A Look Back: Our Favorite 2018 Retail Trends

2018 is over…finally! It was a long year – one that started with the Winter Olympics (yes, we had the Olympics this year) and high schoolers eating Tide Pods. In retail news, we said goodbye to Toys”R”Us, hello to oat

Calculated Risk: A Marketing Lesson Learned from the Nike Kaepernick Gamble

Last year’s Nick Foles Super Bowl trick play on 4th down for the TD. Going for the three-point buzzer beater and the Big Dance win. The defensive slide tackle on a counter that’s either a PK or a game-saving stop at

Rotating Pop-Up Retail — The Trick to Compelling Return Visits

Everyone loves good pop-up retail. With inventive cross-brand partnerships and creative merchandising, you entice customers into your store for an exciting purchasing experience. And there’s the rub. One pop-up. One experience. One visit. Why not turn one visit into two?

The Pinterest to Retail Revolution: Leveraging the Platform to Inspire Younger Shoppers

Decorations for a birthday cake. Patterns for a knit sweater. Innovative ideas for bedroom organization. Pinterest to retail. Pinterest has become the place for finding inspiration for retail DIY projects. This is especially true for the younger generations. Sixty-seven percent of

Blending Work and Play Through Workplace Pop-Ups

Across the nation, millions of people are locked into work every day from 9 to 5 – and often even longer. For retailers, this time frame coincides almost exactly with their stores’ hours of operation. But there’s a new way

Squeezed by Retail Returns: E-commerce’s Bane Is Brick & Mortar’s Advantage

Like so many bad habits, it started out innocently. First it was two, then it became four. Before you knew it, it was up to eight. At first, it felt like a dirty little secret. Now, it’s out in the

The Rise of the Microbrands

Across the country, a dichotomy is taking place on store shelves: well-known (and well-funded) products are now elbow to elbow with small, emerging microbrands. The up-and-comers aren’t necessarily spin-offs, developed in the R&D facility of some large conglomerate. These new

Give Back, Get More: Pop-Up for Social Good

Consumer loyalty has shifted: more than corporate incentives, millennials crave social good. Younger generations are putting their money where their mouths are, favoring companies and brands that align themselves with a worthy cause. And now their parents are jumping on

Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries: A Modern Lesson in Retail

When legalized recreational marijuana burst onto the scene across eight states, a whole new category of retailer emerged too: recreational marijuana dispensaries. Long gone are the days of sketchy head shops with dark paneling, dim lighting and dodgy-looking shelves. In

Pop-up and Stand Out! Ways to Maximize Pop-up Shop Merchandising

Pop-up shops may live a temporary life, but when it comes to presentation and display, they require the same merchandising care as a permanent location. And pop-up shop merchandising may even demand greater creativity.

Four Ways to Flex Your Fulfillment

Any business with a strong brick-and-mortar footprint has a real advantage when it comes to distribution and fulfillment. So how do we best utilize space, inventory, and technology to get products to customers faster and at the most reasonable price? By being flexible!

Click here for a look at four of the fundamentals of flexible fulfillment.

Infographic: Why the Pop-Up Shop is Revolutionizing Retail

We like to call pop-up shops “lean retail,” because they’re the fastest—and most affordable—way to test new ideas and learn what’s working and what’s not. On top of that, they’re an ideal channel for exploring, reinventing, and reinvigorating your brand.Our infographic focuses on the game-changing ability of pop-up shops to enhance and strengthen your entire brand offering.

Tomorrow’s Shoppers, Today: Marketing to Post-Millennials

Millennials have been thoroughly poked, prodded, and picked apart—so we thought it’d be fun to shift our attention to the generation to come. No one can seem to agree yet on what it should be called—Post, Plural, Homeland, Gen Z, Gen S(creen), Gen 9/11, Re-Gen?—but there’s a lot of anticipation building around what its members will be like and how they’ll shop. Find out what the future of marketing holds!

Pop-up or Perish!

Whether you’re a brand that’s been established for decades or a start-up still trying to carve out an audience, a well-planned, well-executed pop-up shop can provide a greatly expanded following for a relatively small investment. What’s more, pop-ups don’t just

Eight Primal Shopping Typologies

Traditional customer segmentation research has a single starting point. But all shoppers are not created equal. The smart retailer will take a broader perspective and look at the consumer’s worldview as she enters the realm of the brand. We call

Are You Fluent in “Customer?”

One of the most powerful secrets about communication is that words, ideas and symbols have different meanings for different groups of people. Take the word “life,” for example. Zen Buddhists consider “life” to be an adventure, while executives in Hartford,

Six Generations at Retail

For the first time in history, six generations of shoppers – each with very specific experiences, standards, attitudes and desires – fill American retail locations. How you interact with these consumers and tailor the brand experience for each can impact