Editor’s Note: Arick Wierson, a columnist for The Robin Report, has undertaken the formidable task of dissecting and analyzing the broad and far-reaching consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as it relates to global retail. Understandably, we are presenting Wierson’s commentary into serialized lessons. This is the first of a three-part series, Lesson 1: History Doesn’t Repeat Itself … nor Does it Necessarily Rhyme Since it came out in 2020, Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money, has sold more than one million copies and has …
What Retailers Can Learn from Super Bowl LVI’s Groundbreaking Halftime Show
I couldn’t care less about the Bengals or the Rams – in fact, if anything, they both kind of left a sour taste in my mouth because each team had managed to snatch victories from my hometown Minnesota Vikings, beating them by just 3 and 7 points, respectively, during the regular season. But I was really – and I mean really – looking forward to Super Bowl LVI, played last Sunday in Los Angeles because, for the first time ever, the Super Bowl Halftime Show would be featuring five (actually six, as it turned out) living legends of Hip Hop – a first …
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Five Takeaways for Retailers from CES 2022
Well, that was interesting. When CES 2022 came to a close, one day ahead of schedule; attendees were dismissed early as “an additional safety measure” for minimizing the risks of Covid-19. (Apparently the brain trust at the Consumer Technology Association – the entity which produces the annual Las Vegas extravaganza – didn’t think that the risks of Covid-19 would be all that high on the first few days of the show.) The Show Must Go On Granted, show organizers were pretty much in a no-win situation. The pandemic had already forced the …
Will 2022 be the Year of the Dark Horse in Retail?
My father grew up on a farm in central Iowa in the 1930s and 40s, and although life in the post-Depression heartland was pretty harsh, among his fondest memories from his childhood are those of his many horses, each one of them different shades of black. As a youngster, he had a black Shetland Pony named “Spanky.” Then in middle school came “Spot,” a black Murgese. And in his final years of high school, his father – my grandpa, who by this time was feeling a bit less worried with the worst of the Great Depression more than two decades in the …
The Future of the Retail Gas Station
Next time you find yourself on a road trip through Pennsylvania, consider a short detour to the corner of Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street in downtown Pittsburgh. Admittedly, today there is not much to see – nothing more than a nondescript office building abutted by Walter’s Automotive Repair Shop. But back in 1913 this small parcel of land was the site of arguably the biggest revolution in American retail – the advent of the modern gas station; if you know where to look, there is even a historic marker that commemorates America’s “First …
The New Luxury: Sustainable Fashion
What will luxury look like moving forward? Ask a millennial or Gen Z and they will unequivocally say, “Sustainable.” This isn’t just a slogan; it’s becoming an operating principle. We caught up with Tina Bhojwani, the CEO of Aera, the world’s first sustainable luxury footwear brand and a co-founder of Figure Eight, a pop-up installation in New York’s Soho neighborhood dedicated to showcasing an eclectic portfolio of innovative, stylish sustainable luxury goods. Footwear with an Invisible Footprint After an impressive career in the world of …
The Marriage Between Healthcare and Retail: Divorce is Not an Option
Young couples oftentimes struggle in the early years of their marriage as they both adjust to the new life dynamics of sharing everything from bedsheets to bank accounts, and it’s a metaphor that could aptly be used to characterize a great many retail and healthcare newlyweds. Some may argue that hospitals and primary care clinics are actually sheepish retail businesses dressed in wolves’ clothing – ones that happen to be, generally speaking, really, really bad at the customer-experience side of their businesses. Nonetheless, over the last …
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Retail Is the Metaphor for This Moment
Recently was invited to cover a major retail industry event in São Paulo, Brazil entitled Expo Magalu – a one-day extravaganza that brought together, virtually and in-person, over 15,000 small and medium-sized independent retailers for a day of discussion about how to transform traditional brick-and-mortar businesses into omnichannel sellers with a significant ecommerce presence. The array of educational and networking sessions focused on next-generation logistics, payments, online store building, and a host of other related issues – even a …