The United States has hit the pause button on the economy literally. On March 16 President Trump asked Americans to call a halt to their lives as usual for the next 15 days. Then on March 23, he hinted the shutdown could end on Easter, April 12. But increasingly it looks like it will extend even longer, because the rate of infection has yet to level off, let alone decline. As a result, many of the nation's governors decided more "social distancing" was required, not less. Non-Essential by the Numbers Five of the nation's 11 most populous …
How to Revive Malls After the Coronavirus Lifts
The coronavirus has cast a pall over malls, adding insult to injury for many of the nation's malls already under siege. Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, said, "Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country. It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness." During her briefing, she outlined three …
Amazon’s Luxury Folly
No question, every successful entrepreneur has a certain amount of madness and the more successful they are, the madder. Using that measure, Jeff Bezos, who dreamed a bookstore could become the world's largest retailer, must be the craziest of all as he tops the list as the world's richest person, just ahead of another mad man Bernard Arnault, who leads the luxury juggernaut LVMH. We have come to recognize that madness, in this case, is actually brilliance. Battle of the Titans Earlier this month, Arnault knocked Bezos off his wealth pedestal …
Harnessing Retail’s Girl Power
We've all heard the statistics: Women account or influence between 70-to-80 percent of all household spending. In retail, women outnumber men on the sales floor by a ratio of 2:1. The Mom Project Labs (MP Labs), the research and insights division of the Mom Project which helps businesses build a better workplace for mothers, studied how to use the intersection of those two statistics - more women shoppers and more women retail sales associates - to help retailers build stronger, more resilient and engaging retail experiences. "Because …
Can Lululemon Be to Men What It Is to Women, Or Does It Even Matter?
Back in 2014 when Lululemon introduced its first line of men's wear, it had a lot of people scratching their heads. At the time, Brian Sozzi, at-the-time chief equities strategists at Belus Capital and a contributor to Men's Health, felt the brand was too tightly aligned with women and that it faced an uphill battle to attract men. "I have never been helped by a male store associate at Lululemon and the brand seems to mostly attract women," he said. "It's seen as a very pro-female brand and that is intimidating to men." Yet pivoting to men's …
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High-Spending HENRYs Will Pull Holiday Retail Out This Year
I'm the first to admit that I am skeptical about the overly optimistic holiday sales forecasts that are filling my inbox. This year I am particularly surprised by how many forecasts top NRF's predictably rosy predictions, which this year range from 3.8 percent to 4.2 percent. That's why I nearly went into auto-delete mode when this one, 2019 Deloitte Holiday Retail Survey, with a predicted 4.5-5 percent sales spike this holiday season popped up. But then it was from Deloitte's Rod Sides, an analyst plus a consulting firm I respect, and when …
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Retailers Companies Must Make Weather Work for Them not Against Them
We’ve all heard it thousands of times in earnings calls. “Unfavorable weather conditions” are a popular excuse as to why sales are down, and profits not realized. Quarter after quarter, year after year, this straw man is trotted out, and shareholders and investors buy it. After all, the weather in that earnings period was pretty bad. But IBM's global director of consumer weather Paul Walsh says that excuse can't fly anymore. "We now have the data, forecasts, and ability to measure precisely what the weather will mean in terms of what …
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Marketing’s Sonic Boom: The Sounds that Make Money
Back in 1974, Wilson Bryan Key published Subliminal Seduction exposing the ways marketers use subconscious images to manipulate consumers, like the word "sex" hidden in ice cubes in a liquor ad. The book was filled with lots of examples of what Key identified as subliminal seduction techniques. But many dismissed them as sensational junk science, since he was unable to prove that the messages he discovered were intentional, not just a trick of the viewer's eye. Regardless, the book put all on notice that much of consumers' decision-making …