTC retail is not getting the positive buzz it did a few years ago — far from it. In fact, downturns among major DTC brands have some industry experts thinking that the model might be on its way out. Do you see CTC (connect-to-consumer) as being meaningfully different from DTC and will embracing different pathways to the customer give brands an advantage?

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for retail, perhaps the biggest. A record number of consumers are expected to go shopping tomorrow (AKA Super Saturday), according to a forecast by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. How important will Super Saturday be to retail’s final results for the 2022 holiday selling season?

Best Buy customers watching its livestream shopping events will now have the option of placing orders for in-store pickup. It marks the first time that pickup is being offered on a live shopping platform that is embeddable anywhere online. Will having the option of ordering an item from a livestream shopping event for in-store pickup make these shows more attractive to a larger number of consumers?

Lowe’s last week updated its plan to drive market share growth in the home improvement category. The chain’s “Total Home Strategy” seeks to achieve growth across five areas: professional contractors and construction professionals, online sales, installation services, localization and elevated product assortment. What are the keys to Lowe’s achieving the goals of its Total Home Strategy?

A columnist at The Wall Street Journal has found some “nits to pick” with Kroger following the grocery giant’s release of its third quarter earnings results and its recent deal to merge with Albertsons, including a lack of progress by Kroger on the digital front. How do Kroger’s digital operations stand up to its competitors in the grocery space?

Simon Property Group is partnering with retail real estate platform Leap to give digital native brands with no or limited physical footprints a brick-and-mortar location in its shopping malls. What does it take for digital native brands to be successful in brick-and-mortar environments?

Walmart’s savings message is resonating with Americans across income levels and helping the company dramatically reduce its inventory in the process. How likely is it that the new customers coming to Walmart for groceries will stick with the chain once inflation becomes less of a factor?

Panera Bread has announced plans to roll out two smaller concepts to reach to-go customers in dense urban areas. Urban Core is about 40 percent smaller than Panera’s traditional bakery-cafes, and Panera To-Go doesn’t have any dine-in seating and features all-digital ordering. Are digital-only or digital-first restaurants the future of fast food and fast casual?

With its high-quality products, value proposition and knowledgeable and friendly staff, Trader Joe’s often finds itself at or near the top of various industry “best of” lists. However, the quirky chain may still face some challenges as it expands. What do you think Trader Joe’s needs to work on?

And now for something completely different. Target today said that it plans to open new larger-format stores with new reimagined open layouts designed to better meet the needs of the chain’s guests (AKA customers).  Is Target on the right track with its new, larger store format and new design?

New research shows that Americans are shifting more of their Christmas shopping to stores this year rather than placing orders online.  Do you expect to see a significant shift back to shopping in stores over the balance of the Christmas shopping season?

Instacart has unveiled Connected Stores, a bundle of six Instagram-linked technologies aiming to combine the convenience, speed and personalization of online grocery shopping with the inspiration and discovery that happens in physical stores. Does Instacart’s Connected Stores suite appear to go a long way in bridging the online and offline grocery shopping experience?

Sephora’s shops inside of JCPenney stores are long gone with the beauty retailer having found a new home inside of Kohl’s. Penney, for its part, has moved on with a new “hyper-inclusive” beauty concept of its own that will be available at all the chain’s locations by next spring. Will JCPenney Beauty’s inclusivity branding and its pairing with JCPenney Salons draw customers to its stores?

With today’s shoppers interacting with retailers on their phones, through social media, websites and countless other modes, “unboxed retail” has created a dilemma for many retail formats anchored on street corners across America. What factors have become more important in guiding retail success amid increasingly “wherever, whenever, however” shopping behavior?

Kohl’s thinks that it has developed a better buy online, pickup in-store system. The retailer Wednesday said it is rolling out self-pickup on eligible orders at all of its more than 1,100 stores, with “no lines in sight.” How does Kohl’s stack up against retail rivals in terms of convenience?

Target wants to speed up its fulfillment of online orders using local stores to get the job done. The retailer yesterday said it is adding three new sortation centers over the next year to the six it currently operates. Where do you think Target is heading operationally with its “stores-as-hubs” strategy?

Online grocery shopping is a weekly habit of a segment of the population, according to a new study. What do the weekly use statistics for delivery and pickup mean for grocery operations?

Mall operator Simon Property Group is testing a search tool that lets shoppers see what’s in stock in stores inside the mall. How much appeal will an inventory check tool such as Simon Search offer to mall shoppers?

A new report found 54.3 percent of U.S. adults had purchased groceries online in the past 12 months, well above the 36.9 percent doing so in the pre-pandemic 2019 year but down from 59 percent in the 2021 survey. Do you see the shift toward online grocery shopping in the U.S. retreating or creeping rather than accelerating ahead over the next few years?

Sam’s Club will start charging most members a $4 curbside-pickup fee after June 28. Free curbside pickup was traditionally reserved for Plus members, but the fee was waived “for a limited time” for Standard members in June 2020 in light of the pandemic. Should retailers offer free curbside pickup, at least with minimum orders?

Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has been saying that the department store company he leads is a different and better retailer than it has been in the past. The chain’s most recent quarterly results don’t appear to do anything to disprove that assertion. Are you becoming a Macy’s believer?

Nordstrom pushed aside the gray cloud hovering over retail the past week with a first-quarter earnings report that shows luxury customers are still shopping despite rising prices. Do you expect Nordstrom’s full-line and Rack stores to continue doing well through the rest of 2022, even if inflation persists?

Convenience store customers increasingly want to be able to place their food orders beforehand via an app, according to a new study. Will all big convenience store chains eventually need apps to facilitate advance ordering and delivery?

Nordstrom has unveiled plans to open its first Nordstrom Local pop-up in Southampton from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day. Do pop-ups make sense for Nordstrom Local in other locales or is the Hamptons a unique situation?

Walmart seems to have improved its public image a lot over the past few years, but a new study indicates that consumers are still not huge fans of shopping in the retail giant’s stores. Why do you think customers that love Walmart’s low prices remain dissatisfied with the shopping experience?

UBS has forecast that 40,000 to 50,000 stores will close in the U.S. by the end of 2026, downwardly revising research from April 2021. Part of the reason is because physical stores have shown their value over the course of the pandemic. Do you agree that “stores have proven their critical role” over the pandemic and, if so, in what ways?

Nordstrom on Monday said that it is consolidating leadership for its full-line department stores and its Rack off-price concept under one team in an effort to deliver on its strategy of providing customers seamless shopping experiences across its digital and physical store platforms. What do you see as the pros and cons of Nordstrom’s plan?

The startup Fresh Street has opened Chicago’s first curbside pickup-only grocery store with a promise to save time and money for shoppers. Will a curbside pickup-only grocery store be appealing to large numbers of consumers?

Warby Parker now sees room to open over 900 stores in the U.S. to support its newer growth opportunities. Was Warby Parker always destined to open an extensive chain of stores or has the expansion into progressive lenses, contacts and eye exams created more urgency around store openings?

Americans may be concerned about rising food and fuel prices, but Petco Health + Wellness Company CEO Ron Coughlin isn’t expecting that worry to have a negative effect on his company’s business. Do you agree that pet products are highly resistant to inflation and an economic downturn?

Giant Food last week did away with the $2.95 fee it was charging customers to pick up their online grocery orders at 159 of the supermarket chain’s stores. Will Giant Food’s strategy of cutting minimum orders and fulfillment fees help the chain substantially increase its online business?

More than two years into the novel coronavirus pandemic and retailers are still searching for answers. What can retailers do to competitively fund the initiatives captured in Deloitte’s survey?

Office Depot is combining humanity and technology to become more customer focused. Are retailers generally more focused on technology than human intelligence? Is store personnel expertise leveraged as much as it should be?