An All-Encompassing Trend: Why Health and Wellness Retail Is About More Than Vitamins
The start of the new year can only mean one thing: it’s time for resolutions. And for many consumers, that list of goals for the upcoming year starts with wellness through healthy choices. Health and wellness retail is their starting
Achieving an Authentic Edge: The Brandless Impact Opportunity
Everyone has heard the old adage “less is more.” Maybe you even live by the acronym KISS – “keep it simple, stupid.” But where and how does this minimalistic philosophy lend itself to retail? If you’re one of the biggest
E-Commerce Pop-Ups Deliver a Much-Needed Physical Presence to Online Retail
Once upon a time, pop-ups were simply opportunistic. A way for retailers to generate extra sales in empty storefronts, a low-cost solution for emerging businesses hoping to gain a toehold in a market, or a way for big-buck brands to
Retail Storytelling: Uniting Products Under a Theme
The Night Before Christmas, The Polar Express, The Gift of the Magi, Love & Latkes. Who doesn’t love a great story? During the holidays, everyone cuddles up with our favorite seasonal stories. Now, storytelling is extending to how you merchandise, not
Rethinking Consumer Retail Tech to Target Younger Audiences
Over the past decade, consumer retail tech has advanced rapidly. Flat-screen televisions, gaming consoles and MP3 players used to dominate the market, sold primarily at big-name tech stores like Best Buy. Today, smartphones and other smart devices lead tech sales
The Original Holiday Pop-Up: What Retailers Can Learn from Spirit Halloween
Holiday pop-up retail defies expectations. The so-called retail apocalypse has in fact claimed a lot of victims. Circuit City, Toys”R”Us, Borders are all resting peacefully in the graveyard of “shoppings past”. But amidst all of the passings, there’s one retailer
Leveraging In-Store Shopping Technology
These days, who doesn’t shop without a smartphone glued to their hand or tucked into a pocket? Rather than fight the wave of smartphone apps or limit technology to the check-out area, brick-and-mortar brands should join the rising tide. In-store
The New Wellness Retail Opportunity: Beauty from Within
Wellness retail has gotten increasingly popular over the past few years. But this year, the category is on fire, becoming a trend that is fueling and influencing consumers’ lives and retailers’ behavior. Beyond just natural products and healthy foods, health
Retail Sales Staff Training: Your On-Site and Online Secret Weapon
A user-friendly site. Chat features. Strong images. E-commerce retailers have been using these UX tactics and more to humanize the online shopping experience. But all told, in the realm of personal warmth, human interaction, humor and caring, e-commerce can’t stand toe-to-toe with the in-store experience…and it probably never will. You may
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
How Retail Technology Helps Mass Merch Make Human Connections
Technology is everywhere. We pay with our smartphones, ask a virtual assistant for a weather update and keep our lives on an invisible cloud. And that’s just as consumers. But what about retail technology? In the retail space, companies constantly
Plants, Fizz and the Pursuit of Healthiness at the 2018 Fancy Food Show
Three days. Six football fields of walking, 2,600 exhibitor stands, 200,000 specialty products. Eating our way through the 2018 Fancy Food Show was an exhausting – yet delicious – task. The event was never more timely. The specialty food market is
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
Shopping Physical Stores: The New Fashion Retail Experience Is About Service, Not Products
We’ve been told the opposite again and again, but the truth is consumers still like shopping – and they still enjoy shopping physical stores. In a survey of consumers across age groups and genders, 27% of all consumers found that shopping
Grocery Trends That Are Stimulating In-Store Sales
Food and beverage grocery trends are very much a hot topic, even becoming a default cocktail party, nice-to-meet-you conversation starter. It’s interesting then, with all this focus, physical grocery store expansion slowed in 2017. But that doesn’t mean it was
In-Store Shopper Happiness. Paying Attention Yields Big Results.
How can you tell when a customer is happy? We mean really happy. A smile while she walks out the door? Sales? Repeat sales? The tone of social media posts? How you measure shopper happiness, and the agility with which you
A Case Study in Evolving: How Best Buy Survived to Thrive
Electronics stores are dead. Or so we thought. Best Buy, against all odds, has fought its way back to become once again a thriving electronics chain. Since they had a leadership switch in 2012, Best Buy’s shares have rocketed from
Bringing the Power of the Beauty Vloggers In-Store
Vlogging, or video blogging, is revolutionizing the beauty market. Social media influencers with YouTube channels and Instagram feeds are raking in funds – often enough to subsidize an entire career – to make videos promoting brands. Beauty vloggers dedicate hours
Fetching New Opportunities: Improving the Pet Store Experience
Fido, Buddy, Mr. Cat, Crackers the bird. Americans adore their pets. Millennials, owning 35% of all pets, especially consider themselves more than just pet owners. They’re pet parents,lovingly referring to Spot as their precious child and demanding nothing short of perfection